The English continued to receive reinforcements from home, while the French did not; the men opposed to Lally were superior in ability; place after place fell, and in January, 1761, Pondicherry itself surrendered, surrounded by land and cut off from the sea.

This was the end of the French power in India; for though Pondicherry and other possessions were restored at the peace, the English tenure there was never again shaken, even under the attacks of the skilful and bold Suffren, who twenty years later met difficulties as great as D'Ache's with a vigor and conduct which the latter at a more hopeful moment failed to show.
France having thus lost both Canada and India by the evident failure of her power to act at a distance by sea, it would seem scarcely possible that Spain, with her own weak navy and widely scattered possessions, would choose this moment for entering the war.

Yet so it was.

The maritime exhaustion of France was plain to all, and is abundantly testified to by her naval historians.

"The resources of France were exhausted," says one; "the year 1761 saw only a few single ships leave her ports, and all of them were captured.