290 BRITISH INDIAN GOVERNMENT. 



rated. This chief invited and even bribed the English, 

 with the view of aiding him in the subjection of Rohilcund, 

 and in defending himself against the M ahrattas. But under 

 his feeble successor, Asoph-ul-Dowlah, it was felt that the 

 army of occupation at once burdened the finances and 

 kept the countrv in real subjection. Continued remon- 

 strances were therefore employed to procure a reduction of 

 this force ; and Mr. Hastings had agreed, in consideration 

 of the sum paid out of the spoil of the Begums, to with- 

 draw a great part of it. During the administration of Sir 

 John Shore, Asoph-ul-Dowlah died, and his reputed son, 

 Vizier Ali, at first succeeded ; but the governor being con- 

 vinced of his illegitimacy, employed the British power in 

 raising to the throne Saadut Ali, eldest surviving brother 

 of Asoph-ul-Dowlah. Soon afterward Vizier Ali, with his 

 partisans, either through design or in the heat of passion, 

 having attacked and assassinated at Benares Mr. Cherry, 

 the English resident, and some other gentlemen, was 

 obliged To take flight, and his person was afterward secured. 

 The°new nabob, who owed his existence to the company, 

 was obliged to agree to a treaty by which the subsidiary 

 force was to be considerably enlarged, with a discretionary 

 power to augment it still farther. He soon, however, began, 

 like other Indian princes, to show symptoms of uneasiness 

 under the thraldom to which he was thus reduced, and 

 Marquis Welleslev thought it advisable to demand that he 

 should receive a larger body of troops, and cede for _their 

 support the valuable territories of Rohilcund and the Doab, 

 —an arrangement by which he was completely enclosed 

 within the British dominions, and separated from all the 

 other powers of India. 



Among the acquisitions made by negotiation,— that is, 

 by demands which the other party were unable to resist,— 

 was that of Surat in 1800, and of Furruckabad in 1802, 

 when their respective nabobs were pensioned at the rate of 

 12,000/. a year. By a convention also in 1817, a consid- 

 erable part of Guzerat, including Ahmedabad, the capital, 

 was annexed to the company's dominions. 



The following estimate of the extent and population of 

 the territories now included in British India, has just been 

 published by parliament : — 



