216 
ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
for the subvention of a body of British troops. He was 
accordingly restored to his seat at Poonah by armed force; but 
his submission to the governor-general led to two wars between 
the East India Company and the other Mahratta princes, 
First Scindia, and his ally the rajah of Nagpore, attacked the 
British; but they were unable to hold their ground. Lord 
Battle of Lake, starting from Bengal, beat Scindia’s northern 
Laswari— army at Laswari (November ı, 1803), and took 
Sa of Delhi, the ancient capital of India. "There he 
" found the aged Mogul emperor, Shah Alum, who 
had long been the captive of the Mahrattas, and, having rescued 
him from his oppressors, proceeded to use his name to 
legitimize all our doings in Hindostan. Meanwhile, Arthur 
Wellesley, the governor-general’s brother—the 
Keane tn a Wellington of a later day—was operating further 
Argaum— tothe south, At Assaye he cut to pieces Scindia’s 
ee French Sepoys, after the bloodiest struggle that 
India had yet seen. Fording a deep river and 
advancing on a narrow front under an overwhelming fire of 
artillery, he threw his troops upon the disciplined battalions of 
the Mahratta chief, Nearly a third of the British fell, but 
Scindia’s host was broken and his regular troops cut to pieces 
(September 23, 1803). A few weeks later Wellesley attacked 
the rajah of Nagpore at Argaum, and inflicted upon him an 
equally severe lesson (November 28, 1803). The allied princes 
thereupon came to terms, and acknowledged the British 
supremacy. Scindia was compelled to surrender Delhi and the 
Doab, the nucleus of our “ North-West Provinces,” as also 
some maritime districts opposite Bombay, while the rajah of 
Nagpore ceded Orissa, on the eastern coast of India, which 
was incorporated with the presidency of Bengal. Immediately 
en after it became necessary to attack Scindia’s rival 
NE % and enemy, Holkar, who tried in his turn to expel 
the British from North-Western India, He was 
an evasive and lightly moving enemy, who proved very difficult