Dutch, the English, and the French in these regions, Northern
India had formed a consolidated empire ruled from Delhi by the
great Mogul dynasty; the shadow of its power was also cast over
the lesser princes of Southern India. But after 1709, and still
more after 1739, the Mogul Empire collapsed, and the whole of
India, north and south, rapidly fell into a condition of complete
anarchy. A multitude of petty rulers, nominal satraps of the
powerless Mogul, roving adventurers, or bands of Mahratta raiders,
put an end to all order and security; and to protect themselves
and maintain their trade the European traders must needs enlist
considerable bodies of Indian troops. It had long been proved that
a comparatively small number of troops, disciplined in the
European fashion, could hold their own against the loose and
disorderly mobs who followed the standards of Indian rulers. And
it now occurred to the ambitious mind of the Frenchman Dupleix
that it should be possible, by the use of this military
superiority, to intervene with effect in the unceasing strife of
the Indian princes, to turn the scale on one side or the other,
and to obtain over the princes whose cause he embraced a
commanding influence, which would enable him to secure the
expulsion of his English rivals, and the establishment of a French
trade monopoly based upon political influence.

This daring project was at first triumphantly successful. The
English had to follow suit in self-defence, but could not equal
the ability of Dupleix. In 1750 a French protege occupied the most
important throne of Southern India at Hyderabad, and was protected
and kept loyal by a force of French sepoys under the Marquis de
Bussy, whose expenses were met out of the revenues of large
provinces (the Northern Sarkars) placed under French