The operation had been carried out with great skill and Wellesley was delighted. ‘You will enjoy my gentle conquest of an army of 14,000 men under the command of French officers in the service of the Nizam,’ he wrote to Dundas later that month. ‘My despatches do not mention a curious fact, that the standard of this army was the Tricolour flag: the first of that description erected on the Continent of India. This standard has fallen into my hands; and I shall send it home as the best comment upon the whole policy of making an effort to crush the French influence in India.’19
