174 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL

was so unsteady through military weakness and finan- cial embarrassments that any of them might be des- troyed by the loss of one campaign or even a single battle. But this course of easy victories on the outskirts of India did not last long; for we shall see that as the English penetrated further into the interior, their prog- ress became very much slower, and was, indeed, ar- rested for a time. On the west coast, they were already confronted by rivals very different from an incapable Bengali Nawab by the Marathas, whose power had considerable national character, some political stability, and formidable military organization. Under their great Peshwa, 'Balaji Bala Kao, they were now attain- ing the zenith of their predominance; they had con- quered great territories; they were pushing forward into North India; they were supreme in the central regions; and while one army was dismembering the Nizam's State, another was extorting heavy subsidies in the Karnatic and Mysore. Their operations had hitherto been very serviceable to the English, with whom they were at this time often in alliance, by weak- ening all the Mohammedan rulerships, and particularly by checking Bussy's military domination at Haidara- bad. On the whole there is good ground for the opinion that if, at the time of the dissolution of the Moghul Empire, India had been left to herself, if the Europeans had not just then appeared in the field, the whole of Southern and Central India would have fallen under