Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/550

526 and ambition were never more strictly united than in this design. Mr. Bussy, having remitted his fortune to Europe, offered his credit, if employed in community with the government of Pondicherry and Mr. Lally's, to raise money for the public service; but treated the hints of the other proposal, as the desperate zeal of his adherents unwarranted by himself. They saw one another but seldom, but were obliged to correspond on public affairs. The letters of Mr. Lally were replete with suspicion, jealousy, insinuation, artifice, insolence, sarcasm, and wit; Mr. Bussy 's, with sagacity, caution, deference, argument, profound knowledge, the justest views of affairs, and the wisest means to promote their success: and Mr. Lally himself, whilst he pretended to ridicule, respected the, extent of his talents. Their dissention was in this state, when the arrival of a frigate from France on the 20th of August brought orders from the king and ministry, recalling all the intermediate officers, who had been sent with commissions superior to Mr. Bussy's, and appointing him second in the command, and to succeed to it after Mr. Lally. This distinction produced a more civil intercourse, and Mr. Lally, with seeming complacence, asked the assistance of his counsels. The first he gave was the most obnoxious he could. Rajahsaheb, the unfortunate but insignificant son of Chundasaheb, had lately found means to persuade Mr. Lally to appoint him Nabob of the Carnatic; and the ceremony had been performed with ostentation, in the month of July, both at Arcot and Pondicherry. This promotion, without the participation of Salabadjing, the Subah of the Decan, was a public renunciation of his alliance, and might be improved by Nizamally to confirm him in the interests of the English. The approach of Bassaulut Jung on the northern confines of the Carnatic appeared to Mr. Bussy a resource, not only to re-establish the former union with Salabadjing, but likewise to strengthen the immediate operations of the French army, by offering Bassaulut Jung the government of the Carnatic and its dependencies under the sanction of Salabadjing, on condition that he would join them with his troops. Mr. Lally at first revolted against the idea: and his aversion to it was