M. Law was a nephew of the famous financial projector, John Law, of Lauriston, near Edinburgh, who, in 1720, was Premier of France, and Comptroller-General of Finance--the same whose desperate schemes brought the kingdom to the verge of bankruptcy. M. Law had made himself useful to the Schah Zaddah, son of the late Mogul, in supporting the young prince's hereditary claims, and enforcing his authority on the provinces of the empire. With 200 Frenchmen (principally fugitives from Lally's outposts) he persuaded the schah to turn his arms against Bengal; and accordingly the young and rash prince entered that rich and fertile province at the head of 80,000 Indians, whose operations were directed by Law, and certain chevaliers his friends. In the eye of the British (who had then become the arbiters of Oriental thrones), the presence of the Scottish refugee and his followers was more prejudicial to the title of Zaddah than any other objection, and they joined the Subah of Bengal to oppose his progress. A battle ensued at Guya, when Major Carnac, with 500 British, 2500 sepoys, and 20,000 blacks, cut the vast force of the young prince to pieces, and took prisoner M. Law, with sixty French officers. Soon after the fall of Pondicherry, the French settlement of Mahe, on the coast of Malabar, was reduced by Major Hector Munro, of the 89th Highlanders, who captured there 200 pieces of cannon, and thus the whole commerce of the mighty peninsula of India, from the point of the Carnatic to the banks of the Ganges, fell under the dominion of Britain, together with the extensive trade of the vast and wealthy provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orixa. On the 3rd February, the nabob made his triumphal entry into Pondicherry, seated in a wooden castle on the back of a gigantic elephant, accompanied by twelve of his wives, escorted by British troops and by his own guards armed with lances, bows, and matchlocks. Ultimately Lally received back his property, to the amount of 100,000_l._ in cash, and being brought to Britain a prisoner of war in H.M.S. _Onslow_, landed in September, 1761. He was confined for a time to a certain limit in Nottinghamshire; and on obtaining leave of George III. to depart, most unfortunately for himself, turned his steps towards France, the land of his father's adoption. Having given his parole of honour to return whenever the British Government should require his presence, the count, on the 14th October, "after having discharged all his debts to tradesmen and servants" (as the London papers of the time state), sailed for France.