CHAPTER IX

THE MARATHAS AND MYSORE 1765 - 1770 TO return to the affairs of the East India Company. The Marathas, in spite of their overthrow at Pani- pat, were still the most active and dangerous of the native powers in India; but since they embodied the principles of insatiable aggression and of irreconcil- able hostility to Mohammedan predominance, the uni- versal dread of their predatory incursions united all other chiefs and princes, especially the Mussulmans, against them. The result was advantageous to the Eng- lish, for it drew toward them those who drew away from the Marathas. The Vizir of Oudh, who had now become the leading Mohammedan prince in Upper India, and who had been again repulsed in a second attempt upon Bengal in 1765, now showed himself very willing to conclude an alliance with the Company. Lord Clive, a statesman no less than a soldier, whose despatches show admirable foresight and solidity of 198