xxvII.] AMEER KHAN-NATIVE ALLIANCES. 331 he held in jageer from Holkar, if he engaged to disband his army and surrender his guns, for a valuation. A month was allowed him for the acceptance of the proposed treaty, and though he wavered at first, the defeat of Bajee Rao and of the raja of Nagpore, and the extinction of their power, to which we shall presently allude, convinced him that the star of the Company was still in the ascendant, and he at once accepted the alternative of the treaty, and became an independent feudatory prince, with an income of fifteen lacs of rupees ayear, a dignity to which a career of eleven years of violence and crime gave him little claim. Treaties of alliance with the native princes, 1817-18. The intimation given to Sindia of the nullification of that clause of Sir George Barlow's treaty, which barred all interference with the states of Malwa and Rajpootana, was followed up with vigour. The chiefs were informed that the neutral policy had ceased to exist, and that the British Government was prepared to admit them to alliances which would protect them from the oppressions to which they had been subjected. The intelligence diffused joy through the provinces, and the princes became eager to embrace the offer. There was at least this advantage connected with the reversal of Lord Wellesley's policy by the Court, that the incalculable misery thereby inflicted on the country prepared the princes to appreciate the restoration of it more highly than they might otherwise have done. The chief management of this series of alliances was entrusted to Mr. Metcalfe, and the Residency at Delhi was speedily crowded with the agents of nineteen princes of Central India. The first to enter into the arrangement was the venerable Zalim Sing, who had for half a century managed the affairs of the Afghan principality of Kotah with extraordinary ability. So great was the reputation of his virtues that in that age of violence he became the general umpire in the disputes of the surrounding princes, and their treasures were deposited in his fort as in the safest of sanctuaries. He promoted the operations against the Pindarees with great zeal, 332 ALLIANCES WITH RAJPOOTANA. [CHAP and was subsequently rewarded with the grant of four districts taken from Holkar's possessions. The raja was an imbecile cypher, unknown beyond the precincts of the palace, and Lord Hastings offered to conclude the treaty with Zalim Sing himself, but his own feeling of moderation, and a respect for public opinion, which would have condemned this assumption of royalty, induced him to decline the honour and content himself with the office of hereditary minister. Then came the nabob of Bhopal, the virtuous and accomplished Nusser Mahomed, who cheerfully accepted the alliance which his father had rejected. The assistance he afforded in the Pindaree campaign, and the kindness of his ancestors to General Goddard, were acknowledged by the grant of five valuable districts taken from the Peshwa. Under the auspices of the British Government his revenues, which had been reduced by usurpation to little more than a lac of rupees a-year, were improved to the extent of ten lacs. The raja of Boondee had braved the threats of Holkar in 1805, and afforded succour to General Monson. He had been ungenerously abandoned by Sir George Barlow to the vengeance of that chief, and to the spoliation of Sindia, but was now taken under British protection, and his devotion requited by an accession of territory, and an entire exemption from the heavy tribute imposed on his state by Holkar. No events connected with this great settlement of Central India produced a more favourable impression on the native mind than this grateful recognition of ancient services in the hour of triumph. The raja of Joudhpore had been brought to the brink of ruin by the Mahrattas and the Patans, and he eagerly accepted the offer of an alliance which relieved him from all further dread of their exactions. No Rajpoot state had suffered so severely from rapine as Oodypore. To the rana who had lost the greater portion of his territories, and whose revenues had been reduced to two lacs of rupees a-year, the arrangement now proposed by Lord Hastings, which cleared his country at once of the swarm of plunderers which had fastened on it, was a godsend. It was XXVIII.] OUTBREAK OF THE PESHWA. 333 the proud boast of the house of Oodypore, with its claim of unfathomable antiquity, that it had never given a daughter in marriage to the throne of Delhi, in the height of its grandeur, and had never acknowledged the sovereignty of Mogul or Mahratta, though repeatedly overwhelmed by both; but the sovereign now cheerfully submitted to the supremacy of the foreigner, who, as he said, "had come in ships from a country before unknown." The last of the principal Rajpoot states to accept the alliance was Jeypore, and it was not till the raja saw every power prostrate before the British arms, and the settlement of Central India on the eve of being completed without including him, that he consented to come into the system. Treaties were also concluded in succession with the secondary and minor principalities, upon the same basis of "subordinate co-operation and acknowledged supremacy," and of the reference of all international disputes to the arbitration of the Company. All these treaties, with the exception of two, were negotiated and signed within the short period of four months. