Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/20

 Xll INTRODUCTION. that advice which caused to the British mer- cantile community those losses which, I have alread}^ stated, were to be counted by millions. When, ten years later, convinced against his will, Lord Minto, following in the lines of the great Marquess, carried out his views, the capture of the islands was found to be an operation comparatively easy, effected with but little bloodshed, and with a force which, large in comparison with the number of the defenders, was yet considerably smaller than the authorities both in England and in India had deemed necessary. The second Book, which professes to tell the story of the most famous of the privateers, fitly concludes then with the account of the successful expedition against the islands which were their home. From a national point of view the results are not dissimilar to those arrived at in the first Book. We see evidences of the same gallantry on the part of individual Frenchmen, and yet a conclusion favourable to England. In the third Book I have endeavoured to give some detail of the careers of those foreign adventurers who disciplined and trained the armies which contested India with England at Aligarh, at Dehli, at Laswdri,