Page:History of the French in India.djvu/177

 DUPLEIX OPPOSES THE RANSOM OF MADRAS. 155 given by the Nawwab Anwaru-din, the French settle- chap ments must then have been destroyed. But that was a reed upon which it would not be wise to lean for 1745. ever. The successor of Anwaru-dm might not be animated by the same sentiments : another incursion of the Marathas might render powerless the representa- tive of the Mughal; or anarchy might again prevail, as it so recently had prevailed, throughout the Karnatik. That he could not depend upon the French Ministry, or on the Directors of the French Company the events of the last few years had fully convinced him. With a three years' warning of the hostilities that were pending, the men who governed French India from Paris had literally starved their most important dependency. They had sent it neither ships of war, nor money, nor even good information. Hesitatingly and fearfully they had despatched two merchant vessels in as many years, with most inadequate supplies. Nay more, when another enterprising Governor had proposed a plan, whereby, at the smallest amount of risk, the ascendency of France in the East could be secured, and had wrung from the aged Minister an assent, they had taken the earliest opportunity to cancel the scheme, and had deprived the Governor of the means by which he had hoped to carry it into execution. From France then Dupleix had little to hope. On the other hand he beheld England thirsting to destroy him, England strong in the energy of her sons, the re- sources of the India Company, and, more than all, in her comparative good government. He had iseen that in the year which was now going on, England had acted as La Bourdonnais had proposed to act, and had thereby reaped the most important results. That stroke on the part of England, but for the interference of the Nawwab, would have destroyed him. The su- perior energy and good direction of the England of the eighteenth century over the France of Louis XV.,