Page:History of the French in India.djvu/16

 X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. the reasons which guided Dupleix in his policy, the relations of Bussy with the Subadar of the Dakhan, and the cause of the fall of Chandranagar, have been placed in a clearer and more intelligible light than heretofore. In executing the task which I set myself, I have naturally incurred many heavy obligations. I am anxious to express the great debt which I owe, in common with every other writer of the Indian history of that period, to Mr. Orme, the minute detail of whose work makes it invaluable to the historian. To the work of the Abbe Guyon, and to the various French memoirs to which I have referred, I am likewise greatly indebted. It is by means of these that I have been enabled to give the history of the period from a point of view entirely Indo-French, showing. I trust clearly, the plans and policy of the rulers of Pondichery. Colonel Law- rence's Memoirs, Mr. Grose's Voyage to the East Indies, Dr. Ive's History, and the S'eir Mutakherin, have also been consulted. Amongst others, of more modern date, I may mention Colonel Wilks's Southern India, Captain Grant Duff s History of the Mardthds, Professor Wilson's edition of Mill, M. Xavier Raymond's Inde, Baron Barchou de Penhoen's Histoire de la Conquete de rinde par V Angleterre, and that most admirable, though, unfortunately, too little known volume, Broome's History of the Bengal Army. I take ad- vantage of this opportunity also to express my obli- gations to the writer (unknown to me) of an article on 'Dupleix,' in the 15th volume of the extinct National Review, which not only displays ability and research of no ordinary character, but is also remarkable as being,