ured the succession in Southern India for his
second son, Nasir Jang.[1] The Nawab of the Karnatik, {31}styled
officially, of Arcot, was a stranger to the province, the unpopular
and suspected Anwar-ud-din. His authority there was not very secure.
There were many pretenders waiting for the first mishap: amongst them
his confederate in the murder of Saiyud Muhammad; Chanda Sahib, still
in confinement at Satara; and many others. The elements of danger
abounded everywhere. There were few petty chiefs who did not dub
themselves 'Nawabs,' and aspire to positions higher than those held
by them at the moment. The match alone was wanting to produce a
general flame.

[Footnote 1: Elliot's _History of India as told by its own
Historians_, vol. viii. p. 113.]

Under ordinary circumstances this state of affairs would not
necessarily have affected the European settlers on the coast. But for
them, too, the crisis was approaching. In 1740 the death of the
Emperor, Charles VI, had thrown the greater part of Europe into a
blaze. Three years later England had entered the field as an upholder
of the Pragmatic Sanction. The news of this intervention, which
necessitated war with France, reached India towards the close of
1744, and immediately affected the relations towards one another of
the rival settlements on the Coromandel coast.

{32}

CHAPTER IV
HOW THE FORTUNES OF ROBERT CLIVE WERE AFFECTED BY THE HOSTILITIES
BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN SOUTHERN INDIA

The events narrated in the second and third chapters must be studied
by the reader who wishes to understand the India of 1744-65--the
India which was to be the field for the exercise of the energies of
the hero of this biography. It was an India, he will see, differing
in all respects from the India of the present day: an India which may
not improperly be termed an Alsatia, in which, as we have seen,
murder was rampant, and every man fought for his own hand. What it
then was it would be again were the English to leave the people to
their own devices.

In the autumn of 1744 the Governor of Pondicherry, M. Dupleix, who
had succeeded Dumas in October, 1741, received a despatch from his
Directors notifying that a war with England was impending; requiring
him to diminish his expenditure; to cease to continue to fortify
Pondicherry; and to act with the greatest caution. A little later
they wrote to say that war had actually been declared, that they had
instructed {33}th