The next year passed peacefully, and was an unusually quiet time in India. That Tippoo intended to renew the war, as soon as he was able, was well known to the government, and one of its chief objects of solicitude was the endeavour to counteract the secret negotiations that were constantly going on between him, the Nizam, and the Mahrattis. Tippoo was known to have sent confidential messengers to all the great princes of India--even to the ruler of Afghanistan--inviting them to join the confederacy of the Mahrattis, the Nizam, and himself, to drive the English out of India altogether. Still greater cause for uneasiness was the alliance that Tippoo had endeavoured to make with the French, who, as he had learned, had gained great successes in Europe; and, believing from their account that their country was much stronger than England, he had sent envoys to the Mauritius, to propose an offensive and defensive alliance against England. The envoys had been politely received, and some of them had proceeded to France, where Tippoo's proposal had been accepted. They committed France, indeed, to nothing, as she was already at war with England; but the French were extremely glad to embrace the proposal of Tippoo, as they overrated his power, and believed that he would prove a formidable opponent to the English, and would necessitate the employment of additional troops and ships there, and so weaken England's power at home. To confirm the alliance, some sixty or seventy Frenchmen, mostly adventurers, were sent from the Mauritius as civil and military officers. Tippoo's council had been strongly opposed to this step on his part. They had pointed out to him that their alliance, with a power at war with the English, would render war between the English and him inevitable; and that France was not in a position to aid them in any way. The only benefit, indeed, that he could gain, was the possibility that the fourteen thousand French troops, in the service of the Nizam, might revolt and come over to him; but even this was doubtful, as these were not troops belonging to the French government, but an independent body, raised and officered by adventurers, who might not be willing to imperil their own position, and interests, by embarking on a hazardous war at the orders of a far-distant government.