Page:History of the French in India.djvu/367

THE GREAT RESOURCES OF DUPLEIX. 343 Never was he more full of resources than when chai apparently the well of those resources had been dried t up. The princes of India never felt safe when they 1752. were opposed to that versatile intellect, to that resourceful genius. So thoroughly did the English recognise his magic power, that they kept their puppet, Muhammad Ali, in the strictest seclusion. Dupleix contrived, nevertheless, to correspond with Muhammad Ali. It was only, however, to receive an answer begging Dupleix not to impute to him the fault of his conduct, " for," added Muhammad Ali, " you know that I am no longer master of my actions." Never, perhaps, was his genius more eminently dis- played than after the catastrophe of Srirangam. With- out troops he was exposed to the full fury of the victorious army of Lawrence and Clive, and though these were forbidden to attack Pondichery, they had it apparently in their power to reduce the French settlement to the most insignificant dimensions, to deprive it of all real power in the country, of all in- fluence with the natives. Yet by raising up enemies within their own camp, Dupleix delayed their march from TrichinapalH, rendered any decided action on their part impossible, gained for himself that which of all other things was most necessary to him, — time, — and actually succeeded in less than two months after that great disaster, in beating in the field the victorious English, and in determining the most powerful native allies of that nation to transfer their material aid to the French colony. But for the precipitancy of Ker- jean, the advantages gained by the English at Trichina- palH would have been quite neutralised. It was, it must be admitted, an immense misfortune to Dupleix, that whilst his own commanders in the Karnatik were men of the most ordinary ability, and even, as in the case of Law, of marked imbecility of character, there should have been opposed to him the