A History of the Mahrattas v2.c35.36

v2.c35.36

The Court of Directors could not be insensible to the advantage of a supreme authority in India; but the control over themselves, established by the new Act of Parliament, had not perhaps quite ceased its operation on their minds; their feelings were enlisted against the innovation, and the natural bias, occasioned by a prospect of great advantages on the West of India from the treaty with Rugonath Rao, prevented their fully perceiving the dangerous tendency of supporting men in the situation of the Bombay Government. They might have withdrawn censure from them, and condemned the precipitancy of the Governor-General and Council, but they should have supported constituted authority and insisted on an adherence to one plan and one interest. The Court, by their approval of the first measures of the Bombay Government, encouraged the members to persevere in their covert opposition, when the circumstances, by the conclusion of the treaty of Poorundhur, were entirely changed.