LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH IxN INDIA '• On admire beaucoup et Ton cite souvent I'AngLETERRE pour avoir resolu ce grand probleme de gouverner, a quatre mille lieues de distance, avec quelques centaines d'employes civiis et quelques milliers d'emploj-es militaires, ses immenses possessions de I'lNDE, S'il y a quelque nouveaute, quelque hardiesse et quelque genie politique dans cette idee, il faut reconnaitie que I'honneur en revient a DuPLElx, et que I'ANGLETERRE qui en recueille aujourd'hui le profit et la gloire, n'a eu qu'a suivre les voies que le genie de la France lui avail ouvertes." — Inde, par M. X. Raymond. The right of translation is reserved. 3 HISTORY OF THE FRENCH IN INDIA FROM THE FOUNDING OF PONDICHERY IN 1674 TO THE CAPTURE OF THAT PLACE IN 1761 COLONEL G. B. MALLESON, C.S.L AUTHok OF "THE HISTOKY OF THE INDIAN MUTINY," "LIFE OF LORD CLIVE," "THE DECISIVE BATTLES OF INDIA" RE-ISSUE OF SECOND EDmON JOHN GRANT 1909 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. A QUARTER of a century has passed away since I first offered this volume to the British public. During that time it has made the tour of Europe. It has been translated into French ; quoted largely by Italian writers ; read with avidity in Germany ; and has procured for the author appreciative letters from distinguished men. Within the last three years the demand for it has been so continuous that I have been asked to edit a new edition. This must be my excuse for once more introducing it to the public. Since I brought out the book in 1868 I have largely prosecuted my studies in Indian history, especially in the history of the periods immediately preceding and running parallel to the events of which I treat in this volume. I am bound to add that the increased know- ledge has not brought to light any errors of importance. The reasons for the conduct of La Bourdonnais after the capture of Madras, my account of which one ^vi'iter challenged four years ago, have been found, after the most exhaustive examination, to have been correctly stated in the first edition. They, therefore, appear here unaltered. The curious reader who may care to examine the question for himself, will find the con- VI PRHPACE TO THK NEW EDITION. troversy fully set forth in the appendix. In almost all other matters the alterations I have made are purely verbal. The spelling I have adopted is mainly that favoured by the late Professor Blochmann ; similar in almost every case to that employed in the late Sir Henry Elliott's " History of India by its own Historians," a work I have carefully consulted in connection with the revision of the present volume. G. B. M. London, 10th July, 1893. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. A COMPLETE and connected account of the doings of the French in India throughout the period embraced in this vohime has never yet been given to the world. The student and the soldier whose curiosity and whose interest may have been alike aroused by the outline of the deeds of Dupleix and of La Bourdonnais, of Bussy and of Lally, given in the pages of Mr. Mill's Ilistory of India, and who may have felt anxious to learn some- thing more of the policy and aims of those famous Frenchmen, have hitherto been compelled to fall back for such information upon the voluminous work of Mr. Orme. Of the historical value of this work there can be no doubt. Mr. Orme was a member of the Madras Council and had access to all the Madras records, besides enjoying, as a contemporary, the opportunity of conversing with many of the actors of that stiiTing period. Of the feelings of the Englisli in Madras, of the principles which animated their leaders civil and military, of the movements of their fleets and armies, his history is a most full and detailed, and, I believe, generally a faithful, record. Yet, with all this, Mr. Orme's work, judged even from an English point of view, constitutes rather a compendium of information viii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. for others to use, than a history which in the present day would commend itself to the general reader. It is often diffuse even to prolixity, and brings into promi- nence actions not mainly affecting the current of the narrative, and such as in the present day would be interesting only to the student of individual character. At the same time, whilst it indulges in the fullest details regarding the exploits of the ensigns and lieutenants who assisted Clive and Lawrence in an- nihilating the schemes of Dupleix and Lally, it re- gards the French rather as accessories than as prin- cipals in the story, seldom entering at any length into the reasons of their military movements, never con- veying to the reader any fixed idea of the policy by which the rulers of Pondichery were guided. Through- out the work, indeed, there is a natural but entire want of sympathy with French aspirations. Even Orme, therefore, full and explicit as he is regarding the doings of the English, would fail to satisfy the in- quirer for a complete and connected account of the deeds of the French in India. Nor is the omission supplied, so far as I am aware, by any French history. The most valuable of these that I have met with in my researches is the Histoire des Indes Orientales by the Abbe Guyon, published in Paris in the year 1744. The value of this work consists mainly in the long and copious extracts given by the author from the archives of Pondichery, and in the correspondence, also inserted, between M. Dumas and the Native Princes of India. The supplements to the memoirs of La Bourdonnais, of Dupleix, of Lally, of Bussy, of De Leyrit, of Moracin, and of many others, PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. ix give at full length the official correspondence of the various periods. These, likewise, form an excellent basis upon which to found a history, but there are few who would take up such works for amusement, or who would consider the trouble of wading through so many bulky tomes, all of them more than a hundred years old, compensated for by the information they might impart. The void then undoubtedly existing, I have written this volume to supply it. Led, in the first place, rather accidentally, to examine the career of Lally, the interest of the subject induced me to look more deeply into the history of the settlement with which he was so promi- nently connected. To this study I have devoted most of my leisure moments during the past two years and a half. My labours have, however, all along been greatly stimulated by the conviction that I have been able to throw some new light upon a most interesting period. The story of Fran9ois Martin, the founder of Pon- dichery, is, I believe, unknown to, at all events it has been unnoticed by, English historians. A new and, I am satisfied, a correct version is given of the quari'el between Dupleix and La Bourdonnais ; the reasons for the conduct of the latter are fully set forth : and if this portion of the history be regarded as too over- laden with detail, 1 trust it may be remembered that for a hundred years the historians of France and England have, in connexion with this very point, covered the memory of Dupleix with obloquy ; and that charges so weighty, so sustained, and so long uncontradicted, are not to be refuted without full and sufficient proof. I trust also it may be found that X PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. the reasons which guided Diipleix in his policy, the relations of Bussy with the Subadar of the Dakhan, and the cause of the fall of Chandrauagar, have been placed in a clearer and more intelligible light than heretofore. In executing the task which I set myself, I have naturally incurred many heavy obligations. I am anxious to express the great debt which I owe, in common with every other writer of the Indian history of that period, to Mr. Orme, the minute detail of whose work makes it invaluable to the historian. To the work of tlie Abbe Guyon, and to the various French memoirs to which 1 have referred, I am likewise greatly indebted. It is by means of these that I have been enabled to give the history of the period from a point of view entirely Indo-French, showing, I trust clearly, the plans and policy of the rulers of Pondichery, Colonel Law- rence's Memoirs, Mr. Grose's Vojjage to the East Indies, Dr. Ive's History, and the Seir Mutakherin, have also been consulted. Amongst others, of more modern date, I may mention Colonel Wilks's Southern India, Captain Grant Duffs History of the Mardthds, Professor Wilson's edition of Mill, M. Xavier Raymond's Inde, Baron Barchou de Penhoen's Histoire de la Conquete de VInde par V Ancjleterre, and that most admirable, though, unfortunately, too little known volume, Broome's History of the Bengal Army. I take ad- vantage of this oi)portunity also to express my obli- gations to the writer (unknown to me) of an article on *Dupleix,' in the 15th volume of the extinct National Review, which not only displays ability and research of no ordinary character, but is also remarkable as being. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. xi SO far as I am aware, the first attempt to do justice to that illustrious Frenchman. I beg also gratefully to acknowledge the courtesy of M. Bontemps, Governor of the French Establishments in India, and of M. Derussat, Chief of those Establishments in Bengal, in replying to the various questions with which I troubled them, and in forwarding to me extracts from the archives of their respective seats of Government. Nor can I close this long list of obligations without expressing the deep sense I entertain of the encourage- ment aiforded me in the prosecution of this work by Lord EUenborough — an encouragement which mainly induced me to expand the original sketch of Lally into the history of his countrymen in India — as well as by my honoured friend, Sir Henry Durand, one of the Members of the Supreme Council of India. I may add, in conclusion, that this work originally appeared, in separate parts, in the pages of the Calcutta Review, though it has since been thoroughly revised and indeed partly re-written. It was my wish, before offering it in a complete form to the English public, to submit it to the ordeal of the criticism of those, some of whom, from their long experience of India and their close acquaintance with its history, were thoroughly competent to pronounce an opinion as to its merits. If I may presume to draw any conclusion from the recorded opinion of the Indian press on the work as it appeared in parts, I shall have no reason to regret the act which I am now about to take upon myself — of presenting it to my countrymen as a whole. G. B. M. Simla: Maj 24, 1867. CONTENTS. Preface to the New Edition ... Preface to the First Edition... I. The Early French in India ... II. The Perpetual Company of the Indies III. The Rise of the French Power in India IV. La Bourdonnais and Dupleix V. The First Struggle in the Karnatik VI. French India at its Zenith ... VII. The Struggles of Dupleix with Adversity VIII. BussY TO 1754 IX. The Fall of Dupleix ... X. GodeHeu and de Leyrit XI. Chandranagar and the Dakhan Xn. The Last Struggle for Empire Appendix A Index PAQB V vii 1 40 64 130 188 231 283 346 385 432 465 507 587 599 LIST OF MAPS. Sketch Map of Southern India, illustrating the Military Opera- tions, 1744 to 1761 . . . . . to face title-page. Maps of the Operations before Trichinapalli, to face pp. 289 and 389. HISTORY OF THE FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. Of the five great European maritime powers of the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, France was the fourth to enter into the race for commercial communication with India. The fifth power, Spain, never attempted the con- test, and Portugal, Holland, and England had reaped considerable benefits from their enterprise before the attention of the French people had been sufficiently attracted to the trade. Nevertheless, though the French were the last to enter upon the venture, though entering upon it after the three powers we have named had ob- tained a firm and solid footing on the soil, their natural genius asserted itself in a manner that speedily brought them on a level with the most securely planted of their European rivals. The restless action that had made the France of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the fomenter of disturbances in Europe soon found in India a wide field for its display, whilst the ambition that had urged her most famous monarch to dream of universal dominion in the West, began, before very long, to form plans for the attainment of a French empire in the East. He was a French statesman who first dared to aspire to B } THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. <^"AP. suburdiuate the vast empire of the Mughal to a European ' , will. He was a French statesman who first conceived the idea of conquering India by the aid of Indians — of arm- ing, drilling, and training natives after the fashion of European soldiers, thus forming the germ of that sipahi army which has since become so famous. They were French soldiers who first demonstrated on the field of battle the superiority of a handful of disciplined Europeans to the uncontrolled hordes of Asia. As we contemplate, indeed, the great achievements of France on the soil of Hindustan ; as we read the numerous examples of the mighty conceptions, the heroic actions, the mental vigour, and the indomitable energy displayed there by her children, we cannot but marvel at the sud- den destruction of hopes so great, of plans so vast and deep-laid. There may be, indeed there always are, many excuses for ill-success. Sometimes failure is to be attributed solely to the superior skill, genius, and force of character of an adversary. Sometimes, the hostile intervention of a third party, or his failure to keep engagements made wdth a principal, tends to the same result. But there are other fluctuating causes, which are often more influential still. An acute attack of a pros- trating disease prevented the destruction of the Russian army at Borodino, and thus caused the annihilation of the soldiers of Napoleon in the snows of Russia. A careless movement on the part of Marshal Marmont, induced by a feverish desire to monopolise to himself the glory of expelling the English from Spain, brought on that battle of Salamanca which was the turning point of the Peninsular war. The storm on the after- noon and night of June 17 materially affected the move- ments of the French Emperor at Waterloo, and con- tributed to the actual result of that famous battle. The misdirection of a despatch brought on the battle of Navarino ; and it is believed in Vienna that the accidental absence of the Austrian General from his INSTRUCTIVE NATURE OP THE STORY. post alone prevented the capture of Napoleon III. a Magenta. There are thus many causes, some natural, some dependent on the constitution of an individual man, some not to be foreseen, and in no way to be cal- culated upon, which affect the fortunes of a people. It is not that all the genius, all the strong character, all the valour are on the side of the conquerors. Genius, indeed, has been compelled to succumb to a combina- tion of incidents apparently insignificant, and impossible to have been guarded against. There suddenly appear, when least expected, influences, apparently small, and yet really so powerful, that all calculations are upset, and we are compelled to acknowledge the might of that Providential superintendence, which, working with its own instruments and for its own designs, fashions and directs the destinies of nations. But there is, nevertheless, always a great deal that is to be accounted for and explained on natural grounds. The character of the governing or directing body as a bady, and the characters of the instruments used to carry out their policy, are sufficient to explain many results. In this respect the history of the French in India presents a most interesting and instructive lesson. That lesson is interesting, because the great deeds of great men always charm and excite the imagination : it is instructive, because we see in it a great deal of indi- vidual action, and obtain a great insight into individual character. The scene is laid at period so distant from the present, that whilst we have the actors before us conducting their skilful intrigues and engaged in their complex negotiations we have in addition, what their rivals had not, a clear view of the motives that prompted them, of the causes that urged them on. So rich in detail is this eventful period that the history possesses all the interest and excitement of a romance. Yet in no romance that was ever penned did any of the charac- ters dare to entertain plans so wide-spread and so deep- E 2 CHAP. I. i THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP, ij^ij as were cherished by many of the actors in this real , ' drama. It is yet another peculiarity of this eventful history that the actors in it did not only dare to build up vast plans ; they brought them to the very brink of success ; they failed, too, only to let those plans fall into the lap of another and a rival nation, which, bewildered by their vastness, long refused to entertain them, and only consented at last, when the force of events had convinced them that there was no middle course between the prosecution of those plans and their own destruction. It is strange that this story, with all its wonders, has almost faded away from the tablets of history. There exists, indeed, a record, published in the last century, of the facts connected with the rise and progress of the French East India Company, but since its appearance a flood of light has been shed upon events which were then dark and mysterious. Yet even this record has, until very recently, been almost a sealed book. Glimpses of the deeds accomplished by the French on Indian soil are occasionally to be found in old accounts of famous voyages, in forgotten French histories of India, and more recently in those English histories which are devoted to the glorification of the triumphs of our own countrymen. Occasionally, too, in some old biographic memoir, or in the notes to some graver history, we meet with curious accounts of men, who, when their prospects as a nation had been annihilated, strove, and strove earnestly in the service of native princes, to prevent the development of the fortunes of then* successful rivals. We have sometimes wondered why a more modern his- tory of this eventful episode has never been undertaken by the French. It cannot be because a brilliant career culminated in disaster. It was a disaster which at all events reflected no discredit on the soldiers of France. What discredit there was is directly to be imputed to the efl"ete administration of the most effete and degraded THEIR EARLY TRAFFIC WITH THE EAST. representative of f House which France herself