Page:History of the French in India.djvu/409

 385 CHAPTEK IX. THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. It is now time that we should return to Dupleix. We c ^ p * left him at the end of 1752, disappointed indeed in his _ views on the Karnatik, but still maintaining a bold front 1752. before his enemies ; still hopeful of the future, especially hopeful of the action of Bussy in the Dakhan : not having resigned one of his daring schemes, nor faltered in the prosecution of his far-seeing plans of empire ; still cool, determined, resolute ; confident in himself, confident in the fortunes of France. He had like- wise this consolation, that the great Genius who had delivered the English at Trichinapalli had left India for Europe, and he was himself daily expecting the arrival of 700 men under a leader who had proved his steel. It was not, alas ! for him to imagine that those troops and the gallant de la Touche would meet with the most terrible of the deaths* on the broad ocean, and that he would have again to parry, with diminished resources and without a general, the powerful attacks of Saunders and Lawrence. The number of European troops which Dupleix had at his disposal at the beginning of 1753 did not ex- ceed 360. To support these were 2,000 trained sipahis and 4,000 Maratha horse under the command of the versatile Murari Rao. Major Lawrence, on his side, was able to bring into the field not less than 700 Europeans aided by 2,000 sipahis and 1,500 horsemen Touche left the Isle of France for was destroyed by lire with nearly all Pondichery in a vessel called the on board.— Or me.
 * A body of 700 men under de la "Prince," in 1752. She, however.