The former governor of Seringapatam, now Lord Wellesley, was Governor-General of India. The perpetual antagonism of the native rulers among themselves gave him the same opportunity of assisting the one against the other as had fallen to his predecessors. He availed himself of the political chance as they had, but not to the same extent. There was a greater knowledge arising of Indian affairs, due possibly to the former action of Warren Hastings, and the prominency his impeachment by Burke in the House of Commons had given to these matters, and possibly also a growing popular interest in the political conduct of our rule in the great peninsula. There was still the danger of French intervention and assistance. France, in those days, stood as an always possibly active opponent of the East India Company, as Russia does now of the Imperial Government of the same land. Wellesley’s policy was rather one of subsidised alliances with the native princes than the active assistance of one against the other in local wars. Doubtless the practical result was much the same. The dominant power, in the long-run, absorbed the feeble units, to all intents and purposes, as fully as Clive and his successors had by war brought vast territories under the British rule. The Peishwa made the first overtures. He wanted to regain his lost pre-eminence, and by the treaty of Bassein it was agreed to restore him. “It was the greatest diplomatic triumph which the world has ever witnessed. On the eve of a contest impending, which could not have been long delayed, between the Máráthá Confederacy and the British, it broke up the Máráthá Confederacy, it relieved the English of the danger which had long threatened them of having to face at one and the same time the united power of a league whose territories comprehended the North-West Provinces of India, Central India, and the greater part of Western India, and allowed them to meet and conquer each section of that league singly.”[55] So the natural results followed. The rest of the Mahratta leaders formed common cause against the Peishwa and his new ally. They had, directly and indirectly, the assistance of their former ally, the French. Scindia had the aid and counsel of Perron, who had organised the former’s army after European methods. Pondicherry, restored to France by the treaty of Amiens, was a base of operations should that nation be at war with us, and had temporary command of the eastern seas. Wellesley made the first move, and restored the Peishwa by the capture of Poona; but it was evident the “restoration” was but a sham. For a combined movement was organised. Wellesley took charge of the Deccan, Lake that of the Ganges, while other minor columns, under Stevenson, Murray, Campbell, and Harcourt, threatened other points of the Mahratta Confederacy.