The Peishwa was ready to make any sacrifice to procure British help. Accordingly he accepted the subsidiary alliance on the condition that the British restored him to Poona. The terms were soon arranged, and the treaty was signed at Bassein on the last day of December, 1802. The Peishwa ceded territories for the maintenance of a Poona Subsidiary Force, and sacrificed his position as suzerain of the Mahratta confederacy. For the future he was bound to abstain from all wars and negotiations, even with his own feudatories, excepting by the knowledge and consent of the British government. [Sidenote: Surprise of the Mahratta feudatories.] §4. The Mahratta feudatories were bewildered and stupefied by the treaty of Bassein. In a single day the British government had become their suzerain in the room of the Peishwa; the Christian governor of Calcutta was lord over the Brahman Peishwa of Poona. True, the Peishwa was restored to his throne at Poona, but only as the creature of the British government, not as the suzerain of the Mahrattas. Sindia's hope of ruling the Mahrattas in the name of the Peishwa was shattered by the treaty. The Raja of Berar was equally down-hearted. The Gaekwar of Baroda accepted the subsidiary alliance, and ceased to play a part in history. Jaswant Rao Holkar was out of the running; he was an outlaw and an interloper. [Sidenote: Vacillations of Sindia and the Bhonsla.] The whole brunt of the struggle against the British supremacy, if there was to be any struggle at all, thus fell on Daulat Rao Sindia of Gwalior and the Bhonsla Raja of Berar. Meanwhile the two Mahratta princes moved restlessly about with large armies, drawing nearer and nearer to the Nizam's frontier as if to enforce their claims to chout. They would not accept a subsidiary treaty, and they would not break with the British government. They tried to tempt Jaswant Rao to join them, but the young brigand only played with them. He got them to recognise his succession to the throne of Indore, and then returned to his capital, declaring that he must leave Sindia and the Bhonsla to fight the British in the Deccan, whilst he went away north to fight them in Hindustan. [Sidenote: Wellesley's campaign in the Deccan, 1803.] Lord Wellesley was well prepared for an outbreak. His younger brother, Colonel Arthur Wellesley, was watching Sindia and the Bhonsla in the Deccan, whilst General Lake, commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, was watching the French sepoy battalions of Sindia in Hindustan. Sindia was vacillating and irresolute, but his language was growing more hostile. He said he was waiting for Jaswant Rao Holkar; he talked of collecting chout in the Nizam's territory; and he expressed doubts whether there would be peace or war. At last he was told that he was breaking the public peace, and must take the consequences. [Sidenote: British victory at Assaye.]