282 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. chap, fact, to a real supremacy, over the others. But in the
- _ , beginning of 1751, his power was so far established
1751 that there was nowhere a sign of opposition. Muham- mad Ali, the rival of Chanda Sahib, had promised sub- mission and obedience, and had consented to retire from the stronghold of Trichinapalli. The English, thus deprived of all pretext for interference, were sulking at Madras and Fort St. David. Their presence, it is true, constituted a thorn in the side of the French ruler, but his hands were withheld from attacking them, and the utmost he could aim at was to bring about such a state of things in Southern India, a condition of such univer- sal acquiescence in French arbitration, as would leave his rivals without consideration and without power. Armed with the promise of Muhammad Ali to agree to the conditions that had been proposed, he seemed almost to have brought matters to that point in the spring of 1751. Whilst, then, Bussy is marching on Aurangabad — the dictator of the Dakhan — everything seems to smile on the daring statesman who, from his palace in Pondi- chery, directs all the movements on the board, and of him thus triumphant, of him who in ten years has made Pondichery the centre-point of Southern India, we cannot refuse the expression of our admiration of the soaring genius, the untiring energy, the vast and comprehensive intellect.
