enable Madrass to stand the brunt of the arduous conflict which must soon ensue.
No one doubted that Madrass would be besieged as soon as the monsoon had sent the squadrons off the coast, if reinforcements should not arrive before; but Clive did not entertain the surmise that it could be taken whilst it had provisions: and as troops were known to be on the way from England, if the ships in which they were embarked should lose their passage in this year, they would probably arrive in the first months of the next. Nevertheless it was necessary, if possible, to alleviate the inequality between the English and French force in Coromandel.
But the preference which each of the Company's presidencies was naturally inclined to give to its own safety, as the only ground on which the property and fortunes of the whole community were established, suggested apprehensions, that Madrass, in the same manner as it had been treated by. the presidency of Calcutta, would, whatsoever might be the necessity of Bengal, detain, on their own service, whatsoever troops might be sent to their assistance; and, although little was to be immediately apprehended in Bengal from the French, yet the intire estrangement of the Nabob, and the hazard of all that remained due from him, were to be expected, if he saw the English force too considerably diminished, without the immediate power of recall, to oppose either his own attempts against them, or to afford the assistance he might want, whether in the maintenance of his authority against his own subjects, or the defence of his territory against foreign enemies.
In consequence of these conclusions, it was determined not to send a body of troops to Madrass, but to employ all that could with prudence be spared, in concert with Anunderauze, against the French in the ceded provinces; which would either occasion a diversion of their troops in the Carnatic, or, if they neglected this assistance, would deprive them at once of all they had acquired by their long connexion with the Subah of the Decan: and, lest any danger during the expedition should threaten Bengal, the troops were only to obey the immediate orders of Calcutta.
