Page:History of the French in India.djvu/447

 DUPLEIX RECALLED. 421 Governments on the spot ; that there was no need for chap. further negotiations. At any moment from July to t December, 1753, it had been in the power of Dupleix 1754. to have expedited such a message. None however came, and the French Directors were brought at last to the determination to sacrifice this one man for, they professed to believe, the benefit of the whole nation. They accepted, therefore, a proposition made by the English Commissioners, to the effect that both the Governors, English as well as French, should be re- called, and that in their place two Commissaries should be nominated, one by each nation, to proceed direct to India, there to place matters on such a footing that future warfare between the two settlements, so long as their principals remained at peace, should be impossible. In consequence of this resolve, the French Ministry nominated M. Godeheu, at one time member of Council at Chandranagar, to be Commissary of the King to conclude peace, and to verify and examine the accounts of his predecessor. From the Directors the same Godeheu received likewise his commission as Governor-General of the French settlements. The English, more astute, made no fresh nomination, but sent out the necessary powers to Governor Saunders and the members of his Council. The first intelligence received by Dupleix of these proceedings was contained in a letter from Godeheu himself from the Isle of France, announcing his early departure from that place to co-operate with him as Commissary of the King and of the Company in India. The letter was written in a modest and submissive tone, the writer lamenting his own inexperience, and expres- sing his earnest desire to be guided by the advice of his old friend. Whatever may have been the feeling of Dupleix on receiving this communication, it can scarcely be doubted but that its friendly tone and his personal knowledge of the writer must have tended to