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2 had been the third European nation which had sought to open a profitable trade with India, and which, for that purpose, had secured lodgments on her coasts. Of the two nations which had preceded them, the Portuguese had declined; the Dutch were declining. The vigour and energy of the race which inhabits England was producing, in the rapid increase of the trade, the results which invariably follow the development of those qualities, when a fourth power, France, the hereditary rival of England in Europe, began, under the influence of MM. Dumas and Dupleix, to develop, in an extraordinary manner, the resources of a settlement which one of her children, François Martin, had made, under very difficult circumstances, on the same coast. This settlement, called from the town of which Martin had obtained possession Pondichery, had reached a high state of prosperity under the careful nursing of the immediate predecessor of Dupleix, M. Benoit Dumas. This able man had known how to conciliate the friendship of the native princes on the coast. In return for many civilities and good offices, he had been granted permission to enlist sipáhís and to erect fortifications. Between Pondichery and the English settlement of Madras there had been in his time no thought of hostility. Peace between the rival powers reigned in Europe, and no temptation arose in India to disturb the happy relations of friendship.

In October 1741 M. Dupleix succeeded Dumas at Pondichery. A man remarkably gifted, endowed with a genius which could conceive the largest schemes, he continued that system of ingratiating himself with the native princes, which had been attended with such favourable results in the time of his predecessor. The policy was soon to bear the most brilliant fruits. In 1743 the English and French had taken opposite sides in the war