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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 2, p. 471.

HISTORY OP BRITISH RULE 47r the mouth of the Coleroon river, was ceded to France in reward for the services of Dumas. In the following year (I740) Dumas took a still more striking part in politics. After the battle of Damalcheruvu on May I9, I740, in which Dost Alt, the Nawab of the Carnatic, was defeated and slain by the Marathas, he received within the walls of Pondi- cherry the families of the late Nawab and of his son-in' law Chanda Sahib. He resisted all the menaces of tha- Marathas to induce him to surrender the fugitives, and his conduct was reported at Delhi. The Mughal emperor resolved to recognize his conduct by creating Dumas a Nawab, and giving him the title of commander of 4,500 horse. This rank and title Dumas obtained permission to transfer to his successor, Dupleix, who took over the Governorship of Pondi- cherry in I741. Joseph Franqois Dupleix had made himselfDupleix, conspicuous by his able administration at Chandernagore, the 1741. French Settlement on the Hooghly in Bengal, which he had found almost in ruins and raised into a prosperous mart. He grasped the aims of the policy of Dumas, and determined by intervening in native politics to make his nation preponderant in India. He understood the position of affairs better than the mercantile governors of the English settlements, and made use of his rank as a Nawab to negotiate on an equal footing with the native princes. Such was the condition of affairs in Southern India when English war broke out between the English and the French in Europe andh French, in I744. Dupleix was Governor of Pondicherry, and Clive Carnatic. was a young writer at Madras. An English fleet appeared first First French on the Coromandel coast, but Dupleix induced the Nawhb of War, Arcot to interpose and prevent hostilities. In 1746 a French 744-8. squadron arrived, under the command of La Bourdonnais, Governor of the Mauritius. Madras surrendered after a few Madras days' bombardment; and the only settlement in that part of taken, India left to the English was Fort St. David, a few miles south 1746. of Pondicherry, where Clive and some other fugitives sought shelter. Dupleix, whose whole attention was concentrated on India, desired to destroy the fortifications of Madras, and to surrender the place to his friend, the NawAb of the Carnatic. La Bourdonnais, however, made an agreement with the English authorities to hold the city to ransom. But his fleet having been shattered in a storm he returned to Mauritius, and Dupleix annulled the treaty. The NawAb, angry that Madras was not made over to him, marched with Io,ooo men to drive the French out of the city, but was-