Page:History of the French in India.djvu/503

 EFFECT OF GODEHEIj's POLICY. a letter to Moracin,* " all the necessity of not abandon- ing Salabat Jang in the position in which he now is, and I have, therefore, ordered M. de Bussy to rejoin him as soon as possible." In consequence of these instructions, Bussy, after settling the revenue administration of the ceded districts, and seeing French authority enforced from their most northern to their southern point, returned to Salabat Jang, and resumed his old position at his court. It very soon appeared, however, that the recall of Dupleix and the substitution in his place of one so im- bued with doctrinaire principles as was Godeheu, had made a profound impression upon the Muhammadan nobles in the Dakhan. To them, up to this point, the very name of Dupleix had had a magic sound ; they had regarded him with respect, with veneration, with a sort of dread. He had combined in their eyes all the energy and daring of the Northern race with the tact, the subtlety, the management of the Eastern. Feeling that he was their master, they yet had not chafed under the yoke. Affection was mingled with their respect, and reverence with their dread. The Subadar himself had always addressed and spoken of him as his uncle. By all he was regarded as the leader who could not fail. And now, suddenly, he was dismissed — dismissed too with every mark of ignominy — -dismissed to be replaced by o ne who openly declaimed against warlike enter- prises, and declared that the mission of the French nation in Southern India was purely commercial ! This declaration sounded strange, indeed, in the ears of the proud nobles of the Dakhan, — the descendants of the men who had followed Akbar, who regarded commerce as the pursuit of an inferior race and of inferior men. inents in the Dakhan, from 1754 to memoir of Dupleix, and the Seir 1758, is based upon the histories of Mutakherin. Orme, Wilks, and Grant Duff, the
 * The narrative of Busy's achieve- offioial correspondence attached to the