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE PINDAREE AND MAHRATTA WAR-MISCELLANEOUS Outbreak of the THE head-quarters of the three Pindaree chiefs Peshwa, 1817. were centrically situated in the south of Malwa, and it was towards this position that the left division of the Bengal force and two divisions of the Deccan army began to advance about the middle of October. This movement was immediately followed by the explosion of the plot which the Peshwa had been organizing amongst the Mahratta powers for the overthrow of the Company's power. He himself broke out on the 5th November; the raja of Nagpore on the 26th of that month, and Holkar on the 16th December. The 334 HE CAJOLES SIR JOHN MALCOLM. [CHAP. Peshwa had left his capital immediately after signing the Treaty of the 13th June, and proceeded first on a pilgrimage to Punderpore, and then to the palace he had recently erected at Maholy, seventy miles from Poona. There he was visited, at his own request, by Sir John Malcolm who had been appointed to the command of a division of the Madras army, and was making the tour of the native courts as political agent in the Deccan. The Peshwa, who affected tò consider him an ancient friend, complained with great animosity of the humiliation the treaty had inflicted on him; but he manifested, notwithstanding, a feeling of so much cordiality towards the British Government, and so great an anxiety to assist in putting down the Pindarees that the kind and credulous general was thrown off his guard, and encouraged him to increase the strength and efficiency of his army. Mr. Elphinstone, with a better knowledge of the duplicity of the Peshwa, predicted a different destination for this force, but was unwilling to check the generous sympathies of Sir John. General Smith's division was, therefore, allowed to quit Poona, and proceed to join the expedition against the Pindarees, and the cautionary fortresses were restored. Bajee Rao now redoubled his efforts to augment his army, and advanced a crore of rupees from his private hoard to Gokla, to whom he committed the entire management of his political and military affairs. No pains were spared to conciliate the southern jageerdars, whom hitherto the Peshwa had always regarded with the strongest aversion, and they were ordered to attend his stirrup at the earliest moment with their full contingent of troops. His forts were repaired, stored and garrisoned, and orders were issued to equip the Mahratta fleet. Special envoys were sent to the Mahratta princes to enlist them in the confederacy. A plan was laid for the assassination of Mr. Elphinstone, whom he feared and hated, but the noble-minded Gokla refused to lend himself to so base a scheme, and it was dropped. Great exertions were made, under the immediate direction of the Peshwa, to XXVIII.] MR. ELPHINSTONE'S PREPARATIONS. 335 whose feelings such an effort was particularly congenial, to seduce the sepoys from their loyalty, but though a large number of them had been enlisted from his own provinces, and their families were completely within his power, they exhibited a noble example of fidelity to the Company, and brought the sums which had been left with them by the emissaries of Bajee Rao to their own officers. The Peshwa returned to Poona at the beginning of October. At the last interview with Mr. Elphinstone, he deplored the loss which he had sustained of territory, revenue, and dignity, but repeated the assurance that the troops he had assembled were intended to co-operate against the Pindarees. Towards the close of the month, however, his cavalry gave unequivocal tokens of the hostile disposition of their master by caracoling round the British encampment and insulting the officers and men. Mr. Elphinstone, seeing a conflict inevitable, called up a European regiment from Bombay, and thus imparted to his little native force that confidence which the presence of European soldiers always inspires. The camp was at the same time removed from Poona to a more defensible position at Kirkee, about two miles distant, but the whole British force did not exceed 3,000, while the Mahratta army mustered 18,000 horse and 8,000 foot. Battle of Kirkee, The preparations of the Peshwa were now 5th Nov., 1817. mature, and, in the full assurance that Sindia and Ameer Khan were already in the field, and that their example would soon be followed by the raja of Berar and Holkar, he precipitately plunged into hostilities on the 5th Novemberthe very day on which Sindia signed the treaty which detached him from the confederacy. Towards noon he sent one of his ministers to Mr. Elphinstone to propound the terms on which he would consent to continue on terms of friendship with the British Government. They were sufficiently arrogant, and were rejected, as a matter of course. While his messenger was on his way back, the plain was covered with masses of cavalry, and an endless |