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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 2, p. 443.

XxI] THE MARA THAS 443 Hastings was glad to conclude with Sindhia the Treaty of Salbai (I782), by which all conquests were restored, except Salsette Island, and Raghuba received a handsome pension. Raghuba's son, Biji Rao II, succeeded as the seventh and Disruption last Peshwa in 1796; but the Peshwa was no longer the head of the Marath ~. of the Maratha confederacy, except in name. The Bhonsla confeder- family at Nagpur had never fully accepted his supremacy. acy. MahAdji Sindhia, with the help of sepoys trained by De Boigne, had extended his dominions into Hindustan proper, and had taken the Mughal emperor, Shah Alam, under his protec- tion. The Holkar family were usually fighting on their own account. The Gaikwar of Baroda had become, from the period of the first Maratha War, a subsidiary ally of the British. Poona itself was during this period twice plundered by the armies of rival chiefs. While the Maratha confederacy was thus breaking up, the British were growing in strength, and Lord Mornington (afterwards Marquess Wellesley) came out to India to make their power supreme. In I802 the Peshwa, BajI Rao II, fled from his capital and The third threw himself upon the Bombay Government. By the Treaty Mar.tha of Bassein he accepted the position, which it was Lord Wellesley's policy to extend, of subsidiary alliance with the British. He was escorted back to Poona, which was occupied without fighting by General Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) by a forced march from the south. Sindhia and the Bhonsla of Nigpur forthwith took up arms, and Holkar after some delay followed their example. This third Maratha War was the most decisive in which the British had yet been engaged. While General Wellesley in the Deccan won the victories of Assaye and Argaum, General Lake in Hindustin shattered the French-trained battalions of Sindhia at Laswari, and occupied Delhi. By the peace that followed, the Bhonsla was deprived of Orissa and BerAr, and Sindhia ceded his conquests in the Doab and the custody of the blind old emperor, Shah Alam. The later operations against Holkar were not so uniformly successful, but he too ultimately sub- mitted. This peace, however, did not effect a final settlement. The The fourth Marlth. chiefs still maintained a qualified independenceMaaratha within their circumscribed dominions. Central India and Rdjput.na were left exposed to their ravages, and the Pindaris or licensed plunderers whom they encouraged became a uni- versal terror and a danger to British territory. At last, in 18I7, the Marquess of Hastings resolved to put an end to this state