Page:History of the French in India.djvu/471

GREAT MERITS OF SAUNDERS. 445 given up, they were less important than the abnegation chap. of moral influence, of the prestige of superiority which their renunciation implied. The treaty, in fact, was an 1751. announcement to the native princes of Southern India that thenceforth France was not strong enough to con- tend with England on the soil of Southern India, that she gave up the struggle ; that she abandoned her allies to their fate. The impression produced by the rival of Godeheu upon the bankers of Machhlipatan has been already quoted Damaging as that was, this confirmation of the views then enter- tained, and declared by Moracin and others to be exag- gerated, was a hundred times more injurious. We shall see, as we proceed, the fatal effects produced upon the princes of India by this policy of abnegation. In striking contrast to the conduct of the French Governor was the action of the Englishman, Saunders. If the empire of Hindustan is an appanage of which the English have reason to be proud; if the possession of India has brought with it solid advantages to Great Britain, then do his countrymen still owe to the memory of Mr. Saunders a debt which was never fully acknow- ledged to himself. It was his constancy and resolution, his determination, when the English fortunes were at their lowest, to support Muhammad Ali, in order that through him he might stop the progress of Dupleix ; that, more than any other circumstances, changed the face of events ; that tended, by a slow but certain pro- cedure, to lower the pride of France, to exalt the for- tunes of England. Never did he despair, never did he hesitate in his determination to oppose those pretensions which, if submitted to, would, he felt, have overwhelmed the English settlement in ruin. True it is that he was fortunate ; true, that he enjoyed the rare advantage of having a Clive and a Lawrence at his disposal. But it is not too much to affirm, that but for his stubborn policy even these advantages would have ultimately