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HISTORY OF BRITISH RULE.
supply which recalled the campaigns of Aurangzeb . The twogreat Southern powers, the Nizam of the Deccan and theMaratha Confederacy, co-operated as allies of the British . Inthe end, Tipd Sultan submitted when Lord Cornwallis hadcommenced to beleaguer his capital. He agreed to yieldone-half of his dominions to be divided among the allies, andto pay 3 millions sterling towards the cost of the war. Theseconditions he fulfilled, but ever afterwards he burned to berevenged upon his English conquerors.
The period of Sir John Shore ’s rule as Governor-General,from 1793 to 1798, was uneventful. In 1798, Lord Morning-ton, better known as the Marquess Wellesley , arrived in India ,already inspired with Imperial projects which were destinedto change the map of the country. Mornington was thefriend and favourite of Pitt, from whom he is thought to havederived his far-reaching political vision, and his antipathy tothe French name. From the first he laid down as his guidingprinciple, that the English must be the one paramount power in India , and that Native princes could only retain thepersonal insignia of sovereignty by surrendering their politicalindependence. The history of India since his time has beenbut the gradual development of this policy, which receivedits finishing touch when Queen Victoria was proclaimedEmpress of India on the 1st of January 1877. 1
To frustrate the possibility of a French invasion of India ,led by Napoleon in person, was the governing idea ofWellesley ’s foreign policy. France at this time, and for manyyears later, filled the place afterwards occupied by Russia inthe imagination of British statesmen. Nor was the danger soremote as might now be thought. French regiments guardedand overawed the Nizam of Haidarabad. The soldiers ofSindhia, the military head of the MaratM Confederacy, weredisciplined and led by French adventurers. Tipu Sultan of Mysore carried on a secret correspondence with the French Directory , allowed a tree of liberty to be planted in his
1 An admirable account of Lord Wellesley ’s policy will be found in theDespatch of the Governor-General in Council to the Secret Committeeof the Court of Directors, dated Fort William , 12th April 1804. ThisDespatch extends to 791 paragraphs, and covers all the great Indian ques-tions of that eventful period. It was printed by John Stockdale, Picca-dilly, in 1805, as a quarto volume, entitled History of all the Events andTransactions which have taken place in India , etc. It will continue toform the most authentic record of any Governor-Generalship of India ,until the seal is taken off Lord Dalhousie ’s long closed diaries.