the English, and the French in these regions,
Northern India had formed a consolidated empire ruled from Delhi by the
great Mogul dynasty; the shadow of its power was also cast over the
lesser princes of Southern India. But after 1709, and still more after
1739, the Mogul Empire collapsed, and the whole of India, north and
south, rapidly fell into a condition of complete anarchy. A multitude
of petty rulers, nominal satraps of the powerless Mogul, roving
adventurers, or bands of Mahratta raiders, put an end to all order and
security; and to protect themselves and maintain their trade the
European traders must needs enlist considerable bodies of Indian
troops. It had long been proved that a comparatively small number of
troops, disciplined in the European fashion, could hold their own
against the loose and disorderly mobs who followed the standards of
Indian rulers. And it now occurred to the ambitious mind of the
Frenchman Dupleix that it should be possible, by the use of this
military superiority, to intervene with effect in the unceasing strife
of the Indian princes, to turn the scale on one side or the other, and
to obtain over the princes whose cause he embraced a commanding
influence, which would enable him to secure the expulsion of his
English rivals, and the establishment of a French trade monopoly based
upon political influence.

This daring project was at first triumphantly successful. The English
had to follow suit in self-defence, but could not equal the ability of
Dupleix. In 1750 a French protege occupied the most important throne of
Southern India at Hyderabad, and was protected and kept loyal by a
force of French sepoys under the Marquis de Bussy, whose expenses were
met out of the revenues of large provinces (the Northern Sarkars)
placed under French administration; while in the Carnatic, the coastal
region where all the European traders had their south-eastern
headquarters, a second French protege had almost succeeded in crushing
his rival, whom the English company supported. But the genius of Clive
reversed the situation with dramatic swiftness; the French authorities
at home, alarmed at these dangerous adventures, repudiated and recalled
Dupleix (1754), and the British power was left to apply the methods
which he had invented. When the Seven Years' War broke out (1756), the
French, repenting of their earlier decision, sent a substantial force
to restore their lost influence in the Carnatic, but the