HOSTILE PREPARATIONS. 189 



good troops. The main body of the Bengal army, under 

 the immediate command of the Marquis of Hastings, as- 

 sembled at Secundra, and proceeded to cross the Jumna 

 near Calpy. Another corps was instructed to pass that 

 river at Agra ; while two smaller divisions were to act on 

 the flanks, and to connect this with the other armies. The 

 Deccan force was to advance in two divisions under Gene- 

 rals Hislop and Sir John Malcolm ; Colonel Adams led the 

 regiments from Berar, while Generals Doveton and Smith 

 took post in the rear, ready either to support the main body 

 or to crush any commotion that might arise at Poonah or 

 Nagpore. General Keir meantime led the army of Guze- 

 rat into Malwa. All these divisions formed a complete cir- 

 cle around the Pindaree positions, closing in upon them as 

 upon a common centre. This system of tactics, which in 

 contending with disciplined forces is accompanied with the 

 danger that the enemy, availing himself of his central posi- 

 tion, may successively attack and beat the different corps 

 advancing against him, was attended with no such hazard 

 when directed against troops who never encountered an ad- 

 versary in pitched battle, whose sole aim was escape, and 

 to whom flight was victory. It was by such a movement 

 only that they could be enclosed and finally crushed. 



There was one circumstance attending this campaign 

 which could not be regarded without some degree of alarm, 

 namely, that it led our army into the territories of princes 

 who viewed with the most rancorous jealousy the height to 

 which the British power had now attained. All of them 

 saw in its success the downfall of their own ambitious 

 hopes, and even of their independence, and anxiously 

 watched the favourable moment for striking a blow. Even 

 the courts of Nagpore and Hydrabad, notwithstanding the 

 treaties by which they professed to be bound, could not by 

 acy means be relied upon. But the Pindaree war was to 

 be carried on in the dominions of Sindia and Holkar, the 

 most deadly foes to the British name. Of the former Sir 

 John Malcolm justly observes, that he never could be ex- 

 pected to forget the loss of empire sustained through Bri- 

 tain : " All his habits, his prejudices, his wishes, are against 

 us ; we have nothing in our favour but his fears. His faith 

 and his promises cannot be relied on for a moment." It 

 appears indeed that Cheetoo, the principal leader of tho 



