POLITICAL HISTORY.
This Subadar of the Deccan died in 1748 and the French and English took opposite sides in the disputed succession which followed. The events of this struggle belong rather to the 'history of the southern districts of the Presidency than to that of Vizagapatam, and it is enough to mention here that eventually a French protégé, Salábat Jang, secured the post of Subadar, and that Bussy, the French general, obtained from him in 1753 the cession of four of the Northern Circars (not Guntúr) for the support of his troops. Masulipatam and the country adjacent had been already ceded to the French in 1750; and Bussy sent M. Moracin, the French officer in charge there, instructions to take possession of the new acquisitions.
The Faujdar of Chicacole, Jaf ar Ali, was extremely disinclined to give up his charge to the French, and he persuaded Gajapati Viziaráma Rázu, head of the Vizianagram family and the most powerful of the local renter-chieftains who had come into being during the Musalman rule, to join him in opposing M. Moracin's entry. The latter, however, seduced Viziaráma Rázu from this compact by promising to lease him the Rajahmundry and Chicacole Circars at a rate much below their value. Finding himself deserted, Jafar Ali called in the help of the Maráthas of Nagpur, who crossed the hills by the ghát at Páchipenta (under the guidance of the zamindar of that place); devastated the two Circars from end to end plundered and burnt the Dutch factory at Bimlipatam (but spared the Vizagapatam settlement of the English, whose friendship Jafar Ali courted and who had encouraged him in his revolt); defeated Viziaráma Rázu near Vizianagram; fought an irregular action against the combined forces of that chief and M. Moracin at Tummapála near Anakápalle; and then suddenly decamped south, crossed the Gódávari by a ford they had discovered, and regained their own country with an immense booty. Having secured the loot, they troubled no further about Jafar Ali's aspirations, and that gentleman was obliged to submit.
In July 1754 Bussy went in person to Masulipatam and Rajahmundry, settled affairs in the Circars, and appointed one Ibráhím Khán as Fanjdar of Chicacole. Soon afterwards, however, relations between him and the Subadar of the Deccan became strained, at last an open rupture occurred, and for several weeks in the summer of 1756 he was obliged to entrench himself against attack in the gardens of Charmál near Hyderabad. The authorities at Madras were only prevented from joining the Subadar against him by the necessity of sending every available
31
