ABSTRACT
British foreign policy in the eighteenth century involved many changes of front; at one moment England was allied with the Dutch against the French, and at another moment the Dutch were the enemy. The Dutch were, in any case, tending to concentrate more on the Far East, and their struggle with the French in India strengthened the position of the East India Company. In 1720 the Compagnie was reorganised by that remarkable Scottish controller of French finances, Jean Law, and took on a new lease of life. The financial weakness of the French Compagnie left the French in a bad position to carry out the aggressive policy inaugurated by Joseph Francis Dupleix when he became Director-General in 1741. In almost every respect the English Company was in a far stronger position than the French Compagnie on the eve of the War of Austrian Succession.
