Page:History of the French in India.djvu/365

REVIEW OF THE POSITION OF DUPLEIX. 341 700 sipahis and 40 Europeans sent by Dupleix to relieve C y^ p it, and then marching on Chengalpat, the strongest . , . 1_ place next to Jinji in that part of the country, forced 17 52. the French garrison of 40 Europeans and 500 sipahis to evacuate it. He then proceeded to Madras, and thence to England. Notwithstanding these losses, however, a careful survey of the position of Dupleix at the close of 1752, and a contrast with the state to which he had been reduced by the surrender of Law and d'Auteuil but six months before, will show how much his vast genius had been able within that short period to accomplish. To do this completely, his relations to the Directors of the Company of the Indies must be borne in mind. This Company, not possessing one -fourth part of the wealth of the English Company, had deceived itself by the hope that the position of Dupleix, as master of the Karnatik, was too assured, too secure for him to require any special aid from France. The Directors looked rather to Dupleix to transport to France vast sums of money. No doubt even up to the end of 1751, the position of Dupleix justified the public men in France in the most sanguine hopes as to the future of French India. But that was the very reason why real statesmen would have aided and supported him with all the means at their disposal. The transport of 2,000 or 3,000 men to Pon- dichery in 1751, would almost certainly have given France absolute possession of Southern India. She her- self would not have felt the loss of that insignificant number of her soldiers, whilst they could scarcely have failed to gain for her the coveted prize. But instead of support of this nature the Directors literally starved Dupleix. They sent him comparatively a small number of ships, and no funds ; the few men to serve as soldiers — to gain for France an empire greater than herself— were the off-scourings of the jails and the sweepings of the galleys. When he asked them for a competent