"Mr. Watts and Omichund[111] are at Moorshedabad, and have many meetings with the great men. The last letter I received from Mr. Watts, he desires that our proposals may be sent, and that they only wait for them to put every thing in execution; so that you may very shortly expect to hear of a revolution which will put an end to all French expectations of ever settling in this country again. The Patans, who were coming this way, have been pacified by a sum of money, and are returning to their own country. Had they approached near, every thing would have been overset in this country, from three fourths of the Nabob's army being against him. It is a most disagreeable circumstance, to find that the troubles are likely to commence again: but the opinion here is universal, that there can be neither peace nor trade without a change of government."
When Chandernagore was taken, Clive's next object was to root out the French from this quarter of India. This appears from all his letters, public and private. It was, as he repeatedly states, his confirmed opinion, that the English and their European rivals could not have coexistence, as political powers, in India; and both had gone too far to be able to recede. The superiority was, therefore, to be decided by the sword; and on this ground, he deemed it to be his duty to follow up the success which had attended the British arms, by the pursuit and capture of such of the European enemy as yet remained in Bengal.
The corps under the command of M. Law, when joined by the deserters and French officers, and men who had broken their parole, or escaped from Chandernagore, amounted to only a hundred Europeans and sixty sepoys; but they were, notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary, protected by the Nabob, who evidently looked to them as auxiliaries in a war which he anticipated with the English.
The hopes with which the French continued to feed him, and in which they themselves probably indulged, of receiving reinforcements from Bussy through Cuttack, were not of a nature to be treated with neglect. The great plan formed by Dupleix, and executed by Bussy, of establishing a paramount power and influence in the Deckan, had, to a great degree, succeeded; and though commercial considerations had, during the short interval of peace in Europe, led to an opposite policy, which condemned the whole system pursued by the French governor as one of irrational ambition, and irreconcileable with the interests of the French company, the moment war with England occurred, prudential resolutions were forgotten, and every preparation was made to establish the French supremacy in India. Godeheu, who succeeded Dupleix, and who, at first, appeared only anxious to abandon all his predecessor had gained, now sought to preserve and improve every advantage which yet remained, as the result of former measures. Bussy was promised early support, and directed to maintain the possessions ceded to France, which extended six hundred miles along the coast of Coromandel, and Orissa, from Moodappely south, to the pagoda of Juggernaut, north.