The Anglo-Indian governments were, therefore, so keenly sensitive to any apprehension of war with France that the mere rumour of a French descent on the coast aroused them to warlike activity. A native ruler who might be detected in correspondence with Mauritius was sure to be treated as a dangerous enemy, to be attacked and disabled with all possible speed. The consequence had been that each repeated demonstration of France against the English dominion in India had accelerated instead of retarding its expansion; excepting only the war that ended in 1783 with the Peace of Versailles. During the greater part of that stormy period the English were too heavily overmatched, too closely pressed in all parts of the world, to do more than hold their ground in India.
In 1781, England, without an ally, and with great odds against her, was confronted by all the great naval powers of Europe, France, Spain, and Holland, and by the North American colonies. In Asia, she was locked in a fierce struggle with the two most warlike and skilful Indian powers, both of whom were dealing with the French, who on their side had brought into play against England in India the same strategy that was proving eminently successful against her in America. England lost her American colonies not through the resistance on land, which might and would have been worn down, but through the pressure of her naval enemies upon her communications across the Atlantic. This was the weapon used against her in the east by Suffren, who had learnt from her the lesson that in
