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132 left by his country to his own resources; that from it no assistance was to be expected. For a man with the soaring aspirations of Dupleix, no position could have seemed more hopeless. But it was the surpassing merit of Dupleix that in the darkest hour he never despaired. Confident in his own energies, in his greater knowledge of the races of Southern India, believing that with but a little aid from Fortune his genius must compensate for the superiority of his enemy in European troops, he prepared himself for the struggle of the new year with an alacrity and a resolution which to this day compels the admiration even of those who rejoice over his failure.