Page:History of the French in India.djvu/404

 380 BUSSY TO 1754. chap, an area of about 17,000 geographical miles, and yielded J, an annual revenue of about £400,000 sterling. The 1753. forests within its limits abounded in teak ; one part of the country was famous for its manufacture of cloth, another for its growth of rice. Nor was it wanting in capabilities of defence. Resting on the sea, it was separated from the inland by a chain of mountains run- ning, at unequal distances, nearly parallel with the coast. These mountains were covered with forests possessing only three or four passes, capable of being defended by a hundred men against an army. To use the language of the English historian, " these territories rendered the French masters of the greatest dominion, both in extent and value, that had ever been possessed in Hindustan by Europeans, not excepting the Portuguese, when at the height of their prosperity." * Was not such a prize worthy of the struggle 1 Did not this important cession of a rich, a defensible, coun- try, justify to some extent the pertinacity with which Dupleix continued to struggle, the obstinate retention of Bussy in the Dakhan ? What impartial observer, looking at the position of the French and that of the English in the month of December, 1753, would hesi- tate to affirm that the main advantages rested with the French 1 The English of that period could not help seeing and admitting it. Had it been possible for Du- pleix at this period to have waived something of his high pretensions, to have given up his scheme in its shadowy outline in order to be the more secure of its sub- stantial proportions, his policy might yet have ultimately triumphed. But it was not to be possible. When we do revert to the history of the negotiations that he inaugu- rated, we shall, we fear, be forced to allow that the sentence pronounced by the French historianf upon one of the Northern Sirkars has been et de P Empire. mainly taken.
 * Orme, from whom this account t M. Thiers, Histoire da Consulat