It was not, however, till 1799, under the government of the Marquis Wellesley, that the hand of British power was stretched to the utmost over this devoted district. That honest and avowed usurper, who disdained the petty acts of his predecessors, but declared that the British dominion over the peninsula of India must be frankly avowed and fearlessly asserted—certainly a much better doctrine than the cowardly and hypocritical one hitherto acted upon;—that every Englishman who did not belong to the Company must and should be expelled from that country; and that the English power and the Corporate monopoly should be so strenuously and unflinchingly exerted, that foreign aggression or domestic complaint should be alike dispersed;—this straightforward Governor-general soon drove the Nabob of Oude to such desperation, by the severity of his measures and exactions, that he declared his wish to abdicate. Nothing could equal the joy of the Governor-general at the prospect of this easy acquisition of this entire territory: but that joy was damped by discovering that the Nabob only wished to resign in favour of—his own son! The chagrin of the Governor-general on this discovery is not to be expressed; and the series of operations then commenced to force the Nabob to abdicate in favour of the Company; when that could not be effected, to compel him to sacrifice one half of his territories to save the rest; when that sacrifice was made, to inform him that he was to have no independent power in his remaining half—is one of the most instructive lessons in the art of diplomatic fleecing, of forcing a man out of his own by the forms of treaty but with the iron-hand of irresistible power, which any despot who wishes to do a desperate deed handsomely, and in the most approved style, can desire. It was in vain that the Nabob declared his payment of exactions; his hereditary right; his readiness shewn on all occasions to aid and oblige; the force of treaties in his favour. It was in vain that he asked to what purpose should he give up one half of his dominions if he were not to have power over the other, when it was to secure this independent power that he gave up that half? What are all the arguments of right, justice, reason, or humanity, when Ahab wants the vineyard of Naboth, and the Jezebel of political and martial power tells him that she will give it him? The fate of Oude was predetermined, along with that of various other states, by the Governor-general, and it was decided as he determined it should be. Before we close this chapter, we will give one instance of the manner in which the territories of those who held aloof, and did not covet the fatal friendship of the English were obtained, and the most striking of these are the dominions of Hyder Ali—the kingdom of Mysore.