Page:History of the French in India.djvu/287

 DUPLEIX OFFERS PEACE. 265 second-rate warriors who could, within twenty-four chap. hours, defeat an army vastly superior in numbers, and > storm a fortress reputed impregnable, and which for 1750 three years had defied the best army and the best general of the renowned Aurangzeb. Not lightly would such a feat be esteemed in the cities of the south. The fame of it would extend even to imperial Delhi on the one side, and to the palaces of Puna on the other. It was a blow which, by the intrinsic advantages resulting from it and by the renown it would acquire for those who had delivered it, would strike not only Muhammad Ali but Nasir Jang, would seat the nominees of Dupleix at Golkonda and Arkat, might eventually bring Delhi itself almost within the grasp of the French Governor. Well might Dupleix hope that, by following it up, by using carefully yet vigorously every opportunity, this capture of Jinji might indeed be made the first stone of a French empire in India. The immediate results of the capture on the minds of the natives were all that could have been expected. Nasir Jang, till then devoted to pleasure, now roused himself to action. Yet even he, the Subadar of the Dakhan, the disposer of an army of 300,000 men, was thunderstruck at the feat. These French, he felt, must be beaten or conciliated. It appeared to rest with him whether he should attempt the first, or accomplish the second, for almost simultaneously with the news of the fall of Jinji intelligence reached him that d' Auteuil was marching on Arkat whilst he at the same time received peaceful overtures from Dupleix. The principal of these suggested the release of Muzaffar Jang and his restora- tion to the governments he had held in his grand- father's lifetime, the appointment of Chanda Sahib to be Nawwab of Arkat, and the absolute cession of Machli- patan to the French. It is probable that Nasir Jang would have made no difficulty regarding the second and third of these conditions, but the release of Muzaffar