ONE: Lord Fitzgerald, a pension and peerage.
FORE:The remnant of the Mahratta army fled northwards, pursued and continually reduced by the British. At the same time the reduction of the towns and forts was steadily going on, and every day the fugitive Peishwa became more and more involved in the toils of his enemies. He endeavoured to escape into Nagpore, but on the banks of the Wurda he was met, on the 1st of April, by Colonel Scott and driven back, only to fall into the hands of Colonel Adams, who attacked him near Soonee with only one regiment of native cavalry and some horse artillery, and gave him a thorough defeat, taking five guns, three elephants, and two hundred camels. More than a thousand Mahrattas fell, and the Peishwa himself narrowly escaped, his palanquin, which he had abandoned, being found shot through. Bajee Rao now endeavoured to get to the north-east into Malwa, but he was stopped by General Sir Thomas Hislop, who was advancing from that quarter towards the Deccan. At length, his forces dispersed, his towns in possession of the British, his way on all sides cut off, the Peishwa came in and surrendered himself to Sir John Malcolm, on the 3rd of June, 1818, on promise of good treatment. Sir John granted him eight lacs of rupees per annum, on condition that he resigned the title of Peishwa for ever, and surrendered all his possessions. This was confirmed by the Supreme Government at Calcutta. Thus was the existence of the Pindarrees, and the power of the Mahrattas, broken up, and the Rajah of Satara restored. He was a minor, but on reaching the age of twenty-one, which was in the year 1821, he was invested with the government of his dominions. These included a district of about eleven thousand square miles, and produced a net revenue of fifteen million rupees. Out of this, however, three lacs per annum were reserved for chiefs who had become subjects of the Company, and three more lacs were alienated. As for Trimbukjee, whose crimes and murders had determined the British to secure him at any cost, he was discovered, after a long quest, in the neighbourhood of Nassick, by Captain Swanston, and carried to Tannah, the prison from which he had escaped. He was thence transferred to Calcutta, and finally to the rock of Chunar, near Benares. The last success of this war was the reduction of the fortress of Aseerghur, one of the most formidable strongholds in India, which had undergone some most arduous sieges.The Queen did not disturb the Administration which she found in office. The Premier, Lord Melbourne, who was now fifty-eight years old, had had much experience of public life. He had been Chief Secretary for Ireland, Home Secretary, and Prime Minister, to which position he had been called the second time, after the failure of Sir Robert Peel's Administration in the spring of 1835. The young Queen seems to have looked to his counsel with a sort of filial deference; and from the time of her accession to the close of his career he devoted himself to the important task of instructing and guiding his royal mistress in the discharge of her various official dutiesa task of great delicacy, which he performed with so much ability and success as not only to win her gratitude, but to secure also the approbation of the country, and to disarm the hostility of political opponents. No royal pupil, it may be safely said, ever did more credit to a mentor than did Queen Victoria. For the time being, Lord Melbourne took up his residence at Windsor, and acted as the Queen's Secretary.
FORE:It might have been supposed that Europe, or at least the southern portion of it, was likely to enjoy a considerable term of peace. France, under a minor and a Regent, appeared to require rest to recruit its population and finances more than any part of the Continent. The King of Spain was too imbecile to have any martial ambition; and though his wife was anxious to secure the succession to the French throne in case of the death of the infant Louis XV., yet Alberoni, the Prime Minister, was desirous to remain at peace. This able Churchman, who had risen from the lowest position, being the son of a working gardener, and had made his way to his present eminence partly by his abilities and partly by his readiness to forget the gravity of the clerical character for the pleasure of his patrons, was now zealously exerting himself to restore the condition of Spain. He was thus brought into collision with Austria and France, and eventually with this country to which at first he was well disposed. England was under engagement both to France and the Empire, which must, on the first rupture with either of those Powers and Spain, precipitate her into war. The treaty with the Emperoras it guaranteed the retention of the Italian provinces, which Spain beheld with unappeasable jealousy, in Austrian handswas the first thing to change the policy of Alberoni towards Britain. This change was still further accelerated by the news of the Triple Alliance, which equally guaranteed the status quo of France. The Spanish Minister displayed his anger by suspending the Treaty of Commerce, and by conniving at the petty vexations practised by the Spaniards on the English merchants in Spain, and by decidedly rejecting a proposal of the King of England to bring about an accommodation between the Emperor and the Court of Spain.
