open India to the foreigner than to bar the doors against him.
From such circumstances as these two consequences might fairly be inferred: first, that the power of the foreign Companies would steadily expand so long as they could rely on their communications with Europe; secondly, that commercial jealousies in Asia and national antipathies in Europe would before long bring the expanding Companies into collision with each other. Lastly, it might be predicted that whenever this collision should occur, the Company that succeeded in overthrowing its European antagonist would have little to fear from native adversaries, and would have attained an incontestable ascendency in the adjoining provinces of India.
At the opening of the eighteenth century, therefore, the situation may thus be briefly indicated. The Dutch Company, still rich and prospering commercially, held Ceylon and some Indian stations, but the centre of their operations was slowly shifting further eastward, and as the century advanced their naval power declined rapidly, falling from one hundred and fifty-one vessels of war in 1671 to forty-two in 1740. The French Company had suffered heavily from the recent war in Europe, during which they had lost Pondicherry and had recovered it only in 1697; they were deep in debt, and were altogether in no condition for pushing forward enterprises in Asia. The English Company was flourishing and had obtained a firm foothold on the Indian mainland; but the Moghul Empire still held together
