Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/134

126 of a young prince naturally brave, and ambitious of acquiring a sovereignty. Murzafa-jing now looked upon Chunda-saheb as bis guardian angel, and agreed implicitly to follow all his views.

Mr. Dupleix very soon received intelligence of these resolutions, and was invited to take part in the project, with assurances of receiving considerable advantages for himself and the French East India company, if it succeeded. Nothing could be more conformable to his views than such an opportunity of aggrandizing at once his own reputation and the interests of his nation in India. As soon as he heard that Murzafa-jing's army approached the confines of the Carnatic, he ordered 100 Europeans and 2,000 Sepoys to march and join them. This body was commanded by Mr. d'Auteuil, and accompanied by Raja-saheb, the son of Chunda-saheb, who had resided at Pondicherry during the whole time of his father's imprisonment.

An'war-odean, the Nabob of Arcot, from his accession after the murder of Seid Mahomed, had governed the Carnatic without receiving any disturbance from intestine commotions, and very little from foreign hostilities; for all the military operations of his reign had consisted in the reduction of certain Polygars, who, from territories confining on the Carnatic, had made some predatory incursions into the province. But his attention had been constantly fixed on the person of Chunda-saheb: he kept emissaries at Sattarah, to observe him during his confinement, which it is probable he protracted by bribing the Morattoes. As soon as Chunda-saheb was set at liberty, the Nabob never doubted, how much soever be dissembled, that the time approached when he should be obliged to maintain his government by his sword. He reformed his army, which, like those of most Indian princes in times of peace, was composed of an undisciplined rabble; and enlisted none but the best men and horses, of which he composed a well-appointed army, consisting of 12,000 cavalry and 8,000 infantry, and with this force determined to defend the entrance of the Carnatic to extremity: but another measure equally necessary to his preservation he emitted; for he neglected, probably from the parsimony of his disposition, to ask from the English the assistance of a body of their troops; and the English, employed