Page:The Marquess of Hastings, K.G..djvu/52

44 administrations of these two rulers, resembling each other in many ways, differed in one material respect, for while, in the earlier period, the ambition and power of the French was a disquieting element of no small magnitude, in that of Lord Hastings the danger had already passed away owing to the decline of Napoleon's ascendency, and the conquest in 1810 of Mauritius, which before that time had served as a base of naval operations against India.

Lord Wellesley found the sovereignty, which had fallen from the effete hands of the Mughal Emperors, contested by the Hindu or Maráthá confederacy of princes, and the various states governed by Muhammadan rulers. The latter were represented by the Nizám and by the Sultan of Mysore; the former consisted of five chiefs, at the head of which was the Peshwá of Poona, and under him, in a disorderly fashion, the Gáekwár of Baroda, Sindhia of Gwalior, and Holkar of Indore, both of whom ruled in Central India, and the Bhonsla Raja of Nagpur, whose sway extended over Berar and Orissa.

Under the system inaugurated by the Governor-General, relations with the native states were regulated in the following manner. In the first place, there were those states with whom the British Government had concluded a subsidiary alliance. By this arrangement the princes concerned received a British force, called the  'subsidiary force,'  for the protection of the country, and they maintained a contingent of their own, sometimes commanded by European officers, to act with it;