The English colony in Madras was a trading colony. Not one of its members, up to this period, had the smallest thought of embroiling their presidency in the disputes which were frequent amongst the native chieftains. They wished to be let alone; to remain at peace; to conciliate friendship and goodwill. They were content to acknowledge the lords of the soil as their masters; to pay for the protection they enjoyed at their hands by a willing obedience; to ward off their anger by apologies and presents.
But there was a French colony also on the same coast, and in that a different policy had begun to prevail. In the year 1672 the King of Bíjapur had sold to some French traders, led by a very remarkable man, Francis Martin, a tract of land on the Coromandel coast, eighty-six miles to the south-south-west of Madras. On this tract, close to the sea, was a little village called by the natives Puducheri. This the French settlers enlarged and beautified, and made their chief place of residence and trade. By degrees the name was corrupted to Pondicherry, a title under which it became famous, and under which it is still known.
So long as M. Martin lived, the policy of the French settlers was similar to that of the English at Madras. Nor did it immediately change when Martin died (December 30, 1706). Up to 1735, when M. Benoit Dumas was appointed Governor-General of the French possessions in India (for they had besides possessions on the Malabar coast and at Chandranagar, on the Húglí, in Bengal) it was in no way departed from. M. Dumas, however, almost immediately after his assumption of office, adopted the policy of allying himself closely with native princes; of taking part in their wars; with the view of reaping therefrom territorial and pecuniary advantage. This policy, of which he was the inventor, was, we shall see, carried to the most extreme length by his successor, M. Dupleix.
It will clear the ground for the reader if we add that the prosperity of the rival settlements was greatly affected by the 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.
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.