has chap expelled. Much, also, is due to the fact, that the mighty . gulf of the French revolution intervenes between the 1503. times of which we are writing and the present ; that the military history of modern France begins with the wars of 1792 ; and that, however much France may regret that the great Eastern prize did not fall into her hands, she cares little for the details of a struggle which occurred before the period at which she conquered the great nations of the continent, and constituted herself, for a time, mistress and arbitress of continental Europe. We have stated that three of the maritime powers of Europe had effected permanent settlements in India, before the attention of France had been sufficiently attracted to the advantage of the trade. That this was so was attributable far more to the distractions of her government, than to any want of enterprise on the part of the French people. A period in which foreign wars alternated with civil dissensions, was certainly not favourable to fostering commerce with far distant coun- tries. Yet, despite the turbulence of the period, and the inherent vice of their government, the desire for Eastern traffic displayed itself at a very early period amongst the French. In the reign of Louis XII., in the year 1503, two ships were fitted out by some mer- chants of Ilouen to trade in the Eastern seas. But it is simply recorded of them that they sailed from the port of Havre in the course of that year, and were never afterwards heard of. The successor of Louis XIL, King Francis I., issued to his subjects, in the years 1537 and 1543, declarations in which he exhorted them to under- take long voyages, and placed before them the pecu- niary and national advantages which would result from their following his counsel. But the records of the reign of Francis abound in accounts of exhausting wars, and it is owing probably to this cause that we do not find that his wishes in respect of distant navigation ; THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP, were attended to. Probably the constant civil dissen- ^' , sions which occupied the reign of Henry III. neutralised 1604. any effect which an edict of his, to the same effect as those of his grandfather, dated December 15, 1578, might have had in less troublous times. The peaceful and prosperous reign of Henry IV. opened out, however, new prospects. On June 1, 1604, a Company was established under the King's letters patent, granting it an exclusive trade for fifteen years. But, though the services of Gerard Leroy, a Flemish navigator, who had already made several voyages to the Indies in the employ of the Dutch, were engaged, disputes amongst the pro- prietors, and the paucity of funds, hindered the action of the Company, and the design came to nothing. Seven years later, however, the project was renewed under Louis XIII., but owing to the same causes, nothing was undertaken during a period of four years. But in 1615, two merchants of Rouen, disgusted with the inactivity of the Company, petitioned the King for the transfer to them of the privileges accorded to it, ex- pressing at the same time their readiness to fit out ships that very year. This petition was opposed by the Com- pany. The King, however, after hearing the arguments on both sides, decided in favour of a coalition between the contending parties ; and on this being effected, he issued (July 2, 1615) letters patent conferring the for- mer privileges on the thus united Company.* This Company quickly proceeded to action. In the iGiG. following year (1616) it fitted out two ships, the com- mand of the larger of which was given to Commodore de Nets, an old naval officer; and of the smaller to Captain Antoine Beaulieu, who had already made a voy- age to the coast of Africa. Of the expeditions to the Indies, Beaulieu has written an interesting account.f The first one, though not in itself to be called positively * Relations de di verses Voyages curienscs, par M. Thevenot. t Voyages des Indes, i^ar Tavernier. BEAULIKUS EXPEDITION'. ' successful, was yet deemed so in that age, inasmuch as chap. it was not absolutely a failure. It appears that the • ^^— ^ navigators met with considerable opposition from the 161G. Dutch at Java, and as there happened to be a consider- able number of Dutch sailors amongst their crews, they were considerably inconvenienced by an order of the President of the Dutch possessions, by which all ser- vants of the republic were required instantly to leave the French vessels. This neceesitated the sale of Beaulieu's ship, and the transfer of himself and the re- mainder of the crew to that commanded by Commodore de Nets. They succeeded so far, however, in their trading negotiations, that, notAA-ithstanding the loss of one ship, the voyage entailed no actual loss. Encouraged by the result of this first effort, the jg^g Company equipped another expedition of three ships in 1619, giving the chief command to Beaulieu, whom they created commodore. The names of the ships were the " Montmorenci," of 450 tons, carrying a hun- dred and sixty-two men, and twenty-two guns ; " L'Es- perance," of 400 tons, carrying a hundred and seventeen men, and twenty-six guns ; and " L'Hermitage," an advice boat, of 75 tons, thirty men and eight guns. They were all victualled for two years and a half. This expedition sailed from Honfleur on October 2, 1619, and, after a prosperous voyage, reached Achin in the island of Sumatra. At Java — whither they subsequently proceeded — Beaulieu had the misfortune to lose one of his ships — " L'Esperance " — not without strong suspicions, amounting in his mind to conviction, that it had been sunk by the Dutch. But, whatever the immediate cause, it is certain that she foundered off Java with all her crew, and cargo valued at between seventy and eighty thousand pounds sterling. After experiencing this loss, Beaulieu returned to Havre, and arrived there, with his vessel well laden, on December 1, 1620. I THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP. For upwards of twenty years after this second at- tempt to open out a trade with the East, the Company 1620. effected nothing. A few desultory efforts, by individual traders, to make a settlement in Madagascar, produced no definite result. The powerful Minister, who then virtually ruled France, was occupied during the greater part of his tenure of power in firmly establishing his masters authority over the resisting nobles, and he could ill spare any considerable portion of his time even 1642. to foster large commercial undertakings. In 1642, however, Richelieu was master ; he had triumphed over every enemy, and he at once addressed himself to the revival of commercial intercourse with the East. Under his auspices a new Company was formed, for the avowed purpose of trading to the Indies. Letters patent, dated June 24, 1G42, accorded to it exclusive privileges for twenty years and its Directors, desig- nating it "La Compagnie des Indes," and began to make serious preparations to justify their right to the title. Their first ship had scarcely started on its expedition when Cardinal Richelieu died. This event, however did not at all affect the resolution which had incited the French Company to devote their energies, in the first instance, to the development of the large and fertile island of Madagascar. We are not in a position, judging even by the light of subsequent events, to pronounce this determination to have been unwise. It appears, on the contrary, to have been dictated by a sound and far-seeing policy. The advantage of a resting-place midway between Europe and the Indies, had been illustrated in the possession of the Cape of Good Hope by the Portu- guese. This was an example which the French, embarking for the first time seriously on a distant trade, were too prudent to neglect. Nor was it, in its consequences, an unsuccessful venture. For though the French were forced, after several trials, to aban- THEIK FIRST ATTEMPTS OX MADAGASCAR. don their hold on Madagascar, it was only as we chap. shall see, to seize and secure the smaller islands con- , ' tiguous to it, the possession of which from 1672 to 1642. 1810 proved to them a tower of strength in their wars with England ; a festering thorn in the sides of their maritime rivals. Madagascar, originally discovered by Marco Polo in 1298, and subsequently lost sight of, had been reopened to European enterprise by the Portuguese under Fernan Suarez, one of the officers of Lawrence Almeida, in 1506. It was visited the following year by a Portu- guese squadron under Tristan de Cunha ; but that celebrated navigator, after a minute examination of the topography of the place, the customs of the inhabitants, and the productions of the soil, thought it inexpedient to form a settlement there, and continued his voyage eastward. Two years later, however, the Portuguese Government resolved to occupy a post on the seaboard of the island. A settlement was accordingly made on its northern part, but those who formed it had been massacred by the inhabitants before the period of the French expedition of 1642. The first French vessel equipped by the French India Company reached Madagascar in the summer of 1642, and landed the settlers at a point near the southern extremity of the island. Their landing was opposed, though inefi'ectually, by the natives of the country. They forthwith attempted to carry out a regular scheme of colonisation, and to this purpose they devoted all the resources of the Company. They soon found, however, as the wise Tristan de Cunha had foreseen, that, though in appearance rich and fertile, the soil of the island could not produce, in any great quantity, those articles which entered the most into European consumption. When they began to make inroads into the interior, they found still greater difficulties awaiting them. They came in contact, then, with a numerous and warlike 10 THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP, race, detesting strangers, and preferring savage freedom ^' to foreign domination. By the bulk of these, the 16G1. t^rench settlers were received, from the very outset, with marked hostility. This feeling was increased to absolute hatred in consequence of the treacherous seizure and deportation to the neighbouring island of Mauritius, as slaves, of a number of natives who had voluntarily entered the limits of the French territory. This act was ruinous in its consequences to the French settlers. Not content from that time with repulsing every effort of the French to penetrate into the interior, the inhabitants, gaining boldness from success, assumed the offensive, and began in their turn to attack the wretched wooden stockades which the colonists had erected with infinite labour and expense, and had digni- fied by the name of " Forts." So numerous were the islanders, and so determinedly hostile, that the French experienced very great difficulty in offering to them an effectual resistance. The time and the labour employed in so doing drew them away almost entirely from culti- vation ; and, though they were ultimately successful in defending their forts, it was a success which was as costly as a defeat ; for it sank all the large sums which had been expended on the enterprise without the chance of a return. It would be surprising that, under these circumstances, and though the French India Company relinquished their claims to the island in 1672, the French Government should have continued to main- tain their liold of the seaboard several years longer, were it not for the fact that the retention at all costs of a portion of the country, was considered eminently desirable as forming a resting-place and a shelter in the long voyage to India. The ill-success of this enterprise was not, however, at once recognised in France, although for a time there appeared no desire to renew it. The long minority ot Louis XIV., the ministry of Cardinal Mazarin, with its THE GENIUS OF COLBERT. 11 wars of the Fronde and its contests with Spain, were chap. not favourable to commercial enterprise. Mazarin, however, died in 1661. His successor, Colbert, was loci^ one of those men who stamp their name on the age in which they live. Colbert was one of the glories of France. Born in the middle rank of life, the son of a merchant, himself educated as a banker, and having, in that capacity, been charged with the management of the affairs of Cardinal Mazarin, he had gained so entirely the confidence of that Minister, that, on his dying bed, the Cardinal recommended him to his master as a man of immense capacity, strict fidelity, and un- wearied application. Colbert succeeded him, first onjy as Controller of Finances, but not long after he was invested with the entu'e administration of the country. Under his guiding hand, France quickly assumed in Europe a position such as she had never before held. Her finances, commerce, industry, agriculture, art, all felt the impulse of his strong will and firm direction. Colbert made the French navy. In a few years after his accession to power, France possessed a hundred vessels of war, and there were 60,000 sailors inscribed on the rolls. He created the naval ports of Brest, Toulon, and Rochefort ; he bought Dunkirk from the English, and he commenced Cherbourg ; and " binding together industry, commerce, and the marine in one common future, he founded French colonies to assure outlets to industry and commerce, and an employment of the navy in time of peace." Colbert had been neither blind nor indifferent to the great advantages which had accrued to the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English from their possessions in India, and he made it one of his greatest objects to en- courage the formation of a grand Company, somewhat on the English model, to open out a regular traffic with that country. He held out to it promises of the strongest support of the administration, lie dfiered it 12 THE EARLY FRENCH IX INDIA. CHAP, a charter granting it the exclusive right of commerce ,__^^^^_^ with India for fifty years ; it was to be exempted from iGtji. all taxation ; and the Government agreed to engage to reimburse it for all losses it might suffer during the first ten years after its formation. On these conditions, in the year 1664, the French " Compagnie des Indes " was formed. Its capital was 15,000,000 " livres tournois," equivalent to about 600,000/. ; but as, even under the conditions mentioned, the entire sum was not subscribed for, a fifth of the amount, 3,000,000 livres, was advanced by the Treasury. This example had a great effect upon the nobility and rich courtiers ; and these at once became eager to join an undertaking which the Government seemed to cherish as one of its most favoured projects.* The prospects of the Company on its formation were thus brilliant. Starting under the auspices of a monarchy which had not attained the height of its power, but was then fast rising to it, which, in its capabilities for offensive operations and for the display of real strength, contrasted favourably with the other European states, this Company seemed to require but firm and steady direction to become a great success. Nevertheless, its first movements were neither well con- sidered nor fortunate. Full of the recollection of the attempt made in 1642 upon Madagascar, a settlement in which was still regarded as an indispensable pre- liminary to a voyage to the unknown Indies, the Directors of the new Company conceived the idea that, by transporting simple colonists to that island, they might yet realise some of the results of the labours of their predecessors. Their first expedition was accordingly directed to Madagascar. On March * liOuis XIV. himself, under the that trade to India was not derog-a- inrtuence of Colbert, endeavoured to tory to a man of noble hiiWi.— Edit reconcile his nobility to a purticipa- du lioi, Aofit, ltJ(J4. tion in the enterprise, by declaring MADAGASCAR ABANDONED. 13 7, 1665, four large ships, equipped for war as well as chap. trade, and carrying five hundred and twenty men, sailed . from Brest harbour, and reached Madagascar on July 16C4. 10th following. The first act of the colonists was to change the name of the island from St. Lawrence, as it had been called by the Portuguese, to Isle Dauphine. in honour of the heir-apparent, then four years old. It proved to be but a poor compliment to the Dauphin, They soon discovered that, instead of profiting by their predecessors' mistakes, they had themselves fallen into those predecessors' errors. The new colonists, like those who went before them, found that their labour was hindered by three causes, by climate, by the nature of the soil, and by the hostility of the natives. This last-mentioned cause produced yet another, for it exposed the unfortunate emigrants to constant exposure and constant fatigue. To such an extent did they suffer, and disclose by their sufferings the hopelessness of the undertaking, that the Company, although for a long time it continued to reinforce the colonists with supplies of men, resolved ultimately to give up all thoughts of permanently colonising Mada- gascar, and to divert their energies to another quarter. The movements of the colonists were however quickened by the action of the natives, who succeeded, in 1672, in surprising Fort Dauphine, and massacring the majority of those who were within its walls. Of the baffled colonists, some proceeded ultimately to India ; others, however, contented themselves with the forma- tion of a small settlement in the island of Mascarenhas, lying with Cerne a little to the east of Madagascar. These islands, under the names of the Isles of France and Bourbon, and again as the Islands of Mauritius and Reunion, have since become well known. The Isle of Mauritius, or Cerne, had been early discovered, and abandoned, by the Portuguese; occupied in 1598 by the Dutch, who, in honour of Prince Maurice of 14 THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAi'. Nassau, called it Mauritius ; abandoned by them at ^' some time between the years 1703 and 1710; and 166G. occupied later, between that period and 1719, by the French, who changed its name to the Isle of France. Bourbon, or Mascarenhas, called so after a Portuguese nobleman, was absolutely desolate when the French, touching there on the way to Madagascar in 1649, took possession of in the name of the King of France. It remained uncolonised till 1654, when eight French- men and six negroes emigrated to it from that island, but deserted it again four years later. The island continued uninhabited till 1672, when, on the collapse of the Madagascar enterprise, an inconsiderable number of the colonists took possession of it, and formed the nucleus of a settlement which was one day to be powerful. But the French India Company had not wasted all its resources in their attempts on Madagascar. In 1666 another expedition was fitted out, and the command of it bestowed upon one Francis Caron, a man who pos- sessed at that time considerable reputation for expe- rience in Eastern undertakings. Caron, though of French origin, liad been born in Holland, and he had spent many years of his life in the service of the Dutch re- public. At a very early age, he had obtained a situation as a cook-mate on board a Dutch man-of-war bound for Japan; but during the voyage he showed such intelli- gence that he was promoted to the post of chief steward. This office gave him a little leisure which he devoted to the study of arithmetic. On the arrival of the vessel at Japan, he at once applied himself to the stndy of the language of the country. Having acquired this know- ledge, he was able to make almost his own terms with the agents of the Dutch Company, and he was soon appointed a member of the general council of adminis- tration, and director of commerce. But, little satisfied with this, he applied for a post of still higher impor- caron's voyage. 