Page:History of the French in India.djvu/459

 EFFECT OF THE RECALL OF DUPLEIX. tented himself with cutting off from Mainville those CH ^P- supplies of money with which he had been till then „„, liberally furnished by Dupleix for the maintenance of 1754. his army. This policy of negation, if indeed it was a policy at all, and not, as we believe it to have been, the natural inaction of an undecided mind, had the worst possible effect. The air was at once filled with rumours, all injurious to the French. The English, flushed with joy at the recall of Dupleix, made no secret as to the means by which that recall had been obtained, and as to the consequences that were to follow from it. Their stories, spread everywhere by their agents, were univer- sally credited, and their effect exaggerated tenfold. The partisans of the French alliance were everywhere over- whelmed with shame, with mortification, and with fear. At the court of the Subadar these feelings showed themselves in the fullest strength. " Your nation,'' wrote Salabat Jang * to Bussy, on the arrival of messen- gers from Pondichery informing him of the assumption of authority by Godeheu, " your nation has supported and succoured me till now. I have recognised to the utmost of my power the services it has rendered me. I have given to my uncle, M. Dupleix, the government of the Karnatik, and I have ever hoped that he would gain the upper-hand over his enemies. It is with the greatest chagrin that I have heard of his recall. To the messengers who were intrusted with my letters for him the new Governor said: 'Tell the Subadar, your master, that I am sent here by my sovereign, who has forbidden me to interfere with the Mughal Government, and that he must defend himself as best he can.' They this chapter has been translated from Colonel Lawrence, and on the Ser the originals appended to the memoir Mutakharin, the other statements of Dupleix. On that correspondence, contained in it are based, on the histories of Orme, of Wilks, F F
 * The correspondence quoted in and of Grant Duff, on the narrative of