Page:History of the French in India.djvu/251

 MADRAS IS RESTORED TO THE ENGLISH. 229 he, towards the close of the month of August, made chap. over Madras to Admiral Boscawen.* , Thus, after a contest of five years, the two nations 1749. found themselves, in outward appearance, in the posi- tion in which they were at the outbreak of hostilities. Yet, if apparently the same, in reality how different ! The vindictive rivalry between both, exemplified in the capture of Madras, the attempts upon Fort St. David and Pondichery, had laid the foundation of an eternal enmity, — an enmity which could only be extin- guished by the destruction of one or other of the adver- saries. Then, again, the superiority evinced by the Europeans over the natives, in the decisive battle at St. Thome, had given birth, especially in the mind of the French leader, to an ambition for empire which, if at first vague and indistinct, assumed every day a more and more practical shape. Added to this, the expense of keeping up the greatly increased number of soldiers sent out from Europe pressed heavily on the resources of both settlements, and almost forced upon them the necessity of hiring out their troops to the rival candidates for power in Southern India. Thus, during five years which elapsed between 1745 and 1749 their position had become revolutionised. No longer simple traders, regarded as such only by the rulers of the Karnatik, they were then feared, especially the French, by all the potentates in the neighbourhood, their alliance was eagerly sought for, their assistance an object of anxious entreaty. From vassals they had jumped almost to the position of liege lords. A new era, resulting from this war, dates thus from the moment when the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored the rival European powers to the positions which they had nominally occupied in 1745. By the East India ou the authority of the writers of tions of M. Forrest have shown that that period that Madras, when re- this was not the case, stored, was in a very improved con-
 * In the first edition it was stated dition. But the recent investiga-