When at last, March 19, Bussy did arrive, it was soon recognised that he was not the same Bussy who had won and had maintained for many years a commanding position at the Court of the Subáhdár of the Deccan. The Bussy who landed in Gudalur in March, 1783, was a gouty gourmand who would undertake nothing and sanction nothing. He remained invisible in his tent, whilst he allowed an English army, inferior in the number of its Europeans, to blockade him in Gudalur. He was in this position when the news arrived that peace between England and France had been signed. The moment was fortunate for the English commander. Suffren had just driven the English squadron from the coast: the supplies in the English camp were exhausted. Had Bussy declined to accede to an armistice, the English army must have surrendered[1].
But it was not to be. Bussy accepted the armistice with alacrity, and the Peace of Versailles soon after formally put an end to the war.
Since that period France has renounced all open attempts to found a French Empire in India. For nearly twenty years later, by permitting her children to enlist in the service of native princes, to discipline their armies and to show them how to occupy
- ↑ Professor H. H. Wilson writes on this subject: 'It seems probable that but for the opportune occurrence of peace with France the South of India would have been lost to the English.' For a detailed account of the proceedings at this period vide the author's Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas. W. H. Allen and Co.
