Page:History of the French in India.djvu/268

 246 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. c ^ p - To carry it out he had brought every resource to bear on his native allies. He had given them money, men, 1749. guns, and officers, and they, on their part, had left Pondi- chery, under an engagement to pursue the course of action he had pressed upon them, as alike best suited to his interests and theirs, viz., to march direct upon Trichinapalli. Yet this occasion afforded another instance of the uselessness even of great genius, when the tools which genius is compelled to employ are weak and vacillating. Surely Dupleix had a right to believe that his native allies, having been equipped and supplied by him, and having started on an expedition they had promised to carry out, would at least march to their destination. Once there, he relied on his own commander, Duquesne, to do the rest. His mortification then can be imagined when he learnt that, after crossing the Kolrun, they had diverged from the road to Trichinapalli, and had taken that to Tanjur. The fact was that, during their stay at Pondichery, Chanda Sahib and Muzaffar Jang had exhausted on their own pleasures the money Dupleix had intended for the expenses of the army, and they found them- selves, after crossing the Kolrun, in an enemy's country with an empty treasure chest. In this emergency Chanda Sahib bethought him of the Kaja of Tanjur — a prince whose riches were proverbial, and whose arrears of tribute to the Mughal, Muzaffar Jang, as Subadar of the Dakhan, considered himself entitled to receive. In the hope of compelling this monarch to pay such a sum as would place them at ease regarding their expendi- ture, and in the belief that with the aid of their French allies the task would be easy of execution and short in its time of duration, they, without even consulting Dupleix, turned aside from the road leading to Trichina- palli, and took that to Tanjur. This city, situated in the delta of the Kolrun and the