viji.] POWER OF THE CROWN. 159 was won by the English, but it was restored to France by the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Among the West India islands the French too in the course of the seventeenth century founded several important plantations, the chief of which were Guadaloiipe, Martinique, and Grenada. In India too, where most of the maritime nations of Europe had some settlement, France began with one at Sjirat, which was settled by the French East India Company in 1668, through the policy of Colbert. Pre- sently the French gained Pondichefry, and in 1720 the island of Mauritius or the Isle of France. In short the French at this time quite outstripped the English, and even the Dutch, in India. They had settlements at several points, a considerable territory, and were able to wage war with the native princes. In Lewis XV.'s time France had two men of great ability in the east, Labourdonnais, governor of Mauritius, and Dupleix, founder of Chander- nagore and governor of the settlements on the mainland. In 1746, during the war of the Austrian Succession, Labourdonnais took the English settlement of Madras, which was restored at the Peace of Aix-laChapelle. But the two leaders did not agree with one another, and neither of them was appreciated at home. Labourdon- nais came home only to be imprisoned and neglected. Dupleix meanwhile went on founding a great dominion in India, and the forces of the two East India companies often met in arms as allies of various native princes, even when England and France were not at war. At last in 1754 Dupleix was recalled and his property confiscated, and the hopes of France becoming the leading power in India came to an end. 31. The Seven Years' War, 1756. — These struggles in Asia and America were finally merged in the next European war in which England and France took a part, that called the Seven Years' War., which began in 1756. Here the chief powers seemed to have changed places since the war of the Austrian Succession. France and England were still opposed to one another, and Austria and Prussia were still opposed to one another, but this time France was on the side of Austria, and England on that of Prussia. Kaimitz, the minister of the Empress- Queen, saw that the growing power of Prussia was really more dangerous to the Austrian dominion than France was; so all kinds of means were taken to win over France to the Austrian side. The Empress-Queen herself stooped
