dominions for their protection, and to pay twenty-six lakhs (£260,000) for its maintenance annually; (2) to receive no European of any hostile nation into his dominions; (3) to give up all claims to Surat, and to leave his disputes with the Nizám and the Gaikwár to British mediation; (4) to remain the faithful ally of England. Full protection to him and to his territories was guaranteed by the British.

On the outbreak of the Second Mahratta War, the great Lord Wellesley was Governor-General of India; and under him were two famous generals—his brother, General Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington, England's greatest soldier) and Lord Lake. Their chief opponents were Daulat Ráo Sindia and Raghuji Bhonslé of Barár.

The first great battle fought by General Wellesley was at ASSAI, on the borders of Barár and Khándesh (1803). Both Sindia and Raghuji Bhonslé fled from the field, and the English gained a complete victory, though at the cost of one-third of General Wellesley's army.

Multitudes of towns and fortresses were captured by the English during the course of the war, but we need only mention two great battles, those of DELHI and Láswárí, won by Lord Lake. At the battle of Delhi, a French general, named Bourquin, was the commander of Sindia's army; he was utterly routed by Lord Lake, who now entered Delhi, and took under his protection the Emperor Shah Alam, who had long been in the power of the Mahrattas (see Chap. XV. § 6). This was in September 1803; in November of the same year Lord Lake gained a decisive victory at Láswárí over all the remaining Mahratta forces; and before the end of the year, both Sindia and the Rájá of Barár had submitted to the British arms, and had ceded a large part of their territories.

§ 11. The Third Mahratta War.-In the following year, 1804, a war broke out with the Mahrattas under Jeswant Ráo Holkár, who had taken no part in the former In this, as in the former war, a large number of

war.

fortresses were captured by the British troops, though they experienced a check in attempting to storm the great fortress of Bhartpur (see Chap.. XXVII.). The Rájá of Bhartpur, however, was forced to give up Holkár's alliance, and to pay 20 lakhs (£200,000) to the English; and in 1805 Holkár himself was driven away into the Punjab, when a peace was made. The most famous battle of this war was that of Dío, fought in 1804, between the English, under General Fraser and Colonel Monson, and Holkár's troops. The gallant General Fraser was killed, but the English won a complete victory, and captured no less than 87 cannon.

§ 12. Causes of the downfall of the Mahratta power. -All the great Mahratta leaders had now submitted to the British arms; the remainder of their history will be briefly given in the later chapters on the GovernorsGeneral of British India. The causes of the downfall of

the Mahrattas were many. First, excessive aggrandisement of Sindia, making him independent of the Peshwá, and, in fact, a rival to him. Secondly, the dissensions consequent on the death of Náráyana Ráo, the quarrels and rivalries of Raghoba, Náná Farnavís, Baji Ráo II., Jeswant Báo Holkár, and Daulat Báo Sindia, completely disintegrated the confederation. Thirdly, the confederation had within itself elements of disunion and consequent weakness. The Peshwá and his councillors were Bráhmans; Sindia, Holkár, and Raghuji Bhonslé were of other castes. Fourthly, Shah Alam II. was now in the power of the British. Under the shadow of the new paramount power, the corruption and disorder which favoured the rise of the Mahrattas cannot exist.

CHAPTER XVIII.

EARLY EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN INDIA.

§ 1. Discovery of the Sea-route from Europe to India. § 2. Albuquerque, the great Portuguese Viceroy of India. § 3. Extent of the Portuguese Possessions. § 4. The Dutch in India. § 5. Early English Expeditions to India. § 6. Progress of the English Settlements. § 7. The English in Bengal. § 8. Early French Settlements in India.

§ 1. Discovery of the Sea-route from Europe to India. – At the end of the last chapter we had traced the history of the Mahratta power down to the time of its fall. At the end of the preceding chapter we had similarly seen the extinction of the Mughul empire. We now once more revert to an early period, to follow the history of the power that was ultimately to succeed to the supremacy.

