A History of the Mahrattas v2.c49.22

v2.c49.22

Sindia was much dissatisfied at the permission granted to the British Government of sending troops into the Mahratta territory. His control over the Peishwa was now complete, and fearing that Bajee Rao intended to fly, he for some time kept a guard over his palace. The Peishwa found that his condition was by no means improved by the death of Nana Furnuwees, and from the situation in which he was so long placed, we cannot be surprised that his natural disposition to intrigue should have become incurably habitual. He had much confidence, even at this period, in his own wisdom for extricating himself from the thraldom of Sindia. To that chieftain, even when experiencing indignity from him, Bajee Rao was profuse in his acknowledgements, and pretended to entertain for him the most unbounded gratitude and affection. When it appeared probable that Sindia would be compelled to retire to Hindoostan for the protection of his dominions, the Peishwa entreated his stay, and even threw obstacles in the way of his departure; but he saw with secret joy the increasing predatory power of Jeswunt Rao Holkar, as affording a prospect by which he hoped to be enabled to establish his own authority, without the interposition of a foreign power. He was, however, conscious of his own unpopularity as a son of Rugoba; he was anxious to keep well with the British Government, and really had a partiality for the English, though he rather chose to depend on Sindia than to adopt, by calling in their aid, a course which he could not retrace. The establishment of an English subsidiary force was, it is true, in many respects consonant to his disposition: protection and support against his own subjects, could such have been obtained unfettered by control, being the end at which he aimed; and, if the proposal had been met in the first instance, or afterwards allowed to come from himself, he would have had recourse to that plan at an earlier period. But the haste with which the Marquis Wellesley expected his agents to push on his system, evinced an anxiety which retarded his object at Poona, where the Resident prognosticated that it would never be accomplished until Bajee Rao had found that all his own schemes were fallacious.