Page:History of the French in India.djvu/355

 REASONS FOR THE FRENCH FAILURE. 331 arm to strike. To carry out his vast plans he was chap. compelled to confide in others, and it happened, unfor- VIL tunately for him, that whilst, at this period, those whom ^752. alone he was able to employ were men of singularly feeble intellect, deficient in energy and enterprise, dread- ing responsibilty.. afraid to run small risks, and therefore exposing themselves to great dangers, his principal adversary was a man of vast and comprehensive genius, of an aptitude for war surpassing all his contemporaries, of a ready audacity and prompt execution in the field, such as have never been surpassed. Whilst then the de- signs for the French campaign were most masterly, being conceived in the brain of Dupleix, — their execution was feeble beyond the power of description, that execution being left to his lieutenants. The orders, the letters, the entreaties of Dupleix stand living witnesses in the present day of the exactness of his conclusions. Had they been obeyed, — and it is clear that obedience to them was easy, — Trichinapalli would have fallen whilst Clive was still besieged in A rkat ; or, had untimely occurrences prevented that great triumph, a literal obedience to his instructions would have insured the interception and defeat of the relieving forces of Law- rence and Clive on the banks of the Kavan. Who could have believed that imbecility and fear of responsibility would ever find the level reached in the manufacture of a Law, — imbecility and fear of responsibility so clear as to draw even from the English historian, jealous as he is on all occasions of the reputation of the English leaders, the remark, that "it is indeed difficult to determine whether the English conducted themselves with more ability and spirit, or the French with more irresolution and ignorance, after Major Lawrence and Captain Clive arrived at Trichinapalli ? " * To judge fairly and candidly the degree of merit or demerit attaching to Dupleix at this crisis of the
 * Urme.