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THE SECOND FRENCH WAR fighting single-handed against all the maritime nations; against France, Spain, Holland, and her own American colonies. She was also entangled within India in a very intricate desultory war against Hyder Ali of Mysore and the Marathas; two powers which both held strips of the Indian seaboard and were both corresponding with the enemy. The French fleet was under Suffren, the best admiral v& THE SACKED BULL AT MYSORE. ever possessed by France, and the military force in the expedition was commanded by Bussy. Suffren was far superior as a naval tactician to the English commander, but the French admiral found on the Indian coast, as Captain Mahan justly observes, " no friendly port or roadstead, no base of supplies or repair." The French settlements had all fallen by 1779; and the invaluable harbour of Trincomali, in Ceylon, had been taken by the English from the Dutch just a month before. It