THE DECISIVE VICTORY OF PARADIS. 105 Madras had hastened on the first intimation of the chap. approach of Paradis to march to his aid. They arrived > in time to intercept the retreating masses of the 1746. Nawwab's army, and to convert their defeat into an utter and demoralising rout. Their general, Mafauz Khan, had fled on the first charge of the French ; the body of men who formed his army, without a leader, and terror-stricken by their crushing overthrow, at once gave up all thoughts of gaining Madras, and did not halt till they had traversed many miles from that place in the direction of Arkat.* It may be well asserted that of all the decisive actions that have been fought in India, there is not one more memorable than this. Not, indeed, that there has not since been displayed a daring equal to that of Paradis, or that numbers as disproportionate have not within the memory of the living achieved as great a victory. The circumstance which stamps this action as so memorable is that it was the very first of its kind, that it proved, to the surprise of both parties, the absolute and overwhelm- ing superiority of the disciplined European soldier to his Asiatic rival. Up to that time the native princes of India had, by virtue of their position as lords of the soil or as satraps of the Mughal, of their numerous follow- ing, their acknowledged power, arrogated to themselves a superiority which none of the European settlers on the eastern coast had ever thought of disputing. With the French, as we have seen, it had been a maxim of settled policy to avoid even the semblance of hostility towards them. We have noticed how Martin and Dumas and Du- pleix had toiled to effect this end. When at last Dupleix, to avoid a more dangerous contingency, accepted this dreaded alternative, he did so more in the hope that he might find some means of pacifying the Nawwab whilst the siege was in progress, than in any expectation of
- Orme, Dupleix.
o 2
