easing and desolating wars of India, the
territories under direct British rule formed an island of secure peace
and of justice. That was Hastings' supreme contribution: it was the
foundation upon which arose the fabric of the Indian Empire. Hastings
was not a great conqueror or annexer of territory; the only important
acquisition made during his regime was effected, in defiance of his
protests, by the hostile majority which for a time overrode him in his
own council, and which condemned him for ambition. His work was to make
the British rule mean security and justice in place of tyranny; and it
was because it had come to mean this that it grew, after his time, with
extraordinary rapidity.

It was not by the desire of the directors or the home government that
it grew. They did everything in their power to check its growth, for
they shrank from any increase to their responsibilities. They even
prohibited by law all annexations, or the making of alliances with
Indian powers.[5] But fate was too strong for them. Even a governor
like Lord Cornwallis, a convinced supporter of the policy of
non-expansion and non-intervention, found himself forced into war, and
compelled to annex territories; because non-intervention was
interpreted by the Indian powers as a confession of weakness and an
invitation to attack. Non-intervention also gave openings to the
French, who, since the outbreak of the Revolution, had revived their
old Indian ambitions; and while Bonaparte was engaged in the conquest
of Egypt as a half-way house to India (1797), French agents were busy
building up a new combination of Indian powers against the company.

[5] India Act of 1784

This formidable coalition was about to come to a head when, in 1798,
there landed in India a second man of genius, sent by fate at the
critical moment. In five years, by an amazing series of swiftly
successful wars and brilliantly conceived treaties, the Marquess
Wellesley broke the power of every member of the hostile coalitions,
except two of the Mahratta princes. The area of British territory was
quadrupled; the most important of the Indian princes became vassals of
the company; and the Great Mogul of Delhi himself, powerless now, but
always a symbol of the over-lordship of India, passed under British
protection. When Wellesley left India in 1805, the East India Company
was already the paramount power in India south-east of the Sutlej and
the Indus. The Mahratta princes, inde