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 CHAP. IX.

THE NIZAM'S CONNECTION WITH THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH, AND TERMINATION OF THAT CONNECTION WITH THE FRENCH (continued).

Among the instructions with which Lord Cornwallis was furnished for his government in India, he carried out with him explicit orders to demand from the Nizam the surrender of the Guntoor Circar. Bazalut Jung had died in November 1782 ; but Nizam Alee retained possession of the Circar, and the English had withheld the payment of the peshcush. Upon the arrival of Lord Cornwallis in India, he was deterred from obeying immediately the peremptory orders of his European masters with regard to the surrender of Guntoor, on account of the advantage which it appeared that a dispute with the Nizam might lend to the ambition of Tippoo Sooltan, and the apprehension which was entertained of a rupture with France. In the year 1788, however, the prospect of uninterrupted peace with France, the great addition to the English military strength expected in the course of the season, and the general position of the other powers in India, presented the appearance of as favourable an opportunity for making the demand as any which was regarded as sufficiently probable to form a rational basis of action. Immediately after the return of Tippoo from the siege of Mangalore, and the conclusion of his treaty with the English in 1784, he set up against the Nizam a