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36 prosecuting it with vigour by the poverty of the settlement. Dupleix then gave in his own person a practical proof how his plan, conducted on a system, must load to fortune. He embarked in private trade with the interior—a practice then sanctioned by the regulations of the Company—and in a short time succeeded in amassing a considerable fortune.

The changes in the constitution of the parent Company at home, duly noted in the preceding chapter, had caused frictions and misunderstandings in the settlement. As a consequence of one of these Dupleix was (December, 1726) suspended from his office by the orders of the Directors, and offered a free passage to France. Dupleix declined to avail himself of the offer, but remained at Pondichery whilst he appealed against the unjust order. At the end of four years the falseness of the charges preferred against him was recognised (September 30, 1730), and the Directors, to compensate him for the injustice he had suffered, nominated him, shortly afterwards, Intendant of Chandarnagar. Thither, accordingly, Dupleix proceeded.

How Chandarnagar had been occupied in 1676, and regularly ceded by the Mughal Emperor in 1688, has been stated in a previous page. Since that period the history of the little settlement had not been a history of success. It had suffered, more even than Pondichery, from the poverty of the Company. Stagnation had become the rule there. The Company's agents, with no means, and little energy, had drifted into a