Page:History of the French in India.djvu/357

DUPLEIX RALLIES FRIENDS AROUND HIM. 333 native princes should occupy such a position. For then chap. each ally would measure his own claims by the claims ' of his rival, and it would inevitably happen that such 1752. claims would often clash. Now in the war that had just then concluded, Muhammad Ali, the rival of Chanda Sahib, had been aided by three native allies, — by the Raja of Tanjur, the Raja of Maisur, and the Marathas. So long as it seemed certain that Muhammad Ali and his English allies would prove triumphant, — a conclusion which the imbecility of Law had made clear to the acute intellects of the natives at an early period of the contest, — it was evident to Dupleix that no attempts to bring them over to his side would have the smallest effect. Nevertheless he maintained native envoys at their courts, instructed by him from time to time to act as circumstances might render advisable. It was then, when victory declared itself against him, when he had no more any troops and not a single ally, that he put in action those arts of which no one better than he understood the use. His attempts were not at first made on Muhammad Ali. The English, he well knew, were acting in the name of that prince, and would be bound to attend mainly to his interests. Of the other parties to the alliance, the Marathas were the most influential, and with these, at the moment when the power he represented lay lowest in the estimation of the world, he commenced his secret negotiations. So well did he succeed that Muhammad Ali and his English allies soon found that almost the only profit they had derived from their victory was the surrender of Law and his army. In a moment, as it were, they discovered that the animosity of the Maisurians against Muhammad Ali, and of Murari Rao against both, would prevent that combined action in the field on which they had previously calculated; whilst the men of the Tanjur contingent, sick of service which seemed likely to bring