In the various accounts that I have used there are naturally slightly different versions of particular incidents, and often it is not easy to decide which is the correct one. Under the circumstances I may perhaps be excused for not always calling attention to discrepancies which the reader will detect for himself. He will also notice that the ground covered in one narrative is partly traversed in one or both of the others. This has been due to the necessity of treating the story from the point of view of each of the three chief actors. I may here mention that the correspondence between Clive and the princes of Bengal, from which I have given some illustrative passages, was first seen by me in a collection of papers printed in 1893 in the Government of India Central Printing Office, Calcutta, under the direction of Mr. G.W. Forrest, C.I.E. These papers have not yet been published, but there exists a complete though slightly different copy of this correspondence in the India Office Library (Orme MSS. India XI.), and it is from the latter copy that I have, by permission, made the extracts here given. The remaining English quotations, when not from printed books, have been taken chiefly from other volumes of the Orme MSS., a smaller number from the Bengal and Madras Records in the India Office, and a few from MSS. in the British Museum or among the Clive papers at Walcot, to which last I was allowed access by the kindness of the Earl of Powis. Finally, I wish to express my thanks to M. Omont of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, to Mr. W. Foster of the Record Department of the India Office, and to Mr. J.A. Herbert of the British Museum, for their kind and valuable assistance. S.C. HILL. _September_ 6, 1903. CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE QUARREL WITH THE ENGLISH II. M. RENAULT, CHIEF OF CHANDERNAGORE III. M. LAW, CHIEF OF COSSIMBAZAR IV. M. COURTIN, CHIEF OF DACCA INDEX MAPS AND PLANS THE GANGES VALLEY AND THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN BENGAL, 1756. (_After Rennell_) _Frontispiece_ MAP OF THE RIVER HUGLI FROM BANDEL TO FULTA. (_After Rennell_) _To face page_ FORT D'ORLÉANS, CHANDERNAGORE, 1749. (_Mouchet_) MUXADABAD, OR MURSHIDABAD. (_After Rennell_) DACCA, OR JEHANGIR-NAGAR. (_After Rennell_) [Illustration: MAP OF THE RIVER HUGLI FROM BANDEL TO FULTA. (_After Rennell_.)] THREE FRENCHMEN IN BENGAL CHAPTER I THE QUARREL WITH THE ENGLISH