Acting in that extensive country with a force, which, before he obtained the cession of the northern circars, had only an uncertain and imperfect communication with the coast, he supported, for a series of years, the influence and interests of his country, in a manner which reflects the highest honour on his qualities as a man, and on his talents as a statesman. He thoroughly understood and held in respect the usages of the people among whom he was placed. He united a kindness and consideration for their errors and weaknesses with such a good faith and firmness of purpose in the prosecution of his own objects, as to extort respect even from those to whom he was opposed. This testimony to his character is not wholly taken from the page of history, though all writers agree in doing justice to his memory. The facts stated have been confirmed to the writer of these pages, by many who acted with and against Bussy, whose reputation, though now deservedly high in France, is not, even at this period, so great in that country as it continues to be with natives of the Deckan! Clive, unless where their conduct compelled him to acts of severity, was kind and liberal in his treatment of French prisoners. This appears from a very voluminous correspondence[60], both official and private, with individuals of that nation; but the wanton outrages of Lally made him deem acts of retaliation indispensably necessary. In several of his letters from Patna, Clive urged the committee at Calcutta to destroy the buildings at Chandernagore, and transmitted to them letters from Mr. Pigot and Mr. Vansittart, in proof of the wanton outrages committed by Lally at Madras, particularly in levelling with the ground the Company's country-house, and in having, without any object, destroyed the country-houses of several private gentlemen, and among others, that of Colonel Lawrence at St. Thomas's Mount. The Committee could not deny these facts, nor the right of retaliating such injuries; but, hesitating between the desire of attending to Clive, and their alarm at the future consequences of the measure pressed upon their adoption, they proposed to throw the odium of its execution upon the Nabob. Of this Clive wholly disapproved, stating, at the same time, his resolution, when he returned to Calcutta, to take the responsibility of this act exclusively upon himself.