Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/158

122 the East India Company is the trade of the English nation in the East Indies, and so far a national concern"; that the French power was growing; and that Dupleix had laid claim to the whole southeastern coast from Cape Comorin to the river Kistna.

A MONOLITHIC TEMPLE AT MAHABALIPUR ON THE SOUTHEAST COAST.

The French ministry, on the other hand, did not care to embroil themselves with England, whose sea power was dangerous to all their colonies, on account of these apparently interminable Indian quarrels. Their finances were low; and they had good reasons for honestly desiring to substitute pacific for warlike relations between the two Companies, to discontinue the practice of lending auxiliary troops to native princes, and to agree upon a mutual return to the old commercial business. So