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198 government to Bengal; he had gradually raised the Company into a commanding place among the chief political powers in India. He made no conquests; but his treaties and his subsidiary system paved the way for the final overthrow or defeat of every power that sought to hinder the growth of our Eastern empire.

Another passage from the paper already quoted sums up the main achievements of his rule: —

'The valour of others acquired; I enlarged, and gave shape and consistency to the dominion which you hold there; I preserved it; I sent forth its armies with an effectual, but economical hand, through unknown and hostile regions, to the support of your other possessions; to the retrieval of one from degradation and dishonour, and of the other from utter loss and subjection. I maintained the wars which were of your formation or that of others, not of mine. I won one member of the great Indian Confederacy from it [the Nizám] by an act of seasonable restitution; with another [Mudají Bhonsla] I maintained a secret intercourse, and converted him into a friend; a third [Sindhia] I drew off by diversion and negotiation, and employed him as the instrument of peace. ... I accomplished a peace, and I hope an everlasting one, with one great State [the Maráthás], and I at least afforded the efficient means by which a peace, if not so durable, more seasonable at least, was accomplished with another [Mysore].'

When we remember under what conditions all this