DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3461#0018
INDIA, AND HEB HISTORY. 9
they tolerated the visitors, and the Europeans bore
with the arrogance of the delegate governors for the
sake of the advantages to be reaped from a commerce
in cottons and silks, drugs and spices, gold dust and
elephants' tusks. Gradually, as the settlements of
the French and English increased in number, the
factors sought permission to introduce small detach-
ments of European troops for the protection of their
property; and to these they added a handful of
sepoys, or native soldiers, trained and partially cos-
tumed after the European manner.
By the year 1747, one Dupleix, a French com-
mandant, had conceived the idea of establishing an
independent empire in India. He was an unscru-
pulous man, of great courage and ambition—one of
those who are produced every half-century to astound
the world by their successes, and ultimately to sink
into insignificance. Conscious of his inability to
achieve any great objects "single-handed, he began by
sowing dissensions among the nabobs in his neigh-
bourhood* The distance at which these viceroys
were placed from Delhi, made them almost irrespon-
sible, and they acted more like independent sove-
reigns than delegates from a greater potentate. A
vacancy in the viceroyalty, or Nizamut of the Deccan,
gave rise to disputes about the succession, and led
the rival pretenders to take up arms. Dupleix im-
mediately offered assistance in the shape of French
troops and artillery to one of the contending parties
■—the other threw himself upon the protection of the
English, and Major. Stringer Lawrence, the English
commandant, entered heart and soul into the contest.
From this moment began those military operations
and political intrigues which eventuated first in the
expulsion of the French from India, and gradually
led to the entire possession of the country by the
English.
they tolerated the visitors, and the Europeans bore
with the arrogance of the delegate governors for the
sake of the advantages to be reaped from a commerce
in cottons and silks, drugs and spices, gold dust and
elephants' tusks. Gradually, as the settlements of
the French and English increased in number, the
factors sought permission to introduce small detach-
ments of European troops for the protection of their
property; and to these they added a handful of
sepoys, or native soldiers, trained and partially cos-
tumed after the European manner.
By the year 1747, one Dupleix, a French com-
mandant, had conceived the idea of establishing an
independent empire in India. He was an unscru-
pulous man, of great courage and ambition—one of
those who are produced every half-century to astound
the world by their successes, and ultimately to sink
into insignificance. Conscious of his inability to
achieve any great objects "single-handed, he began by
sowing dissensions among the nabobs in his neigh-
bourhood* The distance at which these viceroys
were placed from Delhi, made them almost irrespon-
sible, and they acted more like independent sove-
reigns than delegates from a greater potentate. A
vacancy in the viceroyalty, or Nizamut of the Deccan,
gave rise to disputes about the succession, and led
the rival pretenders to take up arms. Dupleix im-
mediately offered assistance in the shape of French
troops and artillery to one of the contending parties
■—the other threw himself upon the protection of the
English, and Major. Stringer Lawrence, the English
commandant, entered heart and soul into the contest.
From this moment began those military operations
and political intrigues which eventuated first in the
expulsion of the French from India, and gradually
led to the entire possession of the country by the
English.