Certainly, on the English side, great men like Lawrence, Clive, Eorde, Coote, and Saunders. But, much as British owe to such men, it is impossible to conceal the fact that, to a very great extent indeed, the success of the English was due to the misfortunes of the French. The foes of the French were, in very truth, those of their own household: they were the French government and the Directors of the French East India Company.
When every English place on the Coromandel Coast, with the exception of Fort St. David, was under French — the French government agreed to the terms of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which directed that a mutual restitution of all persons and places taken in the war should be made.
French influence in India was so great, that one Frenchman guided the counsels of subahdars and nawabs, and even influenced those of the Great Mogul himself but the French Company, sighing because of a diminished revenue, and the French government, abjectly cringing before the wrath of England, were ready to give up all their influence, and to recall and treat with contumely the Great Governor, Dupleix, who had spent life and wealth for the glory of France.
Against odds like these not even a Dupleix, a Bussy, or a Lally, could succeed. They had conceived a project too vast for the comprehension of either the debased government of Louis XV, or the Directors of the East Iindia Company.
The most disastrous blow was therefore struck at French power at the conclusion of the second Carnatic war. Previous to the Treaty of Pondichery, the chances of ultimate French success were overwhelming. The grand outline was already sketched. The master-mind of Dupleix had every plan in miind. At a critical moment the master-mind was removed; the policy which had achieved such triumphs was abandoned.
For France it was unfortunate that a misfortune like that of the capture of Law’s army and the death of Chanda Saheb should have resulted in their abandonment. The disaster, though severe, need not have been more than temporary. It most certainly had not proved the destruction of French hopes, The English were still in a most perilous position. From a French point of view, the great difficulty was still the status of Mohammed Alí; and Dupleix would have found some mode of settling this question. The whole state of India was, in fact, ripe for the exercise of that power in which he excelled; and it can scarcely be doubted that he would have taken advantage of Maratha and Mysorean affairs to establish French power more securely than ever. The great victories of Dupleix were due to moral rather than to physical force; but it was precisely this fact that his masters at home were incapable of understanding.
The third period of the war was one, in which France possessed no advantage even in the Carnatic; and, even if Lally had proved completely victorious here, even if French power in the Deccan had been allowed to remain and to become consolidated, the English now possessed a stronghold in Bengal,(which generated a lot of revenue and trade in contrast to Deccan) from which it would have been difficult to expel them.
As time went on, the question of French or English supremacy in India was limited to an ever-decreasing area. Certainly, the Carnatic still continued to be debatable ground; but the struggle, during the third war, was one of union(Britain) against division(French), and its result was such as might naturally have been anticipated.