288 THE ADMINISTRATION OF LORD CORNWALLIS

king, and with the French, who entertained his over- tures and made a show of helping him up to a point just sufficient to annoy and irritate the English. The only serious consequence of Tippu's dealings with France was that when, in 1793, the French Revolution produced a violent rupture between the two nations in Europe, Mysore was soon left exposed to the full force of England's hostility. In the meantime the Maratha chief Mahadaji Sin- dhia, on whom the Moghul emperor had been induced to confer the title of vicegerent of the empire, who had made large conquests in the north, and had defeated his rival, Holkar, in a desperate fight, was becoming all-powerful in Upper India. His political aim was to maintain his own independence of the Maratha con- federation without dissolving it. And as he was saga- cious enough to perceive that the English were fast rising to superiority in India, he had been exceedingly distrustful of any alliance with them for the purpose of aiding them to crush a rival, even though that rival should be the Mohammedan ruler of Mysore. Now that Tippu (with whom Sindhia was corre- sponding) had been humbled, it was becoming mani- fest that the Marathas were the only military power, from the Sutlaj River to the sea, from which the Eng- lish had any opposition to apprehend. They were mas- ters of immense territory, and their leaders were at the head of numerous well-equipped armies, which easily overcame the weak incoherent resistance of the Rajput clans, and would have certainly routed with