Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/289

Rh By this time the United States had declared their independence, and England had now become so deeply involved in the attempt to put down rebellion in North America that the French determined to use such an apparently excellent opportunity of revenge for the injuries suffered during the Seven Years' War. Providence, said the French minister in a secret state paper, had marked out this moment for the humiliation of England; and accordingly the colonists were actively, though surreptitiously, assisted by France to a degree that made a rupture with that power unavoidable.

A French agent reached India in 1777 to propose alliance with the Marathas on conditions including the cession of a seaport on the west coast. His overtures, which were naturally encouraged by the Peshwa at Poona, filled with alarm and indignation the English, to whom the actual state of affairs in Europe, India, and America rendered the prospect of such a combination exceedingly disagreeable. In the same year, Hastings received secret information from the British embassy at Paris that the French were concerting a scheme for an expedition to India in support of the enemies of the English there. In 1778, came news that Burgoyne had surrendered to the Americans at Saratoga, and that France, probably also Spain, was declaring war; while a French ship from Bourbon Island had actually landed officers and military stores on the south coast for Hyder Ali.

Although at this moment the dissension between Hastings and Philip Francis in the Calcutta Council