ries
of Assaye in September, and of Argaum in November, scattered the
southern Mahratta force, but only after desperate conflicts that
suggested how easily a couple of Decaen's battalions might have turned
the scales of war.

Meanwhile, in the north, General Lake stormed Aligarh, and drove
Scindiah's troops back to Delhi. Disgusted at the incapacity and
perfidy that surrounded him, Perron threw up his command; and another
conflict near Delhi yielded that ancient seat of Empire to our trading
Company. In three months the results of the toil of Scindiah, the
restless ambition of Holkar, the training of European officers, and the
secret intrigues of Napoleon, were all swept to the winds. Wellesley now
annexed the land around Delhi and Agra, besides certain coast districts
which cut off the Mahrattas from the sea, also stipulating for the
complete exclusion of French agents from their States. Perron was
allowed to return to France; and the brusque reception accorded him from
Bonaparte may serve to measure the height of the First Consul's hopes,
the depth of his disappointment, and his resentment against a man who
was daunted by a single disaster.[212]

Meanwhile it was the lot of Decaen to witness, in inglorious
inactivity, the overthrow of all his hopes. Indeed, he barely escaped
the capture which Wellesley designed for his whole force, as soon as
he should hear of the outbreak of war in Europe; but by secret and
skilful measures all the French ships, except one transport, escaped
to their appointed rendezvous, the Ile de France. Enraged by these
events, Decaen and Linois determined to inflict every possible injury
on their foes. The latter soon swept from the eastern seas British
merchantmen valued at a million sterling, while the general ceased not
to send emissaries into India to encourage the millions of natives to
shake off the yoke of "a few thousand English."

These officers effected little, and some of them were handed over to
the English authorities by the now obsequious potentates. Decaen also
endeavoured to carry out the First Consul's design of occupying
strategic points in the Indian Ocean. In the autumn of 1803 he sent a
fine cruiser to the Imaum of Muscat, to induce him to cede a station
for commercial purposes at that port. But Wellesley, forewarned by our
agent at Bagdad, had made a firm alliance with the Imaum, who
accordingly refused the request of the French captain. The incident,
however, supplies