Page:History of the French in India.djvu/445

 INTRIGUES AGAINST DUPLEIX. 419 felt, as did the illustrious Wellesley of his masters, the chap. scorn of a great genius for men inferior to him in all respects ; perhaps also he did not reckon to its 1754. fullest extent the extreme length to which human meanness and human ingratitude would not hesitate to have recourse. Conscious of his own deserving, he did not fear the result of any scrutiny. He had to deal, however, as we shall see, with men to whom conscious- ness of deserving was but a phrase, when the conduct which accompanied it did not exactly dovetail with their own paltry notions and petty ideas. party amongst the Direction in France had, indeed, been endeavouring for some time to compass his down- fall. So far back as 1752 the complaints of Governor Saunders and his friends to their own Company, re- garding the boundless ambition and enormous views of Dupleix, had found an echo in the heart of the French Direction. It was in consequence of this that it had that same year despatched M. Duvalaer to London, charged with full powers to negotiate, in concert with the French ambassador at the Court of St. James', with the English Ministers, regarding a basis upon which to settle affairs in the East. Both parties vehemently declared that they wished for peace ; that their one aspiration was to engage in commercial operations, to abstain from all interference in the affairs of the natives of India. In the course of these negotiations, the English Ministers, instructed by the India House, which again received its inspiration on this point from Governor Saunders and his friends, never ceased to attribute all the evils of which the two Companies complained to the one man who ruled at Pondichery. But for him, they declared, there would have been no contests, no ruinous expenditure, no interference with commercial undertakings. He alone was responsible for all. These complaints, constantly repeated, could not fail to work EE 2