The European nations that have at various times made permanent settlement in India are the Portuguese, the Dutch, the Danes, the English, and the French. Of these, the Portuguese and the French have played an important part in its history, as well as the English, who ultimately became the paramount power in India. All these settlements were at first made only for purposes of trade, though the Portuguese very soon began to entertain the idea of founding an Indian empire.

During the Middle Ages, European intercourse with India was mainly carried on by the enterprise of the maritime nations inhabiting the shores of the Mediterranean, and latterly chiefly by the Venetians and Genoese, who traded with the ports of Syria and Egypt, whither Indian produce was brought through Persia or by the Red Sea. But during the fifteenth century the Portuguese became great navigators. In 1498 a great Portuguese mariner, named Vasco da Gama, discovered a sea-route to India around the coast of Africa, and this put the whole trade between Europe and the East into the hands of the Portuguese, who retained it for a long time. Vasco da Gama

EXTENT OF THE PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS.

245

landed in the territories of a petty chief, named the Zamorin of Calicat, a place on the coast between Goa and Cochin, and the Portuguese settlements were at first made on this west coast, though not without opposition from the native Rájás.

§ 2. Albuquerque.-At length the Portuguese settlements became numerous, and the King of Portugal thought it best to appoint a Viceroy of India to govern these settlements and carry on the wars against the native kings. The second of these Portuguese viceroys was the great Albuquerque, who landed in 1508; and who, after having taken Goa (which still belongs to the Portuguese) and a great many other places, was in his old age dismissed from his office by the ungrateful King of Portugal, in 1515.

§ 3. Extent of the Portuguese Possessions.-The Portuguese empire in the East attained its highest power and its greatest prosperity under Albuquerque, whom his countrymen, though ungrateful to him in his lifetime, have unanimously styled 'the Great.' A few towns and factories were added to it during the seventy years that followed his death, but these additions were unimportant. The student must, however, remember that this empire was almost wholly a maritime one. The Portuguese fleets were masters of the Indian Seas, and they possessed many valuable seaports, at which they carried on an extensive trade, and which were guarded by their ships of war. These ports were scattered over an immense extent of coast, from the eastern coasts of Africa and the island of Ormuz on the west, to the Malay Peninsula and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago on the east. At the end of the sixteenth century, when their power began to decline, their most important possessions were: Goa and some minor ports on the west coast of India, Ceylon, and Malacca, in the Malay Peninsula. Besides these they had important settlements in Bengal, of which the chief were Hooghly and Chittagong, with Diu, in Gujarát, and many other places of ess importance. But they never possessed more than a

few miles of territory, even in the neighbourhood of their greatest cities, and their power was usually confined strictly to the limits of their factory or trading settlement.

§ 4. The Dutch in India.-Towards the end of the sixteenth century, the enterprising navigators of Holland determined to try to take into their own hands some of the Indian commerce hitherto monopolised by the Portuguese; and during the following fifty years they gradually succeeded in driving the latter out of many of their settlements, and in taking from them the maritime supremacy which they had possessed on the coast of India. Chinsurah in Bengal was the capital of the Dutch settlements. But they soon had to meet more powerful rivals than the Portuguese; for the English had already commenced to settle in India.

§ 5. Early English Expeditions to India. The first attempts of the English to reach India, like those of the Dutch, were by the north-east passage through the Arctic Seas, and the corresponding north-west passage along the northern shores of North America; and many expeditions were sent, and many lives and much treasure lost, in these fruitless expeditions.

The first English expedition that sailed for India by the direct route round the Cape of Good Hope started in 1591 under Lancaster and some others; but it degenerated into a piratical cruise, and ended disastrously, all the ships being lost or deserted successively. Notwithstanding this ill-success, the British EAST INDIA COMPANY was incorporated by Queen Elizabeth in 1600. [It may here be noted that a second Company was set on foot in 1698; the old and the new Companies were amalgamated in 1708.] Its first expedition was in 1601, again under the command of Lancaster, and was eminently successful; and was quickly followed by others.

and

§ 6. Progress of the English Settlements.-Jahángír in 1613 gave permission to the English to establish four factories in the Mughul dominions. The trade of the