Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/92

84 Mr. Dupleix, thus disappointed a second time in his views against Cuddalore, finding that the Nabob's army still continued with the English, attempted to cause a diversion of their troops, by carrying the war into the Nabob's country near Madrass. A detachment from the town marched 20 miles inland, burning and destroying villages without resistance; for the inhabitants took to flight as they approached; and the Nabob had no troops in that part of his country. The French found large quantities of grain in several places, which they set fire to, for want of means to cany it away. They gained no advantage but plunder by this expedition; for the Moors remained at Fort St. David, and the Nabob was more exasperated than before. On the 9th of January the four ships, that composed the largest division of the squadron in which Mr. De la Bourdonnais quitted the coast, returned from Achin to Pondicherry. Mr. Dupleix informed the Nabob of their arrival, exaggerated the addition of force which Pondicherry received from it, and at the same time represented the English at Fort St. David as a handful of men abandoned by the rest of their countrymen. The princes of Indostan, as well as their subjects, take no pains to inform themselves of any affairs excepting those of their own country; and the long absence of the English squadron, joined to the precipitation with which it had quitted the coast in September, concurred with Mr. Dupleix's assertions, to make the Moors believe that the English concerns in India were becoming desperate. The governments of Indostan have no idea of national honour in the conduct of their politics; and as soon as they think the party with whom they are engaged is reduced to great distress, they shift, without hesitation, their alliance to the opposite side, making immediate advantage the only rule of their action. The Nabob ordered his son Maphuze Khan to listen to Mr. Dupleix's proposals of an accommodation, and sent back to Pondicherry the two deputies who had been detained prisoners by Maphuze Khan, when he invested Madrass. One of these prisoners was nephew to Mr. Dupleix, and the other a member of the council of Pondicherry: they had been kept at Arcot during their captivity, and were perhaps the only Europeans, excepting some vagabonds and Jesuits, who had made so long a residence in the capital of the Carnatic, since the province