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168 quitted Pondichery in February, 1755, and was succeeded, after a short interval, by M. Duval de Leyrit, a factor in the employment of the French Company, possessing neither political ability nor large views. He too was a partisan of that policy of non-intervention. He had not been long in office when, May 1756, war broke out between France and England. By this time the French Ministers had realised the enormous mistake they had committed in not efficiently supporting Dupleix, and they notified to De Leyrit that they were preparing a considerable force to send to India to support French interests there. Their original design went far beyond the defence of French interests. The force was to be large enough to expel the English from Southern India, to restore by means of their troops the policy of the Governor they had recalled and ruined.

The command of this expedition was bestowed upon one of the most distinguished officers in the French army, an Irishman by birth. This was Thomas Arthur, Count Lally and Baron Tollendal, son of Sir Gerard O'Lally, who, after the capture of Limerick in 1691, had migrated to France and had entered the service of Louis XIV. Nine years after this event there was born to Sir Gerard the son who, trained from his earliest youth in the French armies, had merited at Fontenoy the commendations of Marshal Saxo; who had taken part in the '45, and had fought at Laffeldt. The young Lally had made a great reputation. His contemporaries regarded him