120 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. chap, of ]^a Bourdonnais, but they did not immediately send ' , , back the ships. They informed him that he possessed 1743. all their confidence, and that it was to him they looked to take the supreme post in India in case of any accident happening to Dupleix. Meanwhile, Cardinal Fleury had died (January 29, 1743), war had been declared between France and England, and La Bour- donnais saw with pain the great rivals of his nation reaping the field which he had sown to gather.* That English fleet, under Commodore Barnet, of which we have already spoken, had come to cruise in the Indian seas, and French merchantmen were picked up in every direction. La Bourdonnais could do nothing to hinder their depredations. As if to add to his perplexities, he, at this time, when utterly powerless himself, re- ceived a pressing message from Dupleix, with whom he had been some time in correspondence, begging him to hasten, with all the force at his disposal, to the defence of Pondichery. 1744. Then was seen, in full perfection, an example of the truth of the maxim that great difficulties are nothing more than obstacles which a real man may overcome. It would seem impossible that this man, left destitute himself, should have been able to carry assistance to a countryman in distress. But no axiom is more true than this, that nothing is impossible to a brave man — brave, we mean, not in the narrow view of personal courage, but in its widest and its broadest sense ; brave to bear the reproach, the obloquy, the hatred, the discontent, of his fellow-men ; brave to disregard the studied neglect, the insolent glance, the open attacks, of men whom accident has placed higher than himself in the social scale ; brave still, despite of all, to go on straight to the end he has marked out to himself,
- " We are now executing against he had taken, "that which M. de
you," said Commodore Barnet to the la Bourdonnais had projected against captain of a French merchantman us."
