372 GOVERNOR- GENERALSHIP OF LORD HASTINGS

military footing which they had lost in the previous war. The subsidiary system, moreover, had other conse- quences besides those of causing the disbanding of the loose mercenary militia and the condensation of the freebooting plague. As the military power of the states which contracted these treaties was conveyed into Brit- ish hands, the result was to weaken the internal author- ity of their rulers, by diminishing their feeling of responsibility for governing well and moderately, be- cause they were sure of English protection in the event of attack or revolt. Undoubtedly the sense of depend- ence upon a higher power relaxed the energies of a native prince, who knew that in the last resort he could always call in the British government to save him from utter destruction. Against these disadvantages of the subsidiary alli- ances must, however, be set the consideration that with- out British protection most of the allied states would certainly have been dismembered in the incessant war- fare that prevailed wherever they were left to them- selves. The effect of English alliances upon the major- ity of these states was, therefore, to arrest the natural process of their disruption, but not to strengthen the internal authority of their rulers. In this manner the burden of repressing disorder within the territory of England's allies followed the transfer of the duty of external defence and gradually became shifted to the shoulders of the British government. Her policy might vary, backward or forward, but England still found