Page:History of the French in India.djvu/400

 376 BUSSY TO 1754. chap, from the harassing duties of official life. But almost ._, simultaneously with the letters from Haidarabad there 1753. came from Pondichery a communication which decided him. That confidential letter from Saiyicl Lashkar to Mr. Saunders, from which we have extracted, happened to be intercepted by French agents. By them it was carried to Pondichery, and handed over to Dupleix. Dupleix received this letter at a time when he was meditating those proposals to Mr. Saunders for peace, which he essayed in July of the same year, and to which we shall refer in their proper place. To this course Bussy, from his sick bed at Machhlipatan, had long urged him, advising him to renounce the old policy of empire he had so long followed. To make proposals for peace with any effect, however, it was necessary for Dupleix that he should be paramount in at least one province of India. Hitherto he had trusted that his prestige in the Dakhan would make up for his losses in the Karnatik. But now, this letter showed him that his prestige in the Dakhan was waning, his power about to be anihilated. He com- prehended all in an instant. He saw at once how it had happened, how it was to be remedied. With him to think strongly was to act vigorously. He at once despatched to Bussy a letter, written in the most emphatic terms, urging him, even though his health might not be completely re-established, to set out immediately for Haidarabad. The manner in which Bussy acted on receipt of this letter is thus recorded by Dupleix himself: " Le sieur de Bussy," he writes, " was too zealous a patriot not to sacrifice even health itself for the benefit of the State." Without delaying a day he issued orders to all the detachments in the district to unite at a place near Haidarabad, where he proposed to join them at the end of that month.* Set- ting out then himself, he found all his troops, amount-
 * May, 1753.