HOSTILE MOVEMENTS OF HOLKAR. 165 



On the south he yielded Ahmednugger to the peishwa, and 

 some extensive districts to the nizam. But he regained 

 the other places conquered from him in the course of the 

 war. Finally, pressing offers were made to him of a treaty 

 on the same terms as that concluded with the peishwa, by 

 which he should admit into his territory a subsidiary force 

 that would relieve him to a great extent from the cares of 

 government ; but this courtesy was for the present very 

 positively declined. 



Meantime Holkar, while witnessing the downfall of the. 

 other branches of the Mahratla confederacy, had maintained 

 a very uncertain and equivocal position. He at first gave 

 them ground to suppose that he would join their league ; 

 but on the actual commencement of hostilities he remained 

 inactive, and seemed to watch the opportunity when the 

 other powers should have exhausted themselves by mutual 

 conflict, to throw himself in and secure a preponderance. 

 The victorious career of the English struck him with con- 

 sternation ; but it proceeded with sueh rapid steps, that 

 before he could come to any decision it had completely real- 

 ized its object. He seems then to have shown some dis- 

 position to take advantage of the reduced state of Sindia, 

 and to strengthen himself at his expense. That prince at 

 least was so much alarmed, that he accepted the offer made 

 by the company of a subsidiary force of 6000 men, to be 

 stationed, however, only on his frontier, while their main- 

 tenance was to be defrayed out of the districts already 

 ceded. Holkar, seeing himself thus completely hemmed in, 

 and all his schemes of conquest about to be checked by the 

 British, seems to have hastily determined to plunge into a 

 contest with them. He threatened the territory of their 

 ally the Rajah of Jyenagur ; he made extravagant and even 

 insulting demands ; he wrote to General Wellesley,— 

 "Countries of many hundred coss shall be overrun and 

 plundered. Lord Lake shall not have leisure to breathe 

 for a moment ; and calamities will fall on lacks of human 

 beings in continual war by the attacks of my army, which 

 overwhelms like the waves of the sea." At the same time 

 he earnestly invited Sindia, and the other princes who re- 

 mained still independent, to unite against the British as a 

 common enemy. 



The governor-general, in determining to open the cam- 



