ABSTRACT
WHILE Clive had been establishing English influence in Bengal, English and French had renewed the struggle for the control of the Carnatic. Nor was this without a clear bearing on the affairs of Bengal. Just as Dupleix' war at Trichinopoly had secured Bussy from molestation at Aurangabad, so now the fighting which swayed between Madras and Pondichéry secured Bengal from a French invasion. Clive recognised this by sending Forde to attack the French in the Northern Circars. The Madras Council expressed their consciousness of the fact with great clearness. They judged the safety of all the Company's possessions “to depend on the fate of Madras, which is the barrier the enemy must first force.” 1 And again: “It is to be considered,” they write to Coote, “that not only the possessions on this Coast depend on our maintaining ourselves here against all the efforts of the war, but also that … if we can only keep the enemy at bay here and secure by that means the commerce of Bengal, the advantage is evidently on our side.” 2 The truth of this is evinced by the effects which ill news from the Carnatic at once produced on the attitude of Mir Jafar. 3
