build several new houses, but at
present all the big men, the council and so on, are still living at
Fort Saint David, which is still the seat of administration. So you
see, we have got better quarters; we are rid of the stenches and
nuisances of the native town; the plague of flies which made our life
a burden is abated; and we can sit here and enjoy the cool sea breeze,
without its being poisoned before it reaches us by the heaped up filth
on the beach.

"It must have wrung Dupleix's heart to give up the place over which
they expended so much pains, and after all it didn't do away with the
fighting. In April we sent a force from Fort Saint David--before we
came back here--four hundred and thirty white soldiers and a thousand
Sepoys, under the command of Captain Cope, to aid a fellow who had
been turned out of the Rajahship of Tanjore. I believe he was a great
blackguard, and the man who had taken his place was an able ruler
liked by the people."

"Then why should we interfere on behalf of the other?" Charlie asked.

"My dear Marryat," their host said compassionately, "you are very
young yet, and quite new to India. You will see, after a time, that
right has nothing at all to do with the dealings of the Company, in
their relations to the native princes. We are, at present, little
people living here on sufferance, among a lot of princes and powers
who are enemies and rivals of each other. We have, moreover, as
neighbours, another European colony considerably stronger than we are.
The consequence is, the question of right cannot enter into the
considerations of the Company. It may be said that, for every petty
kingdom in Southern India, there are at least two pretenders, very
often half a dozen. So far we have not meddled much in their quarrels,
but the French have been much more active that way. They always side
with one or other of these pretenders, and when they get the man they
support into power, of course he repays them for their assistance. In
this manner, as I shall explain to you presently, they have virtually
made themselves masters of the Carnatic, outside the walls of Fort
Saint David and this place.

"Well, our people thought to take a leaf out of the French book, and
as the ex-rajah offered us, in payment for our aid, the possession of
Devikota, a town at the mouth of the river Kolrun, a place likely to
be of great use to us, we agreed to assist him. Cope, with the land
forces, had marched to the borde