Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/17

Rh of Indian history, in which the French navy appears to very considerable advantage, and a French admiral contesting the seas not unequally with an English admiral, finally out-manœuvres and beats him; in which events are recorded which all but upset English domination in Southern India; whilst I narrate facts which bring into strong light the virtues of individual Frenchmen, I relate the history of a struggle which ended in the triumph of England. There must have been some English virtues counterbalancing the French virtues, or some French defects greater than the French virtues, to enable the English to gain that triumph. For, by the admission of contemporary writers, our countrymen were reduced to extremities when, as if by the stroke of a magician's wand, they recovered all that they had lost. For the virtues and the defects, so nearly balancing each other on either side, I must refer the reader to the story itself. If success be a criterion of merit it is clear that the balance must, on a general consideration, be in favour of England.

The second Book is devoted to the description of a later attempt on the part of the French of a very different character indeed, but equally directed against