15 tance in Batavia.* He was refused. Whereupon, Caron, chap. listening only to his anger, abruptly resigned his ap- . pointment under the Dutch, and tendered his services ic^g. to Colbert. Colbert closed eagerly with the ofier, and Caron soon after received letters patent nominating him Director-General of French commerce in India. Associated with Caron was a Persian named Marcara, a native of Ispahan, from whose local knowledge of India many advantages were anticipated. The expedition sailed from France in the beginning 1GG7. of 1667, and made a fair voyage to Madagascar. But, on arriving there, Caron found the French establish- ments on the coast in a condition so deplorable, and the prospect of being able to effect an amelioration so dis- couraging, that he determined not to waste any of his resources in the attempt, but to proceed at once to India. He directed his course, accordingly, towards Surat, a place which the enterprise of the other mari- time powers of Europe had made familiar to traders to the East. On December 24, he touched at Cochin, where he was well received. Thence he continued his voyage, reached Surat in the beginning of 1668, and established there the first French factory in India. The negotiations into which he entered were at first success- es ful. A very valuable cargo was quickly transmitted to Madagascar. And this result was no sooner known in * It is stated by some authorities unfortunately for Caron, in rolling that, wlien Caron was in charge of the casks up the beach, cue of them the Dutch agency at Japan, he made fell in pieces, and a brass gun made an audacious attempt to establish its appearance. This discovered the himself on the coast. Having in- deception. Caron was at once seized, gratiated himself with the King, he sent to Jeddo, and confronted with obtained permission to build a house the King. Bein? unable to offer any close to the Dutch factory. Know- excuse, he was sentenced to have his ing the Japanese to be ignorant of beard pulled out hair by liair ; to be fortification, he built this house in dressed in a fool's coat and cap ; and the form of a tetragon — madf' it, in to be exposed in that condition in fact, a regular fortification. He then every street in the city. After this applied to the Governor of Batavia he was shipped back to Batavia-— to send him along with casks of Recueil de Voi/iujes du Nord,\6\. \u. spices, casks of the same size con- This story is not creditt-d by later taining guns, and filled up with cot- writers, ton or oakum. This was done, but, 16 THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP. France, than, as a reward for his exertions, and possibly ^_^^,«.^ to incite him to others, the King at once conferred 16C7. upon the Caron the riband of St. Michel, In the following year an extension of operations was resolved upon. Marcara was directed to proceed to the court of the then independent king of Golkonda, with the view of obtaining from him the privilege of trading throughout his dominions, and of establishing a factory at Machhlipatan (Masulipatam). To procure this, Marcara had not only to fight his way through those obstacles peculiar to an oriental court, but he had to meet also the opposition of the English and of the Dutch. However, he triumphed over all difficulties, and on December 5, 1669, obtained a firman which permitted the French Company to undertake negotia- tions in the dominions of the King, without payment of duty, import, or export ; a license was granted him at the same time to establish a factory at Machhlipatan. Thither, accordingly, Marcara proceeded.* It is curious, that the one fatal feeling which attended all the efforts of the French to establish themselves in India, and which contributed very greatly to their fail- ure, should have shown itself at this early epoch. This feeling was jealousy. It seldom happened that a man, high in office, could endure that any great feat should be accomplished by another than himself. Earely could a sense of patriotism, a love of country, an anxiety to forward the common weal, reconcile a servant of the French Company to the success of a rival. We shall see, as we proceed, what golden opportunities were lost, what openings were deliberately sacrificed to the grati- fication of feelings as mean and paltry in themselves, as they were base and even treasonable in men who had been sent to advance the fortunes of their country in a distant land. The French had not been two years in Surat before • Memoiies du Sieur Marcara ; Histoire deslndes Orientales. Ills FAILURE AT POINT DE GALLE. IT this feeling evinced itself. Caron, though he could <^haf boast of great achievements himself, could not endure - . ^ -,, ^ the idea that one of his associates should obtain the sole 1071. credit for deeds in which he could claim no share. The success of Marcara then, so far from being to him a source of joy, as to a patriotic Frenchman it ought to have been, awakened feelings of envy. He at once re- moved all the friends of the Persian from employ, and represented his conduct in a most unfavourable light to the French Minister. Marcara, however, on receiving an account of these aspersions, transmitted to Colbert a statement of his proceedings. This statement was so precise, and was so well supported by tacts, that, after a full inquiry, Marcara was declared to have cleared himself of every charge brought against him. The con- test, however, between the two principal officials in India did not tend to the stability of the rising settle- ments.* Caron, however, was bent upon effecting some results of greater importance. He accordingly represented to the Minister that, to obtain a firm footing in the country, it was necessary to hold some place in absolute posses- sion, unassailable by the natives of India, and to use it as a stronghold whence commercial operations could be carried on with the inhabitants of the mainland. Fol- lowing the idea of Albuquerque, he suggested, for this purpose, the occupation of an island, and he indicated the seaboard of Ceylon, then partially occupied by the Dutch, as well adapted to the end in viewf He did not fail to point out the great commercial advantages which must accrue to France from an immediate participation in the spice trade, and he * Tn consequence of his quarrel there, of which, however, they were with Caron, Marcara, unable any dispossessed by the Dutch some ten loneer to work with him, embarked years after (1682). with his adherents on board a French t Journal du Voyage des Grandes ship, and sailed to .Java. Arri\-ing Indts. at Bantam, they efatablished factories 18 THE EARLY FKENCH IN INDIA. CHAP, intimated he had sounded the King of Kandy on the V subject of t)ie dispossession of the Dutch, and that the 1672. enterprise would meet with his support. The project was approved by Colbert, and a fleet under the com- mand of Admiral Lahaye — a man of some reputation,* who had quitted high civil employment to gratify his passion for warlike operations — was placed at the dis- posal of Caron to carry out the design. Lahaye made his first attempt towards the end of the year 1G72 on Point de Galle. But either the place was too strong, or the jealousies on board the French squadron were too great : for the French were unsuccessful. They were more fortunate at Trinkamali, which they took and garrisoned. But they had hardly landed the guns necessary to defend the fortress, when a ]}utch fleet of at least equal force, under Commodore Kylckoff' van Goens, came in sight. f Lahaye declined an encoun- ter, and leaving the garrison at Trinkamali to shift for itself, make sail to Malaipur, then known as St. Thome, on the Koromandel coast. Though this place had been well fortified by the Portuguese, from whom it had been taken by the Dutch some twelve years before, the French commander managed to occupy it in a very short time with the loss of only Ave men. This solitary result of an expedition, from which so much had been hoped, gave little satisfaction to the French Ministry. Trinkamali had had to surrender with all its garrison to the Dutch fleet, and now of their conquests — for at Surat and Machhlipatan they had but factories^ — St. Thome alone remained. As is common in such cases, the first outcry was against the projector, and every possible fault was at once attributed to * It would appear that Lahaye's tives. but his conduct in the attack rcptuation was i'ar greater than could upon Ceylon, and subsequently, ap- be justified •, not only had he, when pears to have been utterly unworthy Governor-General of Madagascar, of a man occupying his high posi- abaudoned the colonists there when tion. Ihey were pressed hard by the na- t Annales des Pro\4nccs Unies. EARLY CAREER OF MARTIN. 19 Caron. Some were jealous of his position ; others ^"H^^^- detested his imperious character, and declaimed against •^^^ v— his grasping disposition. Had Caron succeeded, but 1G72. little perhaps would have been heard of these faults, but having failed, they were made use of to procure his recall. The French Directors, who likewise looked very keenly to results, were so much mortified at the ill-success of this costly expedition, that they also petitioned the Minister to recall Caron, in order, they said, that they might inspect his accounts. The peti- tion was complied with, and, to prevent the chance of any evasion of the instructions, the order sent to Caron did not convey his absolute recall, but directed him, in complimentary terms, to return to France, that he might be personally consulted with regard to some new enterprise. Caron at once obeyed, and, embarking all his wealth, of which he had amassed a great deal, he set sail in 1673 for Marseilles. He had already passed the Straits of Gibraltar, when he learned from a stray vessel the real intentions of the French Government regarding him. He at once altered his course and pro- ceeded towards Lisbon. But, on entering the harbour, the ship struck on a rock, and almost immediately foundered. The only survivor of the disaster was one of the sons of Caron.* In the expeditions undertaken against Ceylon and St. Thome, a very prominent part had been taken by one Francis Martin, a Frenchman, who devoted a long career, in singleness of heart and with great success, to the furtherance of the designs of France in the East. Little is known of him prior to the year 1672, beyond the fact that he, too, had commenced his career in the service of the Dutch East India Company, and that he had left it at an early age to join the French. He had probably made the acquaintance of Caron when they * Histoire dts Irnles Orieutales, vol. iii. 20 THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP, -vvere both serving under the Dutch flag. This is cer- - tain, that he was known at Surat as a man on whose 16Si. energy and discretion Caron had the greatest reliance ; and he was regarded, at the time of its being carried out, as the soul of the enterprise undertaken against Point de Galle and Trinkaraali. Some, indeed, have asserted that the attempt on Point de Galle failed, be- cause Martin, who had the direction of the attack, had applied for, and been refused, the governorship of that place. But this statement, which was but little credited at the time, is refuted by the whole of his subsequent career. It is no slight proof of the confi- dence which he had inspired in those under whom he served, that although he was the trusted subordinate of Caron, he was regarded with equal favour by those in whose hands the departure of that official left the direc- tion of affairs in 1674. These were Admiral Lahaye and M. Baron. The position in which these gentlemen found them- selves was by no means enviable. They had provoked the hostility of the Dutch by attacking their posses- sions, and the Dutch were now masters of the seas, and inflamed against them with a particular animosity. They had retaken Trinkamali, and the French could scarcely hope that they would allow them to retain peaceable possession of St. Thome. With a view, therefore, to provide themselves with a place of refuge in case of evil days, the two French Directors ordered Martin to place himself in communication with Sher Khan Lodi, the Governor of the possessions of the King of Bijapur in Tanjur and the Karnatik, for the grant of a piece of land which they might call their own. Martin obeyed, found the Governor accessible, and was allowed to purchase a plot of ground on the sea-coast in the province of Jinji, near the mouth of the river of that name, considerably to the north of the river Kolrim. THE FRENCH EXPELLED FKOM ST. THOME. 21 This arrangement concluded, Martin teturned to St. chap. Thome. He there found the two Directors not at all .^.^.^ doubtful regarding the intentions of the Dutch. It \vas 1G74. no longer a secret that the Government of Holland, highly incensed at the attack upon its possessions in Ceylon, was by no means satisfied with the recapture of Trinkamali, but had sent out pressing instructions to its agents to drive the French likewise from St. Thome. Possessing the power, that Government determined to exercise it by striking out the French from the list of its rivals in the Indian trade. Whilst, therefore, showering rewards upon Admiral van Goens for the energy with which he had acted with reference to Trin- kamali, it urged him to follow up his blow, and, by a well-aimed stroke, to put a final end tc the ambitious projects of the French in the East. The Dutch agents immediately set to work to carry out these instructions. Their first care was to provide themselves with native allies. They, therefore, repre- sented to the King of Golkonda that the capture of St. Thome by the French was a deliberate and wanton at- tack upon possessions which they held only in vassalage to him ; that the newcomers were an enterprising and energetic race, who would not be content with merely a port on the sea-coast ; and that it concerned his safety, as well as his honour, to expel them. They acted, in fine, so much on the jealously and fears of Abul Hasan, the last representative of the House of Kutb-ul Mulk, that he detached a considerable force to besiege St. Thome by land, whilst the Dutch should attack it by sea. The combined force made its appearance before St. Thome in the beginning of 1674, but for a considerable time they failed to make any impression upon its de- fences. The place was garrisoned by nearly six hundred men, the remnants of the expedition which two years before had sailed with such alacrity against Point de 22 THE EARLY FREXCUI IN INDIA. CHAP. Galle. Now, though reduced in numbers, they were ^' animated by the best spirit, and they were under the 1674 inime(Hate direction of a man who never knew what it was to be discouraged. Such was the energy of their defence, that, finding, at the expiration of some weeks, how Uttle had been accomplished towards the reduction of the place, the Dutch resolved to land a considerable body of men to co-operate with the Golkonda army. By this means they were enabled to subject the garrison to a strict blockade. These proceedings were effectual. Unable to procure fresh supplies, and having consumed their last stores, the French were compelled to sur- render. The conditions granted to them were favour- able ; for they were allowed to march out with all the honours of war, and to proceed in whatever direction they might perfer,* If it had been the object of the Dutch to expel the French from India, they had much reason to complain of the agents who granted a capitu- lation containing such a clause. But these had little idea, in all probability, of the use that would be made of it. To a small but resolute minority of the French gar- rison, this capitulation, if a blow, was a blow which they had expected, and for which they were prepared. Having been allowed to choose their own destination, they at once selected the territory which they had pur- chased north of the Kolriln. Thither, accordingly, marched some sixty of them, under the orders of Francis Martin, and there they arrived in the month of April, 1674. They had everything to do, and their resources were at a very low ebb. The remainder, who constituted a large majority, determined to return at once in the ships that remained to them to Surat. Amongst those who adopted this course were the two Directors, Messrs. Lahaye and Baron. t * Annales des Provinces Unies, t It would appear that both La- vol. ii. haye and Baron visited the plot of MARTIN FOUNDS PONDICIIERY. 23 The supreme authority now remained with Martin, chap. He had with him sixty Europeans, inchiding the crew • , — .^ of the " Vigilante " frigate, which alone remained in the 1G75, roads at his disposal. He had likewise all the effects which had been brought from St. Thome, and a con- siderable sum in ready money. His first care was to obtain permission from the native ruler on the spot to erect such buildings as should be necessary to secure his people and their property from desultory attack. He had entered into such relations with this chieftain that this permission was granted without much diffi- culty. The command of the sea by the Dutch had forbidden him to think of opening a trade with Europe, and as Sher Khan Lodi was in want of funds, and he had those funds lying idle, he had thought it good policy to lend them to him at the then moderate inter- est of eighteen per cent. The character of Sher Khan Lodi enabled him to do this without much risk ; and, contrary to the old proverb, the transaction made of the borrower a fast friend.