ABSTRACT
In the casualness of the earliest wars of the Company, a body of Marathas under an adventurer, Morari Rao, fought sometimes against the British, sometimes (as in Clive's Arcot campaign) on their side. In 1772, when Warren Hastings lent the Nawab of Oudh a brigade to subjugate the Rohillas, it was well understood that the real menace, behind the Rohillas, was the Marathas. The convention, like that which Roman generals made at the Caudine Forks with a Samnite army, was repudiated, and the Marathas lost their advantage. Most of the distinguished men who dealt directly with the Marathas thought better of them. Henceforward the Maratha Government was in fact the Peshwa's Government, checked and qualified by the influence of the great semi-independent chieftains. A main source of Maratha strength was that from the first they were catholic in their political and military system and habits.
