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 CHAPTER X

DELHI UNDER "JOHN COMPANY"

Battle of Delhi — Lord Lake's conquest — Siege of Delhi by Holkar — Shah Alam a pensioner — Akbar Shah — British residents — Bahadur Shah — The succession question.

There now appeared on the horizon the forces of another nation; the Honourable East India Company, although a private firm, so to say, by whose license alone Englishmen were permitted to carry on trade in India, had been by now submitted to state control, and was the representative of the British nation. Between their territories and those nominally under the sway of the Moghal king there was nothing but an imaginary frontier, insufficient to hold back those who had the power, and could not be expected for ever to refrain from using it. The Mahratta confederacy was not so stable that treaties were sufficient to enable the two powers to live in concord. "It was either they or we," as Hodson said on another occasion; and the result we know. It is unnecessary to enter into the