how to govern, at a distance of 4000 leagues, with some hundreds of civil functionaries and some thousands of soldiers, her immense possessions in India. If there is much that is wonderful, much that is bold and daring, much political genius in the idea, it must be admitted that the honour of having inaugurated it belongs to Dupleix; and that England, which in the present day reaps from it the profit and the glory, has had but to follow the path which the Genius of France opened out to her.' Yes, indeed! Now that the lapse of nearly a century and a half has cleared away the passions and prejudices of that exciting period: now that from the basis of accomplished facts we can examine the ideas and conceptions of the men who were the pioneers of European conquest on Indian soil, there lives not a candid Englishman who will deny to Dupleix the credit of having been the first to devise the method by which European predominance on Indian soil might be established. His work did not endure because it was his misfortune to be compelled to employ inferior tools, whilst his rivals were led by men of extraordinary capacity. It did not last because just at the moment when his plans might have been realised he was recalled at the instance of the immemorial enemy of France, on the eve, moreover, of a war, which for the seven years that were to follow, was to try the resources against France of that very enemy. But the effect of his schemes survived him. The ground he had so well watered and fertilised, the capabilities of which
