have scarcely failed to annihilate it. With its destruction Madras and all Southern India would have passed over to the French.[1]
But it was not to be; nor, even if it had been, can it be imagined that the scion of the House of Bourbon who then governed France, well-intentioned though he may have been, would have refused to restore it without conditions. His predecessor, after having lavished French blood and spent French treasure in a war which was costly, and in spite of himself successful, restored at the peace which followed[2] all his conquests, and agreed even to dismiss his guest from his hearth, saying he "would not treat as a tradesman but as a king." This kingly method of benefiting one's adversaries at the expense of one's country would seem to be an heirloom of the House of Bourbon. For, with respect to India, the treaty of Versailles carried out precisely the same principle. The war which that treaty terminated had been a most disastrous war for England. She had lost, and rightly lost, her American colonies; she seemed, for the moment, shorn of her prestige; the French could have insisted at least on the restoration of her possessions in India to the status quo ante 1761. This was a cardinal point which neither the Republic
- ↑ Professor H. H. Wilson thus writes on this subject: "It seems probable that but for the opportune occurrence of peace with France, the South of India would have been lost to the English. The annihilation of the army at Cuddalore would have been followed by the siege of Madras, and there was little chance of defending it successfully against Tippoo and the French."
- ↑ The Peace of Aix la Chapelle.