* Under his protection, the slender defences and the houses within them sprang up rapidly ; and by the wise dealings of Martin with the natives, a little village, containing the native population who worked for the factory, soon grew up under its walls. The whole formed a sort of town which was at first called by the natives " Philcheru," but was gradu- ally altered to the designation, which it bears at pre- sent, and by which it has always been known to Euro- peans, of " Pondichery,"f The measures adopted by Martin for regulating his commercial transactions were characterised by the same ground on which Pondichery was * Memoires dans les Archives de afterwards buHt en route to Surat. la Compagnie des Indes. P'rom Surat Baron wrote to the Com- t Brow ne's Carnatic Chronologr. pany that "next 1o St. Thome, the The native historians of those tiires site selected by Maitin was better and of the times that were to follow fitted for their purposes than any invariably write of the Fnnch other ou the Koromandel coast."— settleracut as "Phuljaii," vide Memuire dans les Archives de la Elliott's History of India, vol. viii. Compagnie des Indes. Page 391. 24 THE RARLY FRENflT TN INDIA. CHAP, prudence. In those days India supplied Europe with ^' piece-goods, and it was to the opening of a trade in jQ-fj this commodity that the attention of the little colony was at first directed. So successful were their efforts that in about two years after their arrival, Martin wrote to the Company that he would be able to send them an annual supply to the value of 1,000,000 livres or more. Tie added a full description of the place ; stated that he considered it as well adapted as any other on the coast for the purpose of a Frencli settlement ; that the roadstead in front of it, which prevented the near ap- proach of men-of-war, rendered it secure against any sudden attack ; that it was fairly sheltered from the monsoon ; that it was healthy and well situated for commercial purposes. This report, and the intelligence which accompanied it, so different from the accounts which the fall of St. Thome had led them to expect, were received with the greatest satisfaction by the Directors. It must not be imagined that the colonists were entirely free from troubles and alarms, Pondichery was, in fact, founded and nutured amid the clash of arms and the clamour of falling kingdoms. The Sul- tanat of Bijapiir from which the ground on which it was built had been obtained, ceased in 1676 to be ranked as an independent sovereignty. Twelve months later, Golkonda, which had assisted in the expulsion of the French from St. Thome, had itself fallen a prey to the insatiable ambition of Aurangzeb. At the same time, the enemy of all established authorities — Sivaji — was engaged in levying contributions wherever he could obtain them, in annexing towns and provinces, and in laying the foundation of that predatory power which his successors carried to so great a height. In such a time, the only chance of safety, especially for a community comparatively rich, was to be well armed, and well capable of offering resistance. None felt this IfR SUCCESSFULLY NEnOTL\.Ti:S WITH SIVAJI. 25 more than Martin. As, then, he noticed the periodical ^'^j^^- increase of his manufactories, he felt that he had need ■ — ^r— ^ of more numerous defenders than the few Europeans who 1677. formed his party. He accordingly, in 1676, applied to liis friend Sher Khan Lodi, for permission to entertain some native soldiers for the purposes of defence. Sher Khan willingly assented, and made over to him three hundred of his own men. Martin used these men not only as soldiers, but colonists. He gave each a piece of land, and encouraged them to build houses, and to employ themselves profitably in the manufacture of tissues and other articles for export. For some time everything went on well, and the settlement continued to increase in prosperity. But in the seventeenth century peace and tranquillity were rare in India ; and the turn of Pondichery came at last. In 1676, Sivaji, having in the four preceding years pos- sessed himself of many places on the Malabar coast, and been crowned King of the Marathas, proceeded to Golkonda, and, after having made an alliance with its ruler for the protection of his own territories during his absence, poured like a torrent on the Karnatik. In May, 1677, he passed by Madras, then occupied by the English, and appeared before Jinjf, regarded as inac- cessible. Jinji, however, surrendered, owing, it is stated, to a previous understanding with the comman- der. Proceeding further south, he was met by Martin's friend, Sher Khan, at the head of five thousand horse, but Sher Khan was defeated and taken prisoner. Sivaji then invested Vellur, took Arni^ and threatened to overwhelm the settlement established by the French, on the ground of their being dependents of his enemy Sher Khan. The situation was critical. Martin's three hundred soldier-workmen were powerless in such an emer- gency, even supported by the entire European com- munity. Resistance, therefore, was out of the ques- 26 THE EARLY FREXCII IN INDIA. ^ii^^i"- tion. But Martin liad before dealt with Asiatics, and .,_^^,-«^ he knew that there was one argument against which 1819. few of them were proof. For greater security, how- ever, he took the precaution, in the first instance, to send all the property of the Company by sea to Madras. He then requested one of the petty native chieftains in his neighbourhood,* who had made his own submission to the irresistible Maratha, to represent his perfect readiness to acknowledge the authority of Sivaji, and to pay the necessary sums for a license to trade in his dominions. This request, accompanied by a handsome offering, did not fail of success. Sivaji, never very ready to attack Europeans, had, on this occasion, no personal animosity to gratify, and he granted all that was asked of him on the sole condition that the French should take no part against him in military operations. The negotiation was scarcely terminated, when the news of the invasion of Golkonda by the Mughals called him away in a northerly direction, and Pondichery was the safer for the danger that had threatened it. After this, affairs went on for some time quietly. But subsequently to the invasion of Sivaji, Sher Khan, the old friend and protector of the rising settlement, appears to have been engaged in constant warfare, a warfare that did not always end in success. It became therefore an object to the French that he should repay, whilst yet he was able, the sums that had been advanced to him in 1674, amounting to eight thousand rupees. To him therefore, in a friendly manner, Martin signified his wishes. Sher Khan, unable to pay, granted him, instead, the revenue of the lands in the district of Pondichery, and made the cession of that place itself absolute, an arrangement very advantageous to French interests. Thus secure of a fixed revenue, Martin began with greater vigour than ever to carry out his improvements. His * Guyon speaks of Mm as a Brahman living in Pondichery ; he was pro- bably a small landowner. POXDICIIERY THREATENED BY THE DUTCJf. 27 sixty Europeans had been reduced to thirty-four ; but he ^^^^• did not despair. He continued to build houses, ma^a- - zines, and stores; and in the beginning of 1689, he I'J'J^^- obtained likewise, though with much difficulty, the per- mission of Sambaji, son of Sivaji, to make of the defences he had erected a regular fortification.* In that year, however, war broke out between France and Holland, and the Dutch appeared determined to take advantage of the opportunity to repair the fault they had committed in 1674, when they granted the French a free retreat from St. Thome. The prosperity of Pondichery alarmed them. The occasion was propitious. The French navy was too much occupied in Europe to be able to assist its possessions on the Koromandel coast — which, indeed, had been systematically neglected from the out- set. The Dutch, on the contrary, had a strong force in the eastern seas; and, free from all fear of opposition, they resolved to use it to nip in the bud the young French settlement at Pondichery. In accordance with these views, a fleet of nineteen sail of the line, exclusive of transports and smaller vessels, appeared before Pondichery at the end of August, 1693. It was one of the most imposing armaments that had ever sailed on the Indian seas. It had on board fifteen hundred European troops, and two thousand European sailors, besides some native Cingalese in Dutch pay ; it had sixteen brass guns, six mortars, and a siege train Nevertheless, scarcely satisfied with their own means, the Dutch had previously written to Ram Raya, who, on the death of Sambaji, had been appointed ruler of the Marathas, offering to buy from him the district of Pondichery. The reply of Ram Raja deserves to be remembered. " The French," he said, " fairly purchased Pondichery, and paid for it a valuable consideration; therefore all the money in the world would never * It is a tradition of Pondichery that these defences were planned and carried out by a Capuchin monk, Father Louis. 28 THE EAKLY FRE.NX'II IN INDIA. CHAP, tempt me to dislodge them.* But when the Dutch ^- fleet appeared before Pondichery, the high-souled jg93 Maratha was no longer able to exert his influence in their favour. He was shut up in the fortress of Jinji, on the capture of which Aurangzeb had set his heart. The surrounding country fell during this siege under the influence of the preponderating power of the Mughals, and these did not hesitate, on an applica- tion from the Dutch, to sell to them the district of Pondichery for fifty thousand pagodas, and even to detach a body of men to support them. To resist this formidable attack, Martin had literally no resources. The French Company, on taking stock in 1684, had been terribly alarmed by finding that, in- stead of gaining by their commercial enterprises, they had actually lost one-half of their capital. They were therefore little in the mood to send out any material assistance to Martin, especially as they had all along regarded his undertaking as foolhardy and impractic- able. Martin had been therefore from the very outset left to himself. We have seen what he had accom- plished ; how he had built and fortified a town, estab- lished a trade, gained the confidence of the natives, princes as well as people, and laid the foundation of an enduring prosperity. And now all this promising fabric was to be overthrown. In the course of one of those contests, in which the country was always en- gaged, his native allies were temporarily on the losing side. From them, therefore, he could expect no as- sistance. He had six guns, thirty to forty Europeans, and some three or four hundred natives, and he was attacked by a fleet and army strong enough to take possession of all the European settlements in India. It must have been a sad day for Martin when he be- held this storm breaking over his head, and destroying * M^moire dans les Archives de' la Compagnie des Indes ; Grant-Duflf'a History of the Mar&thas, KEFLEGTIONS ON THE I'OLICY OF MAETIN. 29 the tangible evidences of his wise and skilful policy, chap. Nevertheless, he brought to bear against it all the re- ^ - ■ sources of a mind habituated to calm and cool judgment. 1693. He had taken the precaution to move the idlers out of the town, and he prepared for a vigorous defence. The Dutch, however, gave him no respite. They landed their troops at the end of August, cut him off at once from the inland and from the sea, and plied their attack with such energy that, on September 6, having then offered a resistance of twelve days' duration, Martin had no hopes of being able to prolong the defence, and de- manded a parley. This resulted in a capitulation, signed on September 8, and consisted of thirteen articles, the principal of which were, that the place should be given up to the Dutch East India Company ; that the garrison should march out with all the honours of war ; that the native soldiers should retire whither they pleased ; but that the French should be sent to Europe, either that year or the beginning of the next. These conditions were implicity complied with.* Thus ended, apparently for ever, the attempt of tlie French to establish themselves permanently on the Koromandel coast. Of all the efforts ever made by that nation to form a settlement in India, this one had been undertaken under the most gloomy auspices, and with the smallest resources ; and yet up to the time of the capture of Pondichery, it had succeeded the best. Formed of the remnant of the garrison of St. Thome, composed originally of but sixty Europeans, never regu- larly reinforced, but receiving only stray additions, it had not only mahitained itself for seventeen years, but it had made itself respected by the natives of the country. What it had accomplished in its internal arrangements, we have already recorded. As we pon- der over the story of these seventeen years of occupa- * Memoire dans les Anliives de la Compagnie des Indes, in which the capitulatioQ is given ia full. 30 THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP, i{(m, the question cannot but arise, how it was that V .^.-.^ this handful of men, left to themselves, accomplished 1693. so much, whilst other expeditions, upon which all the resources of the Company had been so exuberantly lavished, failed so signally ? We can only reply by pointing to the character of the leader. Everything was due to Francis Martin. His energy, his persever- ance, liis gentleness with the natives, his fair dealing, formed tlie real foundations of Pondichery. Never was tliere an adventurer — if adventurer he can be called — who was more pure-handed, who looked more entirely after the interests of France, and less after his own. In this respect he was the very opposite of Caron. Caron was avaricious, grasping, jealous of others' repu- tation. Martin was single-minded, liberal, large-hearted without a thought of envy or jealousy, and a true patriot. Such are the men who found empires, and who are the true glory of their country ! The founda- tions which Martin laid were not, it is true, destined to be surmounted by an imperial edifice, but they only just missed that lionour. That they were worthy of it is his glory ; that those that followed him failed, cannot reflect upon him. We see him now with all his hopes baffled, his seventeen years of expectation destroyed, a poor man, sailing to France with nothing to show as the result of all his labours. Was there indeed nothing "? Aye, if experience of a distant country, if successful management of mankind, if the ability to make for one's self resources, — if these be nothing, Martin returned to his country destitute indeed. But in that age such acquirements were more highly considered than they sometimes are now ; and no long time elapsed before Martin was to feel that they had gained for him the confidence of his country to an extent that enabled him to repair the losses of 1693, and to rebuild on the old foundation a power whose reputation was to endure. Before, however, we proceed to record the further THE DEPENDENCIES OF PONDICHERY. 31 attempts of the French to establish themselves on the chap. southern Koromandel coast, it is necessary that we ^ ■ / should glance at their proceedings in other parts of 1G93. Hindustan. We have already alluded to their establishment at Surat.* This was strengthened in the year 1672 by the transfer to it of the head authority from Madagas- car, — the Company's settlements in which were aban- doned in that year, and Madagascar nominally trans- ferred to the French crown. f Some of the Madagascar settlers proceeded, as we have seen, to the Isle of Mascarenhas, afterwards known as Bourbon; others came on to Surat. But the establishment at Surat did not prosper. The wretched condition of the affairs of the parent Company naturally affected their servants, and prevented them from carrying on trade with the vigour or success of the Dutch and the English. Poli- tically, the location there of the factory was of no advantage to the French, and its commercial value lessened with the rising importance of Pondichery and Chandranagar. For many years therefore the trade at Surat languished, and the place was finally abandoned in the beginning of the eighteenth century. It was abandoned, however, in a manner little credit- able to the French Company. Their agents left behind them debts to a very large amount, and such * Grand Dutf records that when nation ; and, considering that on this Surat was plundered for the second occasion Sivaji's force consisted of time by Sivaji (Oct. 3rd, 1670), fifteen thousand picked troops, whil&t " theEuglish, as on the first occasion, the French were few in numbers, and det'enied themselves successfully, occupied a weak position it is scarcely under the direction of Mr. Streing- astonishing that they entered into an ham Masters, and killed many of the engagement which secured to them Marathas ; the Dutch factory, being their property. The plunder of the in a retiredquarter, was not molested; Tartar prince can scarcely be consi- but the French purchased an igno- dered a consequence of this engago- minious neutrality, bypermitting Si- ment. Surat was for three daj's in vajl's troops to pass through their the possession of Sivaji's troops ; factory to attack an unfortunate Tar- and the Tartar prince would have tar prince, who was on his return been plundered under any circum- from an embassy to Mekka.'' stances. Ignominiou4y avoiding a combat t Edict Louis XIV. 12th Xovem- is not characteristic of the French ber, 1671. 32 THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. CHAP, ^yr^g ^}jg effect on the native merchants that when, a few • ^-^ years afterwards (1714), a company, formed at St. Malo, 1693. despatched ships to trade at Surat, the ships were seized and sequestered on account of the debts of the French India Company, with which that of St. Malo was in no way connected. In dealing with the French intercourse with this place we have advanced beyond the main point of the narrative ; but it is of the less consequence, as we shall have little further occasion to make any reference to Surat, The French factory at Machhlipatan was, as we have seen, founded by the Persian Marcara, in 1669, under a patent obtained from the King of Golkonda. Its trade at the outset was extremely flourishing ; but the expulsion of the French from St. Thome, by the aid, it will be remembered, of the Golkonda army, was a heavy blow to its prosperity. It exerted for a long time after little political influence on the march of affairs. It revived, however, with the rise of Pondi- chery. In 1693, the French obtained permission to build a square, which is still in existence, and is known by the name of France pata. Machhlipatan became later one of the most important of the minor French settlements. To the circumstances connected with its rise we shall have occasion to refer further on. In the year 1663, Shayista Khan, the maternal uncle of the Emperor Aurangzeb, having been driven out of the Dakhan, and compelled to flee for his life by Sivaji, whom he had been sent to repress, was appointed, to compensate him for his humiliation, Subadar of Bengal. It was during his vice-royalty* that a French fleet entered the Hugli, and disembarked a body of settlers at the village of Chandranagar. This village was ceded to those settlers by an edict of Aurangzeb in 1688. Eight years later, Subhan Singh, a landed proprietor of ♦ Stewart, in his History of Bengal, says " about the year 1676." THE DUTCH FORTIFY rONDlCHEIlY. 33 Baidwan, rebelled against the authority of the Subadar chap. Ibrahim Khan, the successor of Shayista Khan, and ^^ ' rallying to his standard the Orisca Afglians and other i(^(j-^ malcontents, plundered Ilugli, and carried devastation to the very gates of the European settlements. In this crisis, the English, French, and Dutch traders pressed upon the Subadar the necessity of their being permitted to fortify their respective settlements — a favour which had been before asked and refused. The Subadar would only tell them in reply to provide for their own safety. This was regarded as a tacit permission to fortify, and was acted upon accordingly. Nevertheless, the French at Chandranagar never attempted to be anything more than traders. For a long time their efforts in that respect were not very successful. All French writers speak of their trade there, for many years, as languish- ing. By letters patent, dated February, 1701, Chand- ranagar, with the other French possessions in the Indies (Baleshwar, Kasimbazar — an offshoot from Chandranagar — and Machhlipatan), was placed under the authority of the Governor of Pondichery. It was not, however, till ]] early thirty years later that the trade received an impulse which converted Chandranagar into one of the most flourishing settlements of the Company, To that change and its causes we shall refer at the proper time. The factory at Baleshwar (Balasore) was insignificant, and was virtually abandoned at an early period. It will thus be seen, that of all the ])laces in India in which the French had made a settlement, Pondichery was in 1693 the most advanced and most promising. And now they had lost Pondichery. The Dutch knew well the value of their conquest. Its situation, sheltered for nine months in the year from the monsoon, the inconsiderable surf, and the fact of there being a little river falling into the sea navigable for flat-bottomed boats, rendered it superior as a settlement to any other D 3i THE EARLY FRENCH IN INDIA. place on tlio Koromandel coast. They therefore deter- mined to make it worthy to be the capital of Dutch 1693. India. Their first care was to strengthen its defences. They built new walls, supported by bastions, and rendered it the strongest fortress possessed by an European power in Hindustan. They endeavoured also to cement their relations with the natives, and to establish with them the same cordial intercourse which had existed with the French. It was an end towards which they strove that as in tlieir wars with the Portuguese they had permanently retained the fortified places they had taken from them in India, so, after this contest with the French, peace when it came might once more confirm to them the possession of their Eastern gains. Meanwhile, Martin and his companions had arrived in France. The reception they met with was en- couraging. The Minister and the Directors were equally pleased to honour a man who had effected so much with so little. The King himself conferred upon him the dignity of Chevalier of the order of St. Lazare. On the other hand, his description of Pondichery and its advantages imparted vitality and excitement to Directors who had had to experience nothing but losses. They began for the first time to appreciate the importance of the place wliich they had hitherto so neglected, and which, owing to that neglect, had been lost to them. Just then, however, nothing could be done. France Avas fighting single-handed against Spain, Germany, England, and Holland; and of these England and Holland were her successful rivals in the Indies. There was nothing for it but to wait for peace. Peace at last came. On September 21,* 1697, the treaty of Ryswick was signed. One of the articles of that treaty engaged that there should be a mutual •All dates given in this volume are accordiu? to the new style. 1C97. MARTIN APPOINTED DIRECTOR-GENERAL. 35 restitution of uU places taken on both sides, both in and out of Europe ; and at the close of that article was a clause in which the fortress of Pondichery was particularly mentioned, with an especial proviso, that its fortifications should not be destroyed, but that it should be delivered up in its then condition. Pondichery thus recovered, the French Com[)any resolved that it should not easily again slip from their possession. Martin was at once appointed to the command of the place, and instructions were given him to add still further to its strength. It was agreed to reimburse to the Dutch 16,000 pagodas, w^hich they asserted they had expended on the fortifications. A squadron was at the same time sent out to India, having on board two hundred regular troops, several engineers, a large supply of military stores, several heavy and field-guns, and materials in abundance for the use of the settlement. On arriving at his destination, Martin commenced the work of improvement. He enlarged and strengthened the fortifications, and collected a garrison of between seven and eight liundred Europeans ; he laid out a plan for a large town, the erection of which he commenced. In little more than a year, a hundred new houses had been erected, and the place presented such an improved appearance, that, it is stated, a person who had only seen it in 1693 would not have recognised it. Nor did he omit to renew his relations with the natives. By the same course of gentleness and straightforward dealing which he had formerly followed, he attracted them in great numbers to the settlement, so much so that on his death, in 1706, the native town was computed to contain nearly forty thousand inhabitants. We have stated that on the abandonment of Mada- gascar in 1672, the supreme French authority in India was transferred to Surat. But, in 1701, less than three years after the re-occupation of Pondichery, the trade at D 2 36 THE EAKLT FREXCII IX IXDIA. CHAP. Siirat had become so unprofitable that it was resolved ' to abandon the factory there. How the factory was 1697. abandoned, we have already seen. But, prior to that not very creditable episode, letters patent had been issued, by which the Superior Council of the Indies, as it was called, was transferred from Surat to Pondichery, and this place was made the seat of the Director or Governor-general, with supreme authority over the other French factories in any part of India. Almost im- mediately afterwards, Martin was appointed President of the Superior Council, and Director-general of French affairs in India.* Meanwhile, the affairs of the French Company in France, always badly managed, did not reap much advantage from the peace. Unable, from paucity of funds, to fit out trading expeditions of their own, they were compelled to have recourse to the system of sell- ing trading licenses to others. With funds and good management in Paris, and a Martin at Pondichery, the French might have established an inland trade in India, which it would not have been easy to destroy, and which would have immensely aided the ambitious projects of some of the successors of Martin. But at the close of the seventeenth century, the resources of the French Company were nearly exhausted. They struggled on, indeed, by means of the shifts to which we have adverted, for some time longer. But the material aid which they afforded to the settlement at Pondichery was of the slightest description. The traders who purchased their licenses made fortunes ; whilst the Directors of the Company which granted those licenses were just able by their sale to realise sufficient to keep their servants from starving. This was an immense misfortune at a time when the affairs of the Company were being managed in India by a man * Letters patent sis^ned by Louis XIV., dated February, 1701. HIS WISE POLICY. 37 of conspicuous ability and of rare integrity. AVhilst chap. the town of Pondichery was increasing, and its native ^ inhabitants continued enormously to augment, merely 1701. by reason of the good government that they found there, the connexion with the parent Company was becoming every day more precarious and uncertain, and the Superior Council could not but fear that the time would shortly arrive when Pondichery, like Madagascar and Surat, w^ould be abandoned. Whilst affairs were in this uncertain position, Martin 1706. died — December 30, 1706. Upon the plot of ground which he had occupied just thirty-two years before with sixty men, there had risen up under his auspices a large and flourishing town. He himself, its founder, had not only amassed no riches, but he died poor — poor but honoured. He had devoted all his energies, private as well as public, to his country. Pondichery, at his death, although still in its infancy as a city, had an air of prosperity which it was impossible to mistake. There was a fine palace for the Governor, built of brick, and other houses and shops of the same material. Keeping in view the rising importance of the city he had founded, Martin had been careful to lay out the streets in such a manner that those who built houses could not but contribute to its regularity and beauty. The fruit of his excellent rules was fully realised in the time of his successors, and is to be seen at the present day. Nearly ten years had elapsed since the Dutch had restored Pondichery, and they had been years of peace and growing prosperity. The French enjoyed in those days a great reputation at the courts of the various native princes for qualities the very opposite of those they were wont to display in Europe.* The power and resources of France, the sacredness of the persons of her sons, were subjects which the French in India * Historie des Indes Orientales. 38 THE EARLY FRENCH IX INDIA. CHAP, never dwelt upon. They were careful, on the contrary, ^' to pay the utmost deference to the wishes of the prince 1706. ^^i^h whom they were brought in contact, and to at- tempt to gain his confidence by a recognition of his power and authority. Their policy, in fact, was to adapt themselves as much as possible to native habits, whilst not departing from those strict principles, an adherence to which alone can beget confidence. In this respect, the ruler of Pondichery had something to repair, for the discreditable departure from Surat bad materially affected French credit. Though it was left unavoidably to the successors of Martin to atone for that blot, yet, by the fairness of his own dealings, he brought his relations with the natives to such a point, that he and his French were not only trusted, but per- sonally esteemed and regarded. In this way he laid the foundation for that intimate connexion with native powers, which the most illustrious of his successors used with such effect to build up a French empire in India. Perhaps it was, that, left so h)ng to his own resources in the presence of contending powers, any one of which was strong enough to destroy him, he deemed a policy of conciliation his only safe policy. But, even in that case, to him the credit is undoubtedly due of being able to dive so well into the character of the natives as to use them for his own purposes by seeming to defer to their wishes ; to turn the attack of Sivaji into a claim for Maratha protection, and to con- vert the loan to Sher Khan Lodi into the means of obtaining a fixed and perpetual revenue. It is a remarkable result, too, of Martin's skilful policy that the progress of Pondichery caused neither envy nor apprehension to any of the native rulers of the country. It is a result which can only be ascribed to the confidence which that policy had inspired. The guns on the ramparts were regarded, not as threatening to a native power, but as a means of defence against HIS WISE i'oLicY. 39 one of the rival nations of Europe. When a native chap. prince visited Pondichery, he was received as a friend ; ' _ . he was carefully waited upon ; he was pressed to stay. \ik)^. The idea of regarding the natives as enemies was never suffered by any chance to appear. Acknowledging them as the lords paramount of the country, the French professed to regard themselves as their best tenants, their firmest well-wishers. Pondichery rose, therefore, without exciting a single feeling of distrust. It was freely resorted to by the most powerful princes and nobles in its neighbourhood. The good offices of the French were not seldom employed to mediate in cases of dispute. Thus it liappened that they gained not only toleration but friendship and esteem. They were the only European nation which the natives re- garded with real sympathy. Evidences of this regard were constantly given; that it was real, subsequent events fully proved. This cordial understanding with the children of the soil — the solid foundation upon which to build up a French India — was, with much more that we have described, the work of that Martin whom the latest* French account of French India dismisses in half a dozen lines. Was it his fault that his successors risked and lost that which he had secured with so much care, with so much energy, with so much prudence'? The most fervent admirers of IJupleix, the most determined defenders of Lally, the most prejudiced partisans of Bussy, cannot assert that. Was it not rather that the very facility of Martin's success opened out to the most ambitious of his successors that splendid vision of supreme domination which is especially alluring to those who feel within themselves the possession of great powers ] To answer that question, we must turn, in an inquiring spirit, to their careers. * Inde, par M. X. Raymond. 40 CHAPTER II. THE PEEPETUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. CHAP. Eight years after the death of Frauds Martin the fifty . years' monopoly of the Company of the Indies, granted 17U. hy Louis XIV. in 1664, came to an end. It was in- deed time. For several years the Company had been unable, in consequence of its numerous debts and its want of funds, to use the privileges with which it had been invested for its own advantage. Even so far back as 1682, being unable to purchase a sufficiency of goods w^herewith to load its vessels, it had permitted private speculators to forward merchandise to India, on the sole condition that such merchandise should be despatched on board the vessels of the Company, and that it should be paid for as freight. In 1708, it allowed a M. Creuzat to equip two vessels under the name of the Company, on condition that he should pay it fifteen per cent, of the gross sum realised by the sale of his wares, and two per cent, on the product of the captures his vessels might make beyond the Line. The Company reserved to itself at the same time the right of retaining for its agents in India ten tons of the wares of Pondichery for the home voyage. These expedients, however, failed to produce such a return as would enable the Company either to pay its debts or to re-enter upon its legitimate trade. To such an extent did resources fail, that, in 1712, two years before the expiration of its charter, the Company was compelled to abandon entirely even the attempt to despatch vessels to the Indies, and to con- tent itself with giving up its rights in this lespect to the merchants of St. Malo, in consideration of an ITS J'lllVlLEGES RENEWED EOll TEN YEARS. 41 annual payment. Thus it happened that when, in 1714, chap. it petitioned the King for a renewal af its privileges, it ^— y—— ' was actually unable to avail itself of those privileges, 1714. but maintained a lingering existence solely by letting them out to others.* It can easily be imagined how this state of things re-acted on Pondichery. Wanting money, no longer even receiving ships belonging to the parent Company, the first successors of Martin, MM. Dulivier and Hebertjt were able to do but very little. The carry- ing trade passed gradually from their hands into the hands of other merchants and companies, and from this time to 1722, the commerce and credit of Pondi- chery alike continued to decline. The debts contracted at Surat remained unpaid, and this fact alone was suffi- cient to affect the credit of the town to which the Government had been transferred from that place. It was a hard time indeed for those agents of a bankrupt Company. They strove nevertheless to do what they could to second the paltry efforts which the Directors made from time to time to increase their trade. But it was in vain. Fortunately during the entire period they were left unmolested by the native Powers. Though all India resounded with the clash of arms that followed the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, though warlike operations were taking place in the Dakhan and on the Malabar coast, Pondichery remained unthreatened. It was a period indeed which a rich parent Company in France, supported by active agents on the coast, might have used with immense advantage to French interests. But under the actual circumstances of the case it was * Ilistoire des Indes Orientales, 171.3, when Dulivier re-assumed the par M. I'Abbe Guyon. office. He held it for nearly two t M. Dulivier succeeded Martin on years, when he was aj^ain succeeded January 1, 1707, but continued as by Hebert, who continued as Gover- Governor only till the arrival of the nor till August 19, 1'18.— Extract Chevalier Hebert in July, 170.S. He- from flic Archives of tJie Company, berr. continued to adnunister the forwarded to mc hij M. Tiontemps. atfairs of the colnny till October, 42 THE PERPETUAL COMPAKY UFTllE INDIES. CHAP, fortunate for Pondichery, neglected and impoverislied, , that she was able, for the fourteen years that followed 1714. the death of Martin, to drag on a feeble existence, hoping for better times. There was little in that inter- val to call for the remark of the historian. The interest of the period is rather concentrated in the change that took place in the fortunes of the parent Company, and which, at the expiration of the fourteen years we have alluded to, enabled the rulers of Pondichery to make a real start in the race for wealth and prosperity. We propose therefore to return to the affairs of the Com- pany in Europe. That Company had in 1714 applied, as we have already stated, for a renewal of the privileges which would lapse in that year. The state of its affairs was well known to the mercantile world of France as well as to the Ministers, and a strong opinion was expressed against the policy of granting to the Company privileges of which it could only make use by transferring them to others. But notwithstanding public opinion, in those days feebly expressed, the Directors had sufficient in- terest to carry their point. On September 29, 1714, a Royal edict was issued, directing the continuance to the Company for ten years of all its privileges, dating from January 1, 1715, with the sole proviso, that thence- forth, one-tenth of the product of the captures made by the Company's vessels beyond the Line should revert to the Great Admiral of France. It appeared then tliat for another ten years the affairs of French India Avere doomed to languish, and perhaps even to perish of atrophy. But on September 1, 1715, an event occurred which changed for a time the current of affairs in France and her dependencies. On that day Louis XIV. died, leaving behind him a public debt of 2,412,000,000 francs, and the revenue mortgaged for years to come. Misery and disease reigned amongst the population, commorre and industry were in an LAW CREATES THE COMPANY OF THE WEST. 43 extraordinary state of depression, national bankruptcy chap. appeared inevitable. The Duke of Orleans, brother of •.^,^„^^ the King, upon whom had devolved the office of Regent, 1715. whilst he almost despaired of the means whereby to extricate the country from the calamity by which it was threatened, was yet determined to resort to any ex- pedient rather than declare bankruptcy. Whilst yet meditating on the courses open to him, there suddenly appeared in Paris, within a month after the death of the King, a young Scotchuian named Law, who, addressing himself to the Regent, declared his ability to rescue the country from the financial abyss into which it had fallen, and to restore to it credit and prosperity. To understand the revolution which overtook the affairs of the East India Company at this juncture, it will be necessary to give here a brief outline of the measures adopted by Law, under the sanc- tion of the Regent. In pursuance of his demands there was created, by letters patent dated May 2, 1716, a bank of deposit and discount, authorised to issue notes payable to the bearer in coin of the current value of the day. The capital of this bank, styled the General Bank, consisted of 6,000,000 francs, in 1,200 shares of 5,000 francs each, payable in four instalments, one-fourth in specie, and three-fourths in Government notes. One great object of the establish- ment of bank was thus to relieve the public credit, by accepting at par, for the payment of its shares. Government notes which were then scarcely saleable at 70 or 80 per cent, discount. At the same time that it did this it declared its own notes payable in cash to the bearer at the current value of silver. The sudden establishment of a bank on such principles, and with a comparatively low rate of discount, at a period when confidence had disappeared, had an electric effect. Instantly there was a strong demonstration in its 44 THE I'EKI'KTUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. CHAP, favour, and a rush to partake of the advantages it , offered. The confidence in its stability became so 1717. f^trong, that, although it possessed a capital of but six millions, Law saw himself enabled, within a short time of its establishment, to issue notes to the value of fif- teen or twenty millions. The credit of the bank was further augmented by the publication, on April 15, 1717, of a decree, whicli commanded all the agents intrusted with the management of the Royal revenues, to receive the notes of the bank as money, and to cash such notes at sight to the extent to which cash was available. The success of the bank had already greatly relieved the State credit, for it being a condition of the purchase of bank shares that they should be paid for, three- fourths in Government notes, a run had ensued upon these securities, and they had risen greatly in favour. The revival of credit stimulated the other industries of the nation, and commerce and trade, shortly before so depressed, began to resume the position natural to a state of prosperity. But this was only a beginning. Its success stimu- lated Law to propose, and the Regent and the public to accept, the more speculative schemes which were formed by his teeming brain. The district of Louisana in North America, discovered in 1541, and traversed by M. de Salle in 1682, seemed to Law to offer a basis upon which to erect a scheme which would secure immense commercial advantages to France, and at the same time benefit her finances. The idea itself was not new, for one Antoine Crozat, a speculative mer- chant, had already attempted the task of colonisation, and had failed. He was too willing therefore to make over his privileges to Law. But if the idea was not new, the treatment proposed by Law was startling by its novelty. He declared it would be necessary to raise a Sovereign Company, rivalling the companies of Eng. UNITES TO IT THE INDIA COMPANY. 45 laud and Holland, and depending on a large capital. c:hap. This capital, he proposed, should be not less than . 100,000,000 francs, divided into 200,000 shares of 500 1717. francs each, payable in Government notes. As these were still at a discount, the proposal was regarded with wonder, and at first, with some distrust. But Law was confident. It was his object to cause by the success of his scheme a further run upon the Government notes, so as to raise them to par. The scheme was presented to the public in August, 1717. Letters patent, bearing that date, confeiTed upon the Company of the West, as it was called, for twenty-four years, the privileges of a monopoly of the entire trade with Louisiana and Canada. Every right of the citizen and the trader, and of the absolute owner of the soil, was comprised in these privileges. They were made dependent solely upon the condition of rendering fidelity and homage to the King of France in token of vassalage. But though presented to the public in August, 1717, some time elapsed before Law saw fit to take the scheme, as it were, by the hand, and to push it into public favour. Measures, hostile to himself and his plans, were being hatched at the time under the auspices of the Parlement of Paris, M. d'Argenson, President of the Council of Finance, and the brothers Paris. He deemed it more prudent there- fore to await the moment when he could act with a certainty of success. It is only necessary to state here that in the contest of the Regent with the Parlement the Regent tri- umphed. Profiting by this victory, he caused to be issued, on December 4, 1718, a royal proclamation by which the General Bank was declared attached to the State, under the designation of the Royal Bank, with effect from January 1, 1719. The King, i.e., the State, thus became security for the notes. The change was effected by the purchase by the State of the twelve 46 THE PERPETUAL COMPAXY OF THE INDIES. CHAP, hundred shares which constituted the original capital of the bank. These shares were paid for in cash. It 1713 will be recollected that the original shareholders had paid for each share of 5,000 francs only, the first fourth of ],250 francs in cash, and the remainder in Govern- ment notes, then at 70 or 80 per cent, discount. The transaction then was most favourable for the share- holders. It seemed at first scarcely so for the State. So greatly indeed did the notes of the bank multiply that Law found it would be impossible to act up to the rule which had made the fortune of the General Bank, and which provided for the payment in specie, to the bearer, of the amount of the note at the current value of silver. Under his auspices, then it was decreed that thenceforth the amount represented by the note should be paid in " livres tournois of a fixed and unvarying value whatever might be the after variations of coined money ; " and that only notes under 000 francs should necessarily be paid in cash, it being optional to the banker to give change for notes above that amount in notes or cash, as he might consider most convenient. This interference with the free trade of currency, this upsetting of the ladder by which Law had made his first reputation, was undoubtedly a great mistake. The General Bank, however, had been so successful a pro- ject, that the public were slow to perceive the error, and before it could be exposed. Law had launched, in all earnestness, that commercial and financial operation, which is so intimately connected with the subject of our history. We have alluded to the formation of the Company of the West. Pending the conversion of the General into the Royal Bank, Law had left this scheme, as it were, to itself, and the shares, consequently, paid for in depreciated notes, had fallen to the value of one- half. He then suddenly conceived the idea of uniting to this new Company, the old East India Company founded by Colbert, as well as the Companies of China 1719. STYLES IT THE COMPANY OF THE INDIES. 47 and of Senegal, neither of wliich was in a very liourish- chap ing condition. To the thus united Company would fall, ^^• he fondly hoped, the trade of France with the East as well as with the West. The Regent entered fully into the scheme. With his sanction a royal decree was issued dated May, 1719, to carry it into effect. In this decree the failure of the Company founded by Colbert was admitted and dwelt upon ; the cessation of its trade, its abandonment of its privileges to others, were adverted to, and attributed to its bad manao-ement ; the continuation of its charter for ten years, by the late King, from January 1, 1715, was admitted: "but," the decree went on to state, " in place of fulfilling its legiti- mate duties (the payment of its debts), the Indians have carried to us reiterated complaints that the Com- pany will pay neither interest nor capital, and that for more that sixteen years it has not sent any vessel to Surat." After a further reference to the inevitable con- sequence of such management, the decree continued thus : " We have considered it proper for the welfare of our Kindgom to re-establish and increase the commerce of the French with the Indies, and to preserve the honour of the nation by paying to these people the debts contracted by the Company. To carry out this design we have resolved to suppress the privileges accorded to the Companies of the Indies and of China, and to unite them to that of the West." After this preamble there followed twelve decrees, revoking the privileges of the old Companies, and conferring on the Company of the West the sole right of commerce to the countries east of the Cape, including, besides the African Islands and the Indian Seas, the Red Sea, Persia, the territories of the Mughal, Siam, China, Japan, as well as the Straits of Magellan and the seas to the south. To the same Company was likewise granted possession " of the lands, islands, forts, houses, magazines, property movable and immovable, revenues. 48 THE PERPETUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. CHAP, ships, barks, mimitious of war and provisions, negroes, "j , animals, merchandise, and, in fact, everything that the 1719 Companies of India and China have been able to con- quer or acquire, or which has been conceded to them in France, in the Indies, or in China, on condition of paying to the French, as well as to the Indians, all the lawful debts of the Companies of India and of China." The commercial advantages granted to the Company were very great. It was allowed the exclusive right of importing from the countries indicated all products not prohibited in France, and facilities were accorded to it of selling the prohibited articles to foreign coun- tries. By the 11th decree it was directed that thence- forth the Company should be styled the " Company of the Indies," and should assume the arms of the Com- pany of the West. But perhaps the most important of the decrees pro- mulsated on this occasion related to the mode in which the funds necessary for carrying on the business of this great Company should be raised. The part of the sixth decree, which settled this point, ran thus : " We have permitted and do permit it to issue new shares to the value of twenty-five millions of francs to be paid for in ready money only, and at the rate of 550 francs for each share. These will be of the same nature as the 100 millions of the Company of the West, which are before the public, and their numbers will follow immediately that of the last share of the 100 millions ; and in con- sideration of the ten per cent, which the purchasers will j)ay above the par value, it is our will that these shares shall be on the same footing as the others." Law had thus at his disposal 50,000 shares of the nominal value of 500 francs each, but for which the purchasers were required to pay ten per cent, in excess of that value. But his scheme comprehended something far more extensive than the simple project indicated in the decree from which we have quoted. Just prior to The rage fok shares. 49 the amalgamation of the Companies he had gone into chap. the market and had bought up all the shares of the ^^' Company of the West that were to be had. This pro- j^jg ceeding brought them up to par, even to a premium. But it was after the amalgamation had been decreed that he made his great coup. Acting under his in- fluence, the Regent caused to be decreed on June 20 following, that, to insure an equal chance to all, without favour to any, no one should be eligible to become a purchaser of the new shares, who did not possess in the old shares (of the Company of the West) a value four times greater than that for which he now wished to become a subscriber. Now it is curious to mark the consequence of this edict. The old shares had been issued at 500 francs each, payable in four instalments in Government notes, then at, perhaps, 70 per cent dis- count. Of this sum the first instalment only had been called up ; that is to say, possession of each of these shares had been obtained by a cash payment of less than 40 francs.* Now the effect of Law's new proposal to forbid the sale of shares in the new Company to all who did not possess four times the amount in the old was to cause an extraordinary run on the old shares. They rose consequently to an enormous premium. The original holders, and those who, like Law and his friends, had purchased before the amalgamation, made thus very great profits. The Parisians, with their usual felicity of nomenclature, styled the old shares meres, and the new shares Jilles, appropriately remarking that these latter always brought with them their dower ; for such was the hourly increasing rage for speculation that a purchaser could almost immediately realise double or treble the amount he had invested.f * Supposing that Governraent notes repres^^nted the first c;ill made notes were tiien at 70 per cent, dis- on the shareholders of the Company count, the value of 125 francs in of the VVest. ^ notes could be purchased hy H7| f Law, sun S'l/steme et son Epuqur. francs in cash. Now, 125 francs in E 60 THE I'ERPETUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. CHAP. Another impulse was soon after given to the shares , of the Company of the Indies. The profits of the 1719. coinage for nine years were made over to it, on the pay- ment to the King of fifty millions of francs, by regular instalments, in fifteen months. To raise this sum a new issue of shares became necessary. Consequently au- thority was decreed to the Company to issue 50,000 new shares at a nominal value of 500 francs each. But at that time the first issue of shares, the Jilles, had risen from their issue value of 550 francs to 1,000 francs each in the market, or nearly cent, per cent. To profit itself by this rise, the Company decreed that though issuing these new 50,000 shares at a nominal value of 500 francs each, they would be purchasable only at the current rate of the other shares, or 1,000 francs each. But in addition to this, and still further to increase the value of the old shares, Law caused it to be notified that to obtain these shares at their advanced rates, it would be necessary to own paper of hve times the amount applied for, in old shares, and to pay for them, not in specie, but in notes of the Royal Bank. This, the latest issue of shares, received at once from the public the name of lyetites-filles. The desire to obtain these increased not only the value of the mhres^ but made everyone anxious to exchange his coin for notes of the Royal Bank. This measure, as it were consum- mated the first part of the financial revolution inaugu- rated by Law. The Government notes, which, in 1715, had been at 70 to 80 per cent, discount, rose actually to par,* and the shares of the Company of the Indies were quoted at 200 per cent premium. In the same year the Company made a most im- portant purchase, for it proved to be almost the only * When Law, in introducing to notes to par value, the public, in- the public the scheme of the Com- credulous, declared that if he were pany of the West in 1717, boasted to accomplish this, he would be that one of its effects would be worthy of having statues raised to to raise the depreciated Goverument him all over France. Yet he did it. THE COiirANY ACQUIRES THE TOBACCO MONOPOLY. 51 one of those that survived the golden reign of Law, and chap contributed in later times even to the prolongation of "' its existence. They acquired from the Government, for j-^j 4,020,000 francs, the monopoly of tobacco. The value of this monopoly increased to such an extent, that in after years it brought in an annual revenue of eight millions, a sum almost sufficient, at 8 per cent., to pay the total interest on the capital of the Company, as it was fixed in 1725. There was granted to it about the same time the farming of the salt mines of Alsace and Tranche Comte. But great as had been tlie previous measures of Law, and unexampled as had been their success, he was pre- pared to go still further. It was his great ambition to extinguish, by means of the Company, the public debt of France. This debt amounted at that time to from 1,500 to 1,800 millions of francs, and its yearly interest to 80 millions. Law believed it possible, in the then state of confidence and excitement, to substitute for the public debt, the shares of the Company of the Indies. He offered then to lend to the State twelve hundred millions, a sum afterwards increased to fifteen hundred millions, at 3 per cent, per annum, on the condition of receiving authority to issue shares to that amount, and of being intrusted with the collection of the public taxes. On the 2nd of iSeptember the Government officially accepted these offers. The Company at once created 824,000 new shares, bearing the nominal value of 500 francs each, but as the value of the other shares had by that time risen to 1,000 per cent. — each share being thus worth in the market 5,000 francs — it was at first determined to offer them to the public at that rate. Subsequently, however, it was resolved to sell them, in series, by public auction, in front of the magnificent palace which the Company had just then purchased at the corner of the Rue Vivienne. Here, and in the neighbouring streets, crowds were wont to sit through E 2 52 THE PERPETUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. <^'^AP. the long nights, caring neither for cold nor hunger nor ^ '— . tliirst, each man armed with his heavy bag of coin or 1719. Avell-lilled pocket-book, anxious only to secure or to maintain a good place, from which to bid for the coveted shares. At this public auction the Company realised for the 324,000 new shares no less a rate than a thousand per cent, on the nominal value of each share. Taking stock in November, the Directors ascer- tained that whilst they had issued 624,000 shares, re- presenting 312 millions, for which they were respon- sible, they had sold them for 1,797,500,000, francs, representing the enormous profit of 1,485,500,000 francs. Unfortunately but a small portion of this was realised. It is impossible to describe the eagerness and alacrity with which all classes entered into this race for wealth. Men who had been beggars became suddenly rich be- yond previous calculation. A cobbler made for some time two hundred francs a day by establishing a stall for the supply of pen and paper for the calculations of the speculators. Men made a trade of lending their backs as desks upon which speculators might write, and gained thereby considerable sums. The Duke of Bourbon realised twenty millions of francs, and the Duke of Autin welve. Nor was their example a solitary one. Luxury increased in proportion to the establishment of wealth. Unheard of prices were paid for furniture, carriages, and articles of dress. It seemed as though the age of gold had dawned. The principal advantages, however, were realised by those who happened to be in the confidence of Law. To obtain his friendship, even his acquaintance, was the aim of every man's ambition. Princesses vied with duchesses for the honour of an introduction to this disburser of fortunes,* and when this was impossible, ' The dowaper Duchess of Oiieaus everybody. And if Duchesses act wrote: " Law is so pursued that he thus.^^how will other woman kiss has no rest ni^ht or day. A him? — Cochut, i«M.', «s of the jewellers and upholsterers had been ^^- exhausted, people invested their realisations in groceries 1720^ and even books. Any investment was preferred to the now discredited paper. To so great an extent had it fallen, in an incredibly short space of time, in public estimation, that in March, shopkeepers advanced their prices 50 and 100 per cent, when paper was presented to them for payment. Meanwhile Law, still confident, endeavoured, by fresh artificial and arbitrary measures, to keep up the value of paper and to lower that of specie. To effect this purpose edict followed upon edict. It was for- bidden to employ silver in making payments above ten francs, or gold above three hundred. The wearing of diamonds, pearls, and precious stones was forbidden, and the manufacture of articles of gold and silver was confined to the narrowest limits. A decree of the 28th January directed a lowering of the standard of the coinage above a certain value, with a view to recall all such pieces in circulation into the Treasury. Anotlier, of the 27th February, forbade the possession by anyone of more than 500 francs in silver, and directed that all payments above 100 francs were to be made in bank- notes. On March 11, gold was entirely recalled from circulation from INIay 1 following, and the use of silver, the small pieces excepted, forbidden Avith effect from August 1. In the same month, to prop up the Royal Bank, Law united it to the Company of the Indies. The saleable value of the shares of this latter was fixed, irrevocably, at 9,000 francs each, and two offices were opened for the conversion of shares into bank-notes, and vice versa, at this rate. The office for the conver- sion of shares into bank-notes was at once crowded. Taking the notes, men rushed to sell these at a depre- ciated value for cash, or sent them for sale in the pro- vinces where they were still accepted. The proceeds they invested in any sort of tangible property. THE COMPANY RE-ORGAXISED. 55 These contrivances did not prevent tlie dcnvnfall of f'^j^''- the entire scheme. The prohibitory clauses brought ^ — > indeed great stores of specie into the bank from the 1720. untitled classes, but they were powerless against the higher nobility, who, in those days, were above the law.* But though they brought in money, they abso- lutely destroyed confidence, and the depreciation con- tinued. Law, after other minor experiments, which proved inoperative, endeavoured to stop the deprecia- tion by the issue of a decree on May 21, by which the value of the shares was to be gradually decreased to 5,000 francs each, at the same time that the bank-notes were reduced to one-half their actual value. The measure, in consequence of the debasement of the coinage, would, had confidence existed, have been bene- ficial to the shareholders. But in the actual state of affairs they regarded it simply as a depreciation of nearly one-half of their property. The panic, therefore, increased so greatly in intensity that Law was forced, on May 27, to issue another edict withdrawing that of the 21st. But this wavering on his part only increased the want of confidence. Shares fell to a mere nominal value ; tumults took place in the streets ; capital dis- appeared ; the misery of the populace for want of a purchasing medium increased daily ; the Royal Bank was crowded with poor wretches anxious to exchange their small notes for silver ; a guard was placed over Law, nominally to prevent his escape, really for his pro- tection. Everything foreboded a catastrophe. At this crisis the Company of the Indies came forward, and offered to take up all the depreciated notes of the Royal Bank and to extinguish them at the rate of fifty millions a month for a year, provided its commercial privileges * As soon as the decree was issued law. In the liouse of one shop- the Prince of Conti drew from the keeper, fifty thousand marks in bank three carts lull of crown pieces. gold and silver were seized by the The Duke of Bourbon withdrew State, on account of his non-com- twenty-tive millions. Others, of lower pliance with the^ edict. — Laic, son rank, wtre unable thus to defy the St/steme H son Ept que 56 TilH PERPHTUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. CHAP, were mnde perpetual. Tliis offer was accepted by the ^'' Government; a decree, dated June, 1720, was issued, 1720 ^^^ thenceforth the Company which ruled French India from the Rue Vivienne is known in history under the designation of the Perpetual Company of the Indies. But this measure, which the Parlement refused to confirm, did not stop the panic. In October of the same year it was therefore determined to effect a return to cash payments. The union between the Royal Bank and the Perpetual Company of the Indies was therefore dissolved, and that Company was reorganised on the footing of a commercial association independent of the State, the value of its shares being reduced to 2,000 francs each. About the same time the contract, which secured to it the right of coining money and collecting the revenues of the State, was cancelled. Shortly after, Law having been forced to retire from France, its share- holders were declared responsible for all the engage- ments it had contracted and for all the notes it had issued ; its property was sequestered, and a provisional board, composed of officials denominated Begisseurs^ was appointed by Government to carry on its affairs. The investigations and cancelliugs to which this Board had recourse resulted in leaving the Company, in 1723, a private commercial association, with a capital of 112,000,000 francs in 56,000 shares of 2,000 francs each. Two years later the number of the shares was reduced by 5,000 representing 10,000,000 francs. Of all the great privileges conceded to the Company during the administration of Law, there then remained only the inheritance bequeathed to it by the old Company, founded by Colbert, and the monopoly of tobacco.* Meanwhile, the Company of the Indies had not for- gotten, in the midst of its vast speculations, one of the * In this account of Law, tlie fol- Finances sous la Minorite de Louis lowing w orks have been consulted : A F. Duverney. With these have Law, son Sustetne et son ^poquc been compared the various edicts Cochut. Htstoire du St/sthne dea issued dnring the Regency. THE CRISIS AT PONDICIIERY. 57 main objects of its being. Confident in the pcn-ma- ^''JA.p. nence of its prosperity, and anxious to diaw from it - every possible advantage, it had equipped and des- 1721. patched to Pondichery, in 1720, three vessels richly laden, not only with the merchandise of Europe, but with gold and silver. These vessels reached their destination in 1721. Lenoir, the ablest of the succes- sors of Martin, had just then succeeded temporarily to the office of Governor, in the place of M. de la Provostiere,* who had died. He was a steady, plod- ding merchant, shrewd, liard-headed, and well fitted to be the chief of a peaceful community. But the arrival of these three vessels took him completely by surprise. We have already seen how, since the year 1712, the Company had been absolutely obliged to give up its commerce, and to abandon it, on certain considerations, to the merchants of St. Malo. The sudden arrival then of ships laden, not only with merchandise but with specie, was an event for which Lenoir was by no means prepared. It was, nevertheless, a most accept- able arrival. The non-payment of the debts originally contracted at Surat had long lain heavily upon French credit in India. Other obligations too had, in the state of destitution in which the establishments had been left since the death of Martin, been unavoidably entered into at Chandranagar, Baleshwar, and other places. Lenoii", correctly judging that good credit w-as the foun- dation of mercantile success, determined to invest the greater portion of the money he received in payment of the debts of the old Company, rather than, leaving these unpaid, to purchase return cargoes for the vessels. This course accordingly he adopted, with, however, the unavoidable result that the Company received but a very poor immediate return for a very large outlay. * M. de la Provostiere was ap- ceeded temporarily by Lenoir. — Ex- pointed ad mterim successor to M. tract from the Archires of the Com- Hebert on August 19, 1718. He pan?/, died in October, 1721, and was sue- 58 THE TERrKTUAL COMPANY OF TJIK INDIES. CHAP. Mcamvbilc, ;is we have seen, the system luivin^ col- , I lapsed, and the notes of the Company having been sup- 1721. pressed, before the close of 1720, it no longer possessed the funds to equip ships for India. None were sent, therefore, in 1721 or the year following. In conse- quence of this, the settlement of Pondichery was re- duced in 1722 and during the greater part of 172o to the direst straits. The local Government had neither merchandise, nor money, nor resources, and became, on that account, a butt for the ridicule of its rival traders to the Hugli and the Koromandel coast. But this was not the worst result of the collapse. Lenoir had, naturally enough, regarded the advent of the three ships and the specie in 1721 as a type of what was to follow. He had, in fact, been assured by his Directors that a similar supply should be sent him yearly. In anticipation, then, of the arrival of the fleet of 1722, he had made great preparations to open out new markets for the expected cargoes. But when, not to speak of the cargoes, he was unable to welcome even a ship, he felt utterly overwhelmed. His credit had been pledged, and it was upon its credit with the natives that the prosperity of the little settlement at Pon- dichery at this epoch mainly depended. But it is on such occasions that the real character of a Grovernment is most surely tested. In this crisis the French settlers reaped the advantage, not less of the system of good faith adopted by Martin, than of the act of the previous year, by which Lenoir had devoted his sudden accession of wealth to the payment of the debts of the Company. The rich natives with whom he had contracted, know- ing the cause of his failure to fulfil his engagements, were content to wait for better times. It was by their aid and forbearance alone that Lenoir w^as enabled to save the credit of the colony in this dire necessity. 1723. We have already noticed how in 1723 the restric- tions imposed by the Prench Government on the Com- ADMINISTRATION OF LENOIR. 59 paiiy were removed, aiid it was left in that year a chap. private Company with a capital of 112,000,000 francs. ^^' In consequence of this arrangement there were des- ^723. patched to Pondichery two ships lapen with merchan- dise. One of these brought out likewise the nomination of M Beauvallier de Courchant to the office of Governor in room of Lenoir. M. Beauvallier assumed office on the 6th October of that year, without, however, in any way interfering with the system of his predecessor. The cargoes of the two ships of 1723 did little more than satisfy the claims which two years' of neglect had produced in the French settlement, and they were able to carry back but a poor return in the shape of merchandise. Nevertheless, from that date to 1726 the Company continued to despatch each year three or four vessels to Pondichery, and by the aid of these the nearly extinct commerce began gradually to revive* Subsequently to 1726 it made still greater progress. The many years of peace, which, with but a slight intermission, signalised the administration of Cardinal Flemy, were of the greatest advantage to the Company and its settlement. Lenoir, who replaced M. Beau- vallier as Governor for the second time on September 4, 1726, had thought it an immense advance on previous transactions, when he was able to transmit to Europe in October, 1727, and January, 1728, merchandise valued at 2,234,385 francs, nearly 9,00,000 rupees ; but in September, 1729, and January, 1730, he sent home cargoes worth 5,404,290 francs, or nearly 2,170,000 rupees ; and although this was an exceptionally good year for the colony, it testifies to the great commercial progress made by the settlement, and to its entire recovery from the state of nullity and depression into which it had fallen in 1722 and 1723. The capital of the Company had been reduced, as we have seen, in 1725, by the withdrawal of 5,000 shares, representing 10,000,000 francs, which were, by a royal decree, 60 TIIK I'EKIMOTUAL COMI'ANY OF Till': INDlliS. CHAP, publicly annulled and burnt in that year. The interest J^^ on the remaining capital at 8 per cent, was provided 1726. by *b^ s^^'^ P^i<^^ to the Company by the farmers- general for the tobacco monopoly. The Company was able, therefore, to hope for additional profits from the mercantile operations we have recorded. But its expenses were considerable. It had laid out large sums on Port L'Orient, and had made it one of the finest harbours in France ; it had been compelled to place upon an efficient footing its marine establish- ments there and in India ;* to build large ships, purchase lodges and comptoirs^ and to erect magazines ; it had been forced likewise to expend 15,000,000 francs on the swamps of Louisiana. Still, until exhausting- wars, with their consequent ruin to commercial traflfic and their large calls upon the Company for assistance, increased expenditure, and cut ofi" all prospect of receipts, the Perpetual Company of the Indies oc- cupied a position, which if insignificant when compared with that it had assumed in the golden era of the Con- troller-Generalship of Law, was still considerable and promising. To revert to the colony. With its prosperity Governor Beauvallier had begun, and, after him, to a far greater extent, Lenoir had carried on, those improvements in the town which had been in contemplation ever since the time of Martin. As in the course of years the number of its inhabitants, drawn thither by the increased traffic, had greatly augmented, it was resolved, first of all, to surround the city with a wall. For this purpose a tax was laid upon the inhabitants, equal to one day's pay per mensem. This moderate impost produced a sufficient sum to en- able the authorities to commence the work, and even, after a considerable time, to complete three sides of the town. It was reserved for Dupleix, under a very press- ing emergency, to erect the side, in his day the most * Pictionnaire de Connnerce, vol. ii. LENOIR EMBELLISHES PONDICHERY. 61 important of all, looking towards the sea. About the chap. same period too, commenced, on a great scale, the ^ embellishment of the town. Under the auspices of 1725. Lenoir and his successor this made great progress. On the west side of the Governor's house a beautiful garden was laid out, planted with fine avenues, which served as public walks. In the midst of this garden was a large and well-furnished building, destined to be the residence of foreign princes and ambassadors. Near this was the college of the Jesuits, containing twelve or fifteen priests, to whom was committed the care of the educa- tion of the youth of the colony. There was a house also for the foreign missions, containing two or three priests, and another near it, for the Capuchins, with seven or eight. One of the conditions on which the land had been granted to the French required toleration of the Hindu religion ; consequently the two pagodas, or temples, which they found there^ still remained. All the streets were regularly traced out, broad and at right angles, and the houses joined one another. The sea face of the town was distant about a hundred yards from the sea, which at full tide had never more than two feet of water. The largest ships w^ere forced to ride about three miles distant from the shore. Its fortifications, as made after the restoration of the town by the Dutch, and added to by Lenoir and Dumas, were sufficient to keep out a native enemy, but it was not until the war of 1743 that Dupleix succeeded in making them sufficient to repel European attack. The native town was divided from the European town by a canal ; the houses in this were solidly constructed of wood and chunam — the latter being a composition made of shells ground to powder, and wrought into a kind of paste, which, by exposure to the air, becomes as white, and almost as hard, as stone. The Government of Pondichery consisted of a Supreme Council composed of not less than five members, presided 62 THE PERPETUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. CHAP, over by the Governor. lu their hands was the entire . administration. Jnsticc was administered and the hiws 172G. ^vere enforced in the name of the King, but the Governor and the Councillors were the servants of the Company, liable to removal without any reference to the Sovereign or his Ministers. All the colonial offices, judicial and other, were in the gift of the Council, and to it were like- wise subject the subordinate chiefs of the other French comptoirs or settlements in India.* It is curious to read the account of the state observed by the (irovernor in those piimitive days of Indian occupation. Attending upon him on great occasions,it is stated, are "twelvehorse- guards clothed with scarlet laced with gold, and an officer, with the title of Captain, commands them. He has also a foot-guard of three hundred men, natives of the country, called peons, and when he appears in public, he is carried in a palanquin very richly adorned with gold fringe." Such, however, was in those early days the economy of the administration that, except on public or particular occasions, these guards were employed in the commer- cial service of the Company, and earned all the wages they received. At the time of the accession of M. Dumas, the native population is computed to have exceeded seventy thousand. All the institutions dependent on the action of the local Council received their full development during the incumbency of the successors of Martin, more especially of Lenoir. Theirs was indeed a system of peace. It would perhaps have been happy for the colony had it been able much longer to adhere to the policy of non- interference with native princes. But though its rulers were, for a long time, animated by the very best intentions, circumstances were ultimately too strong for them. But a few months before Lenoir assumed the Governorship for the second time, an event had * Histoire des Indes Orieutales, par M. I'Abbe Gujon. SUCCESS OF THE POLICV OF NON-INTERFERENCE. 63 occurred which introduced promiuently on the scene a chap. man who was destined, some years later, to act no in- ^' considerable part in the contests which were then to 1720. ensue for existence or for empire. That event we propose now to describe. 64 THE RISE OF TUE rKENCll i'OWEK IN INDIA. CHAPTER III. THE RISE OF THE FRENCH FOWER IN INDIA. CHAP. In the year 1725, a small French squadron under the , command of M. de Pardaillan, acting under the orders 1725. o^ the Government of Pondichery, came to opposite the little town of Maihi,* just below Tellicheri, on the Malabar coast, and summoned the place to surrender. The Governor refused. The situation of Maihi indeed seemed to place it out of all danger. On high ground rising up from the sea, and washed on its north side by a little river, the entrance into which, as it ran into the sea, was closed by rocks for even the smallest boats, Maihi seemed to be able to bid defiance to any enemy who should attack it on the side of the sea. So at least thought the Governor, and so, apparently, seemed to think the French commodore. He, at all events, was hesitating as to the course he should adopt under the circumstances, when the captain of one of his ships submitted to him a plan which he begged he might be permitted to carry himself into execution. The name of this captain was Bertrand Franccis Mahe de La Bourdonnais. As this is a name which will occupy considerable snace in these pages, it may be as well to take the earliest opportunity of describing who and what man- ner of man this was, the earliest trace of whose action in the Indian seas we have just averted to. La Bour- * But little IS known of Maihi in pursuance of orders from the Dir- prior to the attack upon it by the ectors, with the view to secure, on French. It formed nomiually a part the Malabar coast, a post that would of the possessions of the petty Kaj4 indemnify the French for the loss of of Cherakal, but, in all probability, Surat. For this pui'pose Maihi was was practically independent. The well suited, attack recorded in the text was made EARLY CAREER OF LA BOURDONNAIS. 65 doimais was born at St. Malo in 1699. When not ten chap. years old he was entered as a common sailor on board a . __ " . . merchant ship bound for the South Sea. Returning 1705. thence, he made, in 1713, a second voyage to the East Indies, and to the Philippines. During this voyage, a Jesuit on board taught him mathematics. In 1716 and 1717, he made a third voyage to the North Sea, and in the following year a fourth to the Levant. In his twentieth year, he entered the service of the French India Company, as second lieutenant in a vessel bound to Surat. In 1722, he was promoted to be first lieu- tenant, and in that grade made a third voyage to the Indies. He occupied his leisure hours during the passage out in composing a treatise on the masting of vessels. But he had an opportunity of showing on the return voyage, that he was as daring in action as he was prompt and ready in suggestion. His vessel, the " Bourbon," on her arrival ofi" the Isle of Bourbon, was in a sinking state and in want of everything. No ship was in sight, and no aid was procurable from the island. In this extremity, La Bourdonnais proceeded in one of the ship's boats to the Isle of France, to search there for a vessel to render assistance to his charge. His search was successful, and the " Bourbon " was, by this daring exploit, saved from destruction. La Bourdonnais had scarcely returned to France, when he found himself under orders to proceed to the Indies as captain commanding a frigate. During his previous voyages, he had acquired a knowledge of navi- gation, of carpentering, of everything that related to the construction of a ship, and of gunnery. But in this, under the able instruction of M. Didier, an engineer in the Royal Service, he devoted himself to engineering, and soon became a proficient in that science. On ar- riving at Pondichery, he was attached to the squadron of M. de Pardaillan, just starting for the conquest of Maihi. It is under the orders of this commodore. 66 THE KISE OF TIFK FKIONCH VOWVAi IN INDIA. CHAP, hesitating regarding the attack of the place, that we . now find him. 1725. The plan which La Bourdonnais submitted to the commodore, was to land the troops on a raft of his own designing, in order of battle, under cover of the fire of the squadron. He pressed also that he might be per- mitted to lead them himself. M. de Pardaillan, struck with the ingenuity of the plan, and with the energy and quickness of decision evinced by the young officer, gave his consent to the scheme. It was carried out almost instantly. The raft was made, the troops were placed upon it, and, piloted by La Bourdonnais, were landed, with dry feet and almost in order of battle, at the foot of the high ground. This difficulty being surmounted, the place was stormed. As an acknowledgment of the skill and enterprise of his young captain, the com- modore, by a slight alteration of the letters which went to form the name of the captured toAvn, transformed it from the Indian Maihi or Mahi into the French Mahe — the first name of La Bourdonnais. This new name not only took root, but it gradually efiaced the recol- lection that the town had ever borne another.* The order of events, as they occurred at Pondichery, will not allow us to proceed for the present with the career of La Bourdonnais. Him, we shall meet again, a little later on the scene. Meanwhile it will be neces- sary to advert to the proceedings of one whose influence upon French India was destined to be even more direct, more commanding, more enduring ; — whose brilliant genius all but completed the work which Francis Martin had begun ; — who was indebted for all that he did ac- complish to his own unassisted energies ; who owed his failure to carry through all his high- soaring designs * "We are indebted to the Carnatic " Mahe." It was evidently unknown Chronology of Mr. C. P. Brown, late to Mr. Mill, and equally so to the Madras C. S., for the information re- authors of the " Indian Gazetteers." garding the origin of the name DUPLEIX SENT TO INDIA. 67 to that system of universal corruption, which, durinj^ chap. the reign of Louis XV., consumed the very vitals of ^^^" France, ruled in her palaces, and tainted all her public 1705 offices. AVe need scarcely say, that we advert to Joseph Francis Dupleix. This illustrious statesman was born at Landrecies, in the province of Flanders, in 1607. His flither was a wealthy farmer-general of taxes, and a Director of the Company of the Indies. The young Dupleix displayed, at a very early age, a strong passion for the exact sciences, and particularly for mathematics. To the mercantile life, to which his fiither had destined him, he showed a decided aversion. To cure him, therefore, of his speculative habit of thought, and to plunge him at once into practical life, the old farmer-general sent the thoughtful and retiring student, then just seventeen, to sea. The result corresponded entirely to his hopes. Dupleix returned from voyages in the Atlantic and Indian oceans, cured of his love of abstract sciences, anxious to mix with the world, eager to put in force theories he had formed on the subject of commercial enterprise. It was in the power of his father to comply at once with his washes. Director of the Company of the Indies, and a man of no small importance in the direction, he was able to nominate his son, then only twenty-three, to the second position at Pondicherj'. This was the office of First Councillor and Militaiy Commissioner of the Superior Council. Dupleix joined his appointments in 1720, and at once began to put in force the theories which had formed the subject of his speculations. He found the colonists absorbed by the contemplation and care of the trade between Europe and Pondichery. His idea was to develop and foster a coasting trade and inland traffic. He desired to open out large schemes of commercial exchange at the various towms on the coast, and with the large cities in the in- terior. It did not seem sufficient to him, that Pondi- F 2 68 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH FOAVER IN INDIA. CHAP, chery should be the exporter merely of her own ■ maniifactui'es and the manufactures of the country in 1725. the immediate vicinity ; he would make her the emporium of the commerce of Southern India. The Government of Pondichery was not pecuniarily in a position, at the outset, to embark in the undertaking, although the Governor, Lenoir, regarded its execution as desirable, and eventually practicable. But this formed no bar to the prosecution of the plan by Dupleix. On the contrary, private trading being per- mitted by the Company, he was glad of an opportunity of showing the European residents of Pondichery, who were mostly clerks of the Company, how they might, by legitimate means, enrich themselves. Anything which could open out to them an independent position would tend to give them a higher interest in the country and in the prosperity of the settlement. He himself did not scruple to set a bold example, and to embark his fortune in the trade. The results were such as he had antici- pated. He speedily realised a very handsome return, and the knowledge of this had more effect than all his theories in inducing his fellow-countrymen to follow in his footsteps. Since the formation of the Perpetual Company of the Indies, the control of the Directors in Paris over their agents in Pondichery had become far more stringent and direct than it had been prior to 1720. Details were interfered with, regarding the proper management of which the Home Government could have no know- ledge, and the most arbitrary, and often ill-judged, orders were issued. These orders led to misunderstand- ings and dissensions, and it resulted from one of these, M. Lenoir being at the time Governor-General, that in the month of December, 1726, Dupleix was suspended from his office by order of the Directors. But, though offered a free passage to France, Dupleix determined to await in India the result of an appeal he at once IS APPOINTED TO CHANDRAKAGAR. 69 proceeded to make against that decision. At the end chap. of nearly four years, the result he had striven for " . occurred. The sentence of suspension was removed 1726. (September 30, 1730), and, as a compensation for the injustice he had suffered, he was appointed very soon after Intendant or Director of Chandranagar, a junior officer previously appointed by Lenoir being removed to make way for him. From the period of its first occupation in 1676, to the time when Dupleix assumed the Intendantship, Chan- dranagar had been regarded as a settlement of very minor importance. Starved by the parent Company in Paris, it had been unable, partly from want of means, and partly also from the want of enterprise on the part of the settlers, to carry on any large commercial opera- tions. The town, as we have seen,* had been fortified in 1688. Lodges, or commercial posts, dependent upon Chandranagar, had also been established at Kasim- bazar, Jugdia, Dhaka, Baleswar, and Patna. But their operations were of small extent. The long stint of money on the part of the Company of the Indies had had, besides, a most pernicious effect upon the several intendants and their subordinates. The stagnation at- tendant upon poverty had lasted so long that it had demoralised the community. The members of it had even come to regard stagnation as the natural order of things. It had thus deprived them of energy, of enter- prise, of all care for the future. The utmost extent of their efforts was limited to an endeavour to surmount a pressing emergency. That once accomplished, they relapsed into i\\efar niente mode of life that had become habitual to them. The place itself bore evidence to the same effect. It had a ruined and forlorn appear- ance ; its silent walls were overgrown with jungle ; and whilst the swift stream of the Hiigli carried past it • Chapter I. 70 THE KISE OF THE FllENCll I'UWEli IN INDIA. CHAP. Eastern merchandise intended for the rivals who were .^.^^^^^^ converting the mud huts of Chattanati into the sub- 1731. stantial warehouses of old Calcutta, the landing-places of Chandranagar were comparatively deserted. To govern a settlement thus fallen into a state of pas- sive and assenting decrepitude Dupleix was deputed in 1731. But, decaying and lifeless though he found Chandranagar, Duj^leix regarded its situation with far other feelings than those of anxiety or dismay. He saw, almost at a glance, the capabilities of the place, and, conscious of his own abilities, having tried and proved at Pondichery his ideas regarding the power of trade, he felt that the task of restoring the French settlement would, under his system, be comparatively easy. The office of intendant had for him this great recommendation, that there was something for a man to do, and he felt that he was the man to do it. Little time did he lose in de- liberation. He at once set in action the large fortune he had accumulated, and induced others to join in the venture. He bought ships, freighted cargoes, opened communications with the interior, attracted native mer- chants to the town, Chandranagar soon felt the effect of her master's hand. Even the subordinates, whom he found there, recovering under the influence of his ex- ample from their supineness, begged to be allowed to join in tlie trade. Dupleix had room for all. To some he advanced money, others he took into partnership, all he encouraged. He had not occupied the intendantship four years, when, in place of the half-dozen country boats which, on his arrival, were lying unemployed at the landing-place, he had at sea thirty or forty ships, a number which increased before his departure to seventy- two, engaged in conveying the merchandise of Bengal to Surat, to Jeddo, to Mocha, to Basra, and to China. Nor did he neglect the inland trade. He established commercial relations Avith some of the principal cities in the interior, and even opened communications with M. DUMAS GOVERNOll OF PONDICIIERY. 71 Tibet. Under such a system Chandranagar speedily chap. recovered from its forlorn condition. From having ^ ' been the most inconsiderable, it became, in a few 1731^ years, the most important and flourishing of the European settlements in Bengal. Its revival caused the greatest satisfaction in France. The Government and the Directors thoroughly appreciated the advantage of having at the head of the settlement a man who had such confidence in his own plans, and who cared so little for responsibility, that he never hesitated to ad- vance his own funds for public purposes. Dupleix was always ready to do this, whilst he traded at the same time on his own account. Thus it happened that his fortunes and the fortunes of Chandranagar grew up side by side. If his own gains were great, a comparison of the Chandranagar of 1741 with the Chandranagar of 1731 would have shown that the gains of the depen- dency which he governed were certainly not in smaller proportion. Meanwhile M. Lenoir, whose second administration of Pondichery and its dependencies lasted nine years, had been succeeded as Governor-General on the 19th September, 1735, by M. Benoit Dumas, then Governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon. Up to this period, since the death of Francis Martin, the relative position of Pondichery to the native chieftains in the neighbour- hood had but little varied. But with the advent of M. Dumas appeared the first symptoms of a new order of things, less attributable to the character of that gentle- man, than to the character of the events of which the province of the Karnatik was about to become the scene. It is therefore necessary that we should record the events of the government of M. Dumas with some minuteness. M. Dumas had been a servant of the old Company of the Indies. He had entered the service at the age of seventeen, in the year 1713, and had proceeded direct 72 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH I'OWER IN INDIA. CHAP, to Poiidiclicry. Here he displayed so much ability and ". . . aptitude, that, five years later, he was made a member 1735. of the Supreme Council, and, in June, 1721, Attorney- General. Transferred thence to the Isles of France and Bourbon as a member of the Supreme Government, and filling there in turn the offices of General Director for the Company of the Indies and of President of the Supreme Council, he was finally appointed Governor of those islands. This position he held till 1735, when he was nominated to succeed M. Lenoir as Governor- General of the French possessions in the Indies.* The new Governor was a shrewd, calculating, prudent man — one not given to risk much without having in view a very tangible result; brave, resolute, jealous of the honour of France, thoroughly acquainted with native ways, holding fast by the traditions of Francis Martin, a lover of peace, and anxious, above all, to extend the Erench territories in India by smooth means. M. Dumas, it may be imagined, was just the man to carry out a mild and peaceful policy. Certainly under his sway Pondichery lost nothing of its attractiveness to the independent native rulers. Indeed, almost imme- diately after his accession to office a circumstance oc- curred which served to knit, even more closely, the bonds of friendship that existed between the French and the most powerful of their neighbours, Nawwab Dost Ali Khan, ruler of the Karnatik. In 1732 Nawwab Saadat-ulla