Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/307

 CHAPTER XII

THE INTERVAL BETWEEN HASTINGS AND CORNWALLIS

1785-1786

It is an observation of Sir James Mackintosh that in the course of one generation the English lost one empire in the West and gained another in the East; and it may be added that England owes not only the loss but its compensation to the policy of the French Government. In the long war that had now ended, their navy broke the hold of England on the North American colonies, as repeated blows on a man's arms make him let go his antagonist in a furious struggle. But they had so enfeebled themselves by their exertions to fight England on behalf of American independence that they were left powerless to interfere with her thenceforward in Asia, or to maintain their rivalry at sea.

From 1783 begins a kind of pause in Anglo-Indian affairs, varied in India only by a preliminary trial of strength with Mysore, and in England by violent party-warfare over Indian questions. The French Government still continued, according to the reports of British diplomatists, to watch for an opportunity of interfering