At the beginning of the long peace which followed the termination of the great war in 1815 England had secured undisturbed possession of her enormously valuable conquests in the southern seas – of the Cape, of Ceylon, and of Mauritius. All the foreign settlements on the Indian seaboard were disarmed, and not one of the states within India could now measure its strength against her power and resources. Six of the chief principalities were now bound to the English system by subsidiary treaties. In Western and Central India, Baroda, Poona, and Haidarabad, in South India, Mysore and Travancore, and, toward the northwest, Oudh with a large number of minor chieftainships were all under British suzerainty and protection. Beyond the English frontiers were the growing kingdom of Ranjit Singh in the Panjab, and the Gurkha state of Nepal along the southern slopes of the Himalayas. Only in Central India there remained three principalities, surrounded by British territory, that had not yet come formally within the circle of English dominion. They belonged to the three families who still represented the fighting and predatory traditions of the Maratha confederacy, Sindhia at Gwalior, Holkar at Indore, and the Bhonsla at Nagpur. To these may be added, though the status was different, the ruling house of the Gaikwar at Baroda.
From the cessation of the great war that determined in England's favour the contest with the native states for ascendency in India we may also reckon the introduction of orderly administration within her territories,
