"I have the liberty of an Englishman so strongly implanted in my nature, that I would have the Civil all in all, in all times and in all places, cases of immediate danger excepted." How much might have been achieved by men like Renault, Law, and Courtin, if they had had an adequate military force at their disposal! They saw, as clearly as did the English, that Bengal was the heart of India, and they saw the English denude Madras of troops to defend Bengal, whilst they themselves were left by the French commanders in a state of hopeless impotence. On the other hand, owing to the English Company's insistence that military domination should be the exception and not the rule, British civilians and British soldiers have, almost always, worked together harmoniously. It was this union of force which gave us Bengal in the time of which I have been writing, and to the same source of power we owe the gradual building up of the great Empire which now dominates the whole of India. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 122: Probably Portuguese half-castes.] [Footnote 123: Matchlock men. Consultations of the Dacca Council, 27th June, 1756. Madras Select Committee Proceedings, 9th November, 1756.] [Footnote 124: When Courtin was sent by Count Lally with the proposals for the surrender of Pondicherry he had to take an interpreter with him. _Memoirs of Lally_, p. 105.] [Footnote 125: I.e. official order.] [Footnote 126: I cannot ascertain where M. Fleurin was at this moment. If at Dacca, then Courtin must have left him behind.] [Footnote 127: MSS. Français, Nouvelles Acquisitions, No. 9361. This is unfortunately only a copy, and the dates are somewhat confused. Where possible I have corrected them.] [Footnote 128: Calcapur, the site of the Dutch Factory. See note, p. 64.] [Footnote 129: From a map by Rennell of the neighbourhood of Dacca it appears that the French Factory was on the River Bourigunga. There are still several plots of ground in Dacca town belonging to the French. One of them, popularly known as Frashdanga, is situated at the mouth of the old bed of the river which forms an island of the southern portion of the town; but I do not think this is the site of the French Factory, as the latter appears to have been situated to the west of the present Nawab's palace.] [Footnote 130: Now used in the sense of messengers or office attendants.] [Footnote 131: Orme says (bk. viii. p. 285) that Courtin started with 30 Europeans and 100 sepoys. From Law's "Memoir" we see that M. de Carryon took 20 men to Cossimbazar before Law himself left. This accounts for the smallness of Courtin's force.] [Footnote 132: Jafar Ali Khan married the sister of Aliverdi Khan, Siraj-ud-daula's grandfather.] [Footnote 133: I think he must mean the mouth of the Murshidabad River.] [Footnote 134: Courtin means the lower ranges of the Himalayas, inhabited by the Nepaulese, Bhutiyas, etc. His wanderings therefore were in the districts of Rungpore and Dinajpur.]