Page:History of the French in India.djvu/393

BUSSY PUSHES FRENCH INTERESTS. 369 These arrangements having been completed, Saiyid chap. Lashkar returned, unsuspected, to his office of Diwan, vm and the Subadar, who, accompanied by Bussy and his 17 5 2> army, had been moving in the direction of Aurangabad, set out for Haidarabad, destined thenceforth to be the capital of the Dakhan. This was in the early part of 1753. During the year that had passed, Bussy in addi- tion to his own duties had been in constant communi- cation with Dupleiz, had watched and lamented over the incapacity of Law without being able to draw him from his embarrassment, and had shown in every letter his own readiness to be employed for the best advantage of France. In the course of it he learned the decline and death of Chanda Sahib, at the same time that he received from Dupleix intimation as to the utter unfit- ness of him who should have been his successor. Under these circumstances he applied himself with untiring zeal to use his position at the court of the Subadar for the benefit of France. How, he thought, could this be more strenuously carried out than by the appointment of Dupleix himself to be Nawwab of the Karnatik. This appointment had indeed been conferred upon Dupleix by Muzaffar Jang, but, from motives of policy, Dupleix had made over the dignity of the office to Chanda Sahib. On the death of this latter, was it to revert to Dupleix, for him either to administer the office himself or to appoint a deputy in his place, or was he to suffer it to be bestowed upon some possible enemy of the French power I To such a question there could be but one reply. By his influence with the Subadar, with whom the nomination legally rested, the confirma- tion only of the court of Delhi being required, Bussy procured the issue of the patent for the investiture of Dupleix, the receipt of which at Pondichery we noticed in our last chapter. We have now described to our readers the manner in which Bussy was employed during that trying period, B B