nister,
Shirzee Rao Ghatka, who directed all his efforts to undermine, by force
or intrigue, the ascendency of the upright and patriotic Nana Furnavees
at Poonah. The young Peshwah, Madhoo Rao, had perished in 1795 by a
fall from the roof of his palace; and the reign of his successor, Bajee
Rao, was a constant scene of confusion and bloodshed; till, after the
death of Nana in 1800, he fell completely under the control of Sindiah,
who thus became the virtual head of the Mahratta confederacy. But in an
attempt to crush the rising power of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, the united
forces of Sirdiah and the Peshwah received a complete defeat near
Poonah, in Oct. 1802;--and Bajee Rao, driven from his capital, sought
shelter from the British, with whom he concluded, in December of the
same year, the famous treaty of Bassein, by which he bound himself, as
the price of his restoration to his dominions, to conform to the English
political system, and admit a subsidiary force for the protection of his
states.

These stipulations amounted, in fact, to the sacrifice of Mahratta
independence; and the war, which from that moment became inevitable,
broke out early in the following year. Sindiah, who had not been
consulted on the treaty of Bassein, from the first refused to be bound
by its conditions; and after some fruitless attempts at negotiation,
took the field (July 1803) in conjunction with Rhagojee Bonsla, the
Rajah of Berar, against the Peshwah and the English. The five months'
campaign which followed, rivaled Napoleon's Prussian warfare of 1806, in
the rapidity with which a great military power was struck down, by (in
the words of Alison) "an uninterrupted series of victories, which
conducted our eastern empire to the proud pre-eminence which it has ever
since retained." Perron, who on the return of De Boigne in 1796 to
Europe, had succeeded him in the government of Hindostan, and the
command of Sindiah's regular troops in that quarter, was defeated by
Lake at Allighur, (Aug. 29,) and soon after quitted India and returned
to his native country; and a second decisive victory under the walls of
Delhi, (Sept. 11,) opened the gates of the ancient Mogul capital to the
British, and released the blind old emperor, Shah Alim, from the long
thraldom in which he had been held by the French and Mahrattas. Agra,
with all the arsenals and military stores, was taken Oct. 17; and the
desperate conflict of Laswarree, (Nov. 1,) consummated the triumphs o