DUPLEIX'S PATRIOTIC AMBITION 113

growing financial confusion, and by all the evils of negligent misrule. To Dupleix in India these things could not be dis- cernible; he saw that his improved position and the increase of his troops gave ample scope to his patriotic ambition; and he now launched out hardily upon the troubled and hitherto unexplored sea of Indian politics. Although the last war had not altered the relative situ- ations of either Company, its effect had been to change their character and to deepen the colour of their rivalry; they had both acquired a taste for Oriental war and intrigue; they had each raised a military force which mutual jealousy prevented them from disbanding, though it was very costly to maintain. The problem of keeping up a standing army without paying for it out of revenue is occasionally solved by an impecunious state at the cost of its neighbours; but there is also the alternative, well known in Indian history, of lend- ing an army for a consideration. The French and Eng- lish in India could not make direct war on each other while the peace lasted in Europe; they could only pre- pare for the next rupture by manoeuvring against each other politically, by husbanding their forces, extending their spheres of influence, and aiming back strokes in- directly at each other under cover of the melee that was going on in the country round them. There was, therefore, everything to invite and noth- ing to prevent their taking a hand in the incessant fight- ing for independence and territory among the princes and chiefs who had now discovered the weight of Euro-