he action of their
respective principals in Europe. On this point all the advantages lay
with the English. For, whilst the Company of the Indies at Paris,
and, it must be added, the French Government likewise, starved their
dependency in India, and supplied them with inefficient and often
ill-timed assistance, the East India Company, and the Government of
the King of England, made a far better provision for the necessities
of Madras.

It must, however, in candour be admitted that at the outset the
French were better supplied with men and money than the English.
Until the importance of the quarrel was recognized in Europe it
became then a contest between the natural qualities of the men on the
spot--a test of the capabilities of the races they represented.

{22}I turn now, after this brief explanation of the position in
Southern India in 1744, to describe the causes which led to the
catastrophe which supervened very shortly after the arrival in India
of the hero of this history.

{23}

CHAPTER III
HOW THE WAR IN THE KARNATIK AFFECTED THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH
SETTLEMENTS

The trouble came from the Karnatik. The family of the chief who had
held the position of Nawab at the time of the death of Aurangzeb had
adopted the new fashion, then becoming universal, of making the post
hereditary in his family. Saadat-ulla Khan, the Nawab in question,
had himself been regularly appointed in 1710 by the court of Delhi.
After a peaceful rule of twenty-two years he had died (1732) without
issue, after having appointed his nephew, Dost Ali, to succeed him as
Nawab, the younger brother of Dost Ali, Bakar Ali, to be governor of
the fort and district of Vellore; and Ghulam Husen, the nephew of his
favourite wife, better known as Chanda Sahib, to be Diwan, or prime
minister, to his successor.

These dispositions were carried out. But they were by no means
pleasing to the Subahdar of the Deccan, the Nizam-ul-Mulk to whom the
reader has been introduced. That eminent nobleman was not content
that his subordinates should act as he was prepared to act himself.
His sanction had not been {24}obtained to the transaction. He used
then his influence at Delhi to prevent the confirmation which, even
in those disturbed times, every chieftain sought to obtain for every
act of spoliation. For the moment he proceeded no further. He was
content to leave Dost Ali in the position of a nobleman ruling
without the authority of his liege lord, himse