United States or Laos ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Meanwhile Dupleix grew greater and greater, every day more powerful and more daring. The English had not forgotten the affair of Madras.
The mind of Dupleix, though not inattentive to commercial interests, was fixed on building up a great empire in which France should rule over a multitude of vassal native princes.
But some of them contrived to escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, then a clerk in a mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into the company's service, and soon found occasion to distinguish himself. But Dupleix, master of Madras, now formed the scheme of founding an Indian empire, and of expelling the English from the Carnatic. And India was in a state to favor his enterprises.
But, although we see that his aid would be very useful to us, in case of such a war; we do not see how, on our part, we could give him any protection. We have now, with the greatest difficulty, brought affairs to a successful conclusion in the Carnatic; but Dupleix is active and energetic, and well supported at home.
Dupleix was splendidly rewarded, and was intrusted with the command of seven thousand Indian cavalry, and received a present of two hundred thousand pounds. The only place on the Carnatic which remained in possession of the rightful viceroy was Trichinopoly, and this was soon invested by the French and Indian forces.
Such questions could be decided only by the crushing defeat of one nation, and that defeat France was to suffer in the years between 1754 and 1763. In India, the machinations of Dupleix were foiled by the equally astute but more martial Clive. We shall first consider the war in the New World. The immediate cause of the French and Indian War was a contest for the possession of the Ohio valley.
Bussy was furious, and would have quitted the Deccan, which he still occupied, but Dupleix constrained him to remain there; he himself embarked for France with his wife and daughter, leaving in India, together with his life's work destroyed in a few days by the poltroonery of his country's government, the fortune he had acquired during his great enterprises, entirely sunk as it was in the service of France; the revenues destined to cover his advances were seized by Godeheu.
For a time it seemed that in the struggle for control France, under the masterly guidance of Dupleix, must triumph. In 1756 Calcutta was taken from the English by the Nabob of Bengal, and many Englishmen died in the close room of the military prison in which they were shut up, "the Black Hole."
It will be remembered that the control and use of Bengal, upon which Clive here counts, had only lately been acquired by the English; in the days of Dupleix they did not possess them. As will be seen later, Clive's predictions in this letter were wholly fulfilled. Lapeyrouse-Bonfils: Hist. de la Marine Française.
Dupleix struggled against his fate in vain, no French armament came to his assistance. His company condemned his policy and furnished him with no aid. But still he persisted, bribed, intrigued, promised, lavished his private fortune, and everywhere tried to raise new enemies to the government at Madras, but all to no purpose.
Word Of The Day