Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/89

Rh by the emperor to expel the English from Madras, where the president, having only a few English soldiers in garrison with some half-caste Portuguese, lost heart on hearing that a Moghul force was moving southward. Sir John Child, who impersonated the war policy of the Company, died in 1690; and the business ended rather ignominiously with the issue by Aurangzib of a lofty order reciting that, on receipt of a humble submissive petition by the English, his Majesty had mercifully pardoned their transgressions. At this message the Company's directors at home professed high indignation, for no petition of that kind had been sent; but the moment was not opportune for prosecuting the quarrel.

During the next ten years, however, the difficulties and decadence of the Moghul empire were manifestly on the increase. One of Aurangzib 's sons invaded India from Persia with a foreign army; and the important provinces or kingdoms of South India – the Deccan, Mysore, and the Karnatic – were barely kept in obedience by large forces; for the old age of Aurangzib held all India in fear and expectation of imminent change. All this instability of affairs compelled the foreign settlements to rely more and more upon their own resources for self-defence against arbitrary officials, rebel leaders, marauding banditti, and, finally, against each other. For war had been raging in Europe from 1690 to 1697; the French had been doing enormous damage to the homeward bound ships of the East India Company, having on one occasion captured a whole fleet