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Updated: May 7, 2025
Then, when the allies attacked, he defended the city for fifty-two days, at the end of which one of the gates of the town had been captured, and the city was virtually at the mercy of the besiegers. He again delayed them by entering into negotiations for surrender. In vain Dupleix continued to urge Chunda Sahib to act energetically, and to enter Tanjore.
One of the conditions of the peace was that Madras should be restored to the English in exchange for Louisburg, the prize won by the North American colonists and released by them as reluctantly as Madras was by Dupleix.
His son Mohammed Ali fled with a scanty remnant of his army to Trichinopoly, and nearly all the Carnatic submitted to the conqueror. Next Dupleix lent his French soldiers to Mirzapha Jung, who in a short time became master of the Deccan. The new sovereigns showered wealth and favors upon the successful Frenchman.
He was mistaken about the justice as he had been about the discernment and the boldness of the French government; not a promise was accomplished; not a hope was realized; after delay upon delay, excuse upon excuse, Dupleix saw his wife expire at the end of two years, worn out with suffering and driven to despair; like her, his daughter, affianced for a long time past to Bussy, succumbed beneath the weight of sorrow; in vain did Dupleix tire out the ministers with his views and his projects for India; he saw even the action he was about to bring against the Company vetoed by order of the king.
And even the lieutenants of these viceroys frequently aspired to independence. The Nabob of Arcot was one of these latter princes. He hated the French, and befriended the English. On the death of the Viceroy of the Deccan, to whom he was subject, in 1748, Dupleix conceived his gigantic scheme of conquest.
A few months after I left, peace was made between England and France, and by its terms Dupleix had to restore Madras to the English. I hear that fighting has been going on ever since, the English and French engaging as auxiliaries to rival native princes; and especially that there was some hot fighting round Devikota. However, we shall hear about that when we get there."
England and France might be at peace, but there was no need that the English East India Company and the French East India Company should be at peace as well. The internal troubles of India afforded Dupleix the opportunity he coveted of pushing his own fortunes, and doing his best to drive the English traders out of the field.
Madras surrendered in 1746 to a powerful French fleet under La Bourdonnais, the Governor of the Island of Reunion, and a counterattack on Pondicherry by Admiral Boscawen's fleet in 1748 failed utterly, though the defence was conducted by Dupleix, a civilian.
Another torpedo from the Emden exploded her magazine. Fifteen minutes after the firing of the first shot the Russian had gone to the bottom. Von Müller now put the prow of the Emden to sea again, for he feared that both the Yarmouth and the French cruiser Dupleix had by then been summoned by wireless. Luck was with him.
While the French still held Madras, before the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle compelled the reluctant Dupleix to restore it to the English, a military episode, which might almost be called an accident, had helped to confirm enormously the influence of France in India.
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