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74 Puná two princes, one the legitimate heir to the masnad of the Deccan, the other to the office of Nuwáb of the Karnátik, and that they felt sure that with his powerful aid they might recover the positions which were their due. At the moment Dupleix was too much occupied with the English to respond satisfactorily to their requests, but no sooner had the conditions of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle been carried out in India, than he took the matter into most earnest consideration. He saw at a glance that a favourable response to the two suppliants would procure for him the very opening he required; that, if by his means, Muzaffar Jang were to become Subáhdár of the Deccan, and Chandá Sáhib Nuwáb of the Karnátik, the two most powerful princes in southern India – for Haidar Alí had not then raised Mysore to the position it attained under his tutelary genius – would become as French in all their sympathies, in all their actions, as though they were ruled from Pondichery. He recognised, in fact, in the applications from Puná the first step towards the realisation of his far-reaching dream.

No sooner, then, were his hands free than he guaranteed to the Peshwá the payment of the ransom of 700,000 rupees on behalf of Chandá Sáhib, and promised both to that prince and to Muzaffar Jang all the assistance which Pondichery could furnish them in the carrying out of their schemes. Released from captivity, Chandá Sáhib marched with a body of 3000 men he had levied towards the Karnátik,