1761, on the plain around Pánípat, had been fought the decisive battle which broke for a time the power of the great Maráthá League, without repairing the fallen fortunes of the House of Bábar. Early in the same month Carnac scattered the Mughal forces at Suan; and Sháh Alam was glad to make peace on terms which recognised Mír Kásim as rightful Súbahdár of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. The same month saw the upshot of the long struggle between French and English in Southern India, which opened with the fall of Madras in 1746. Soon after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle and the death of the first and greatest Nizám of the Deccan, that struggle was renewed informally under the flags of rival claimants to South-Indian thrones. English officers strove to better the teaching of Dupleix, and the trained Sepoys of Clive and Lawrence fought like Englishmen against their French and native opponents. In 1757, when France and England were again at war in Europe, the struggle in Southern India became a regular grapple for life.
It went on with varying fortune until, in September, 1760, the daring Lally found himself shut up in Pondicherry by the foe whom he had once planned to drive into the sea. On the 16th of the next January, 1761, the capital of French India was surrendered by its starving garrison into the hands of the resolute Eyre Coote. Three months later the last of the French garrisons laid down its arms. The defences of Pondicherry were levelled to the ground; and the dreams of Dupleix, Bussy, and Lally remained for ever unfulfilled.
