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aspired to become the overlord of India itself, and had actually grasped within her hand the sceptre of Indian empire. For a brief and breathless moment the whole continent of India vibrated beneath the magnetic touch of the dramatic figure of Dupleix, and when the glittering prospect opened up by him faded before the grim tenacity and forceful determination of the seamen and traders of Great Britain, a craving for empire sprang up in adjacent territories and found expression in a series of ill-conceived enterprises in the direction of Burma and Siam. Bearing in mind the disappointment suffered by her eclipse on the Indian continent, it is not altogether surprising to find that the sequence of events in Further India already described, disclosed in their onward march a growing rivalry between England and France, and pointed clearly to the danger which attended the approaching shock of collision between their rapidly converging frontiers "The game of conquest and politics in Indo-China, the vicissitudes of which had been heretofore almost confined to the struggles of the obscure