but a leader of freebooters. It was of fundamental urgency that his army should be disbanded. Though it consisted of fifty-two battalions, with above one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, and a powerful cavalry, it was luckily dispersed in small corps, either for the occupation of the widely-separated patches of territory which he had won from different chiefs, or for the extortion of means of subsistence from weaker states. My hope of rendering Scindia and Ameer Khan unable to struggle, rested on this; that I should assemble my force before they suspected my intention, and push it forward with a rapidity which should make any concentration of their troops impracticable. The mere immovability of Scindia would not have answered my purpose. The Pindarries, if pressed by me, would have traversed his dominions and gained the western states, whither I should be precluded from following by a bar insuperable as long as it existed. We were bound by treaty with Scindia to have no communication whatever with those states, so that the Pindarries would, in the disunited Rajpoot territories, have found not only shelter, but the facility of combining their force with that of Ameer Khan. I am showing to you that even here the bonds of public faith were, in my contemplation, less surmountable than physical obstacles. Do you think that I solved this embarrassment by an illicit use of the advantage which I succeeded in gaining over Scindia, by planting myself in the middle of his divisions, and prohibiting. any attempt at their junction? You do not believe it; yet you will like to hear explained on what title I required from him the abrogation of that interdict which forbad our intercourse with the western states. No treaty, in truth, was existing between us and Scindia. He had dissolved it, first by exciting the Pindarries to invade our territories, that he might see how a desultory mode of war might affect our power; secondly, by lending himself the year before to the profligate intrigues of the peishwa, for the subversion of British preponderancy; thirdly, by specific promises given to the Pindarries of making common cause with them, should they be driven to exigency. Will it be said that this was possibly the construction which we put on doubtful information? Though the Pindarry chiefs now prisoners with me have since borne evidence to the truth of all these facts, my vindication shall not repose itself there. Just as I was taking the field, I caused to be delivered to Scindia, in open durbar, his own letters, signed with his own hand, and sealed with his own private seal, addressed to a foreign government, and evincing the most hostile machinations already matured against us. Nothing was said to him on the delivery of those letters other than that the governor-general had not wished to peruse them, and that his highness would perceive the seals were unbroken. I had no need to peruse them, because their contents were displayed by the letters of inferior agents, referring to and illustrating the expressions of the Maha-raja. These particulars are communicated to you GACY you, that you may see how stea dily, notwithstanding the laxity of the other party, our plan of upholding the existing native governments of India was maintained. Did Scindia dispute the verity of the proofs brought against him? No such thing. He sunk under the confusion of the unexpected detection. There was no denial, no attempt at explanation, no endeavour to extenuate the quality of the secret correspondence. On our part, the sole advantage drawn from the circumstance was additional security for the accomplishment of our measures against the Pindarries. The Maha-rajah was told, in mild and conciliatory terms, that the British government would give way to no vindictive impulse on account of what had passed, but would regard his Highness's aberrations, as an indiscretion arising from his not having sufficiently considered the ties of amity subsisting between us; but it was added, that as those ties had not appeared firm enough to secure our just interests, a new treaty should be proposed, which, while it preserved to the Maha-rajah all the solid benefits enjoyed by him under the former one, would give us the certainty of annihilating the Pindarries. Scindia gladly agreed to the terms, which pledged him to active co-operation against the freebooters, and set us at liberty to make those engagements with the Rajpoot states, which alone could induce them to combine and oppose any attempt of the Pindarries to find refuge in the western country. A provisional agreement was settled with those states instantly on our obtaining the right to take them under our protection. A more decisive conduct was requisite towards Ameer Khan. As his hand was professedly against every man who had any thing to lose, the hand of every man might justly be raised against him. There were no engagements, express or implied, be tween him and us. He was, therefore, distinctly told of our resolution not to suffer the continuance of a predatory system in central India. An option on this principle was offered, that he should subscribe to the disbanding of his army, or witness the attack of it in its separated condition. Should he choose the former course, he would be guaranteed in the possession of the territories he had won from states whose injuries we had no obligation to redress; should he risk the latter, he would be followed up as a free-booter with the keenest pursuit that could be instituted against a criminal disturber of the public peace. He had sagacity enough to comprehend that any procedure but submission was hopeless. The positions gained by us through celerity at the outset, rendered the situation of those with whom he had to deal defenceless. Scindia was closely penned between the centre division on the banks of the Sinde, and major-general Donkin's division on the banks of the Chumbul. The latter corps menaced Ameer Khan on the one side, while Sir D. Ochterlony's overhung that chief on the other, and the division under Sir Wm. Kier prevented his escaping southward. southward. In this extremity, Ameer Khan took the wise step of throwing himself on our liberal justice. His artillery was surrendered to us; his army was disbanded; and the British government stood free from embarrassment in that quarter. At that period, which was early in November, I had to consider the objects of the campaign as completely gained; for the Pindarries, sensible of the impracticability of maintaining themselves in their own territories, had begun their march to fall back, on supports of which they did not then know I had deprived them, and were surrounded by our divisions which were then closing in upon them from every side. An apparently well-grounded hope was thence entertained that the extensive revolution which importantly changed the fortunes of so many states, would be perfected without the effusion of other blood than what might be shed in the dispersion of the Pindarries. That expectation was not realized; but its failure arose from causes altogether unconnected with the plan of our undertaking, or with any steps used by us in the prosecution of it. I mentioned to you that I reserved an explanation respecting Holkar. Though some of the chiefs of the Pindarries held large Jagheers from Holkar's government, they had acted so independently of it, that they were considered as having divorced themselves entirely from it; and that government, on my notifying to them the determination to suppress the Pindarries, reprobated the lawless ferocity of the freebooters, applauded the justice of my purpose to chastise them, and closed the letter with expressions of every wish for my success. The sincerity of those wishes might have been questionable, though no apprehension of obstruction to our policy would have attended the doubt, had not other and more particular correspondence been at that time in process between Holkar's government and our's. Toolsie Bhye, the widow of the late Maharajah, was, as you know, regent of the state, during the minority of young Holkar. Finding herself unable to control the insolence of the sirdars, and to preserve the interests of the family, she had sent a vakeel to solicit privately, that Holkar and the state might be taken under the British government. The overture was met with the kindest encouragement. No burdensome condition was indicated, no subsidy required, no stationing of a British force in Holkar's territories proposed; the only outline of terms was reciprocal support, in case either state were attacked, and the zealous co-operation of Holkar's government in preventing the assemblage of predatory associations. While such frank cordiality reigned between the parties, nothing could seem more out of the chances than a rupture; yet upon a sudden the vakeel was recalled, the different sirdars with their respective troops were summoned to repair with the utmost speed to the sovereign's person, and the determination of marching to aid the Peishwa was proclaimed by the regent. regent. What ensued is fresh in your recollection. The Mahratta army found itself surrounded. Earnest representations of the inevitable ruin which they were entailing on themselves, were made on our part to the government, and many times repeated. The sirdars could not imagine such a feeling as the moderation whence these friendly expostulations flowed. Our assurances that their ebullition should be forgotten, and that we would remain on the same amicable footing as before, if they abandoned their extravagant purpose, were supposed to arise from our consciousness of incompetency to coerce them, and that persuasion increased their temerity to the extent of actual attacks on our out-posts. The regent alone perceived the precipice; wished to withdraw from it; and was publicly put to death by the sirdars for doubting the certainty of victory the evening before the battle which reduced Holkar to a destitute fugitive. A similarly unprovoked defection was exhibited by the Rajah of Nagpore. If his inimical disposition was not marked with the same insolent vaunt, it was only because he thought the basest insidiousness would give him an advantage in the attempt which he meditated against the life of our accredited minister, residing under the public faith of a treaty at his highness's court. He kept up his solemn protestation of devoted friendship till the very hour of the attack on the residency. His villainous efforts failed, his courage deserted him, he threw himself on our mercy; he was continued on the musnud, and every reverence was paid to him, till we detected him in a new conspiracy. Then the simplest principles of self-preservation demanded his removal from the throne. I have stated these two cases before I touched upon that of the Peishwa, because they will strongly elucidate the necessity of the conduct held towards that prince, if prince be not a title unfitly applied to an individual so filthily stained with perfidy. Our endeavour to screen his reputation, by throwing the whole guilt of the Guyckwar minister's murder on Trimbuckjee Dainglia, when the Peishwa himself was not less actively implicated in it, was so perversely met by him, that throughout the year 1815 we discovered the intrigues of his highness at almost every court in India, to stimulate combinations against us, in revenge for our austerity towards his despicable minion. They were thought to be the effects of an acrimony which would soon subside, and much importance was not attached to them. On finding, however, that they were continued, I judged it right to apprise the Peishwa that I was acquainted with the transactions. This was done in the gentlest manner; and the intimation was coupled with a profession that I ascribed those practices to the indulgence of an inconsiderate spleen, which he would chasten in himself the moment he reflected on its real nature. It was added, that in the confidence of his being solicitous to retrace his steps, I was ready, on the profession of such a disposition on his part, to obli§ terate terate the remembrance of all that had passed, and to invite his fullest reliance on my personal efforts to maintain his welfare and dignity. His answer was a protestation of never ending gratitude, for the gentle tone in which I had roused him to a sense of the track into which he had unintentionally slidden, and which could have led only to his ruin. He charged his agents with his agents with having exceeded his instructions, which, nevertheless, he admitted to have been indefensible, but which he would expiate by a strict fidelity to the engagements existing between us, now confirmed anew by his most solemn asseverations. Very shortly after we detected him in the endeavour to collect an army, under the pretence of quelling a rebellion, headed by Trimbuckjee, to whom a constant remittance of treasure was made from the Peishwa's coffers, as we knew by the most accurate information of every issue. We were then constrained to anticipate this incorrigible plotter. We surrounded him in his capital, and obliged him to submit to terms which preserved the ancient appearances of connexion, but deprived him of much strength, should he hazard future machinations. At the same time, what we imposed was only a fulfilment of an article in the treaty of Bassein, by which he was obliged to keep up for us an auxiliary force of five thousand horse. Not one of them had ever been retained for us; and the money which should have furnished them went into his highness's private treasury. But we now required that districts yield ing revenue to the requisite amount should be put into our hands for the levy and maintenance of the cavalry in question, according to the usual custom in the Mahratta states, of assigning lands to sirdars for the subsistence of a specified number of troops. This force, though it would be the Peishwa's for every purpose of service while friendship existed between us, would go into our scale (since we were the paymasters) should his serene highness venture to break with us. He did, you are aware, venture to break with us, but you possibly may not have suspected how beneficial that precipitated step was for us. Had he not done so, the conspiracy to which he had given a substance and shape much beyond what he had conceived, might have burst forth upon us at an unprovided moment, with mischievous concurrence of exertion. The Peishwa trusted to wide co-operation. The sanguinary desire of massacreing Mr. Elphinstone made him over hasty in breaking forth, though he had no doubt but that Scindia and Ameer Khan were already in the field against us. The pledges of reciprocal support, settled in 1815, are what I have stated against Scindia in the earlier part of the recapitulation. The Peishwa when he resorted to arms, was not informed that Scindia and Ameer Khan had already been reduced to nullity. They had been put out of the question. But Holkar and the Rajah of Nagpore had yet the power of moving. When after their defeat they were asked what could lead them to the extravagant act of attacking us, with whom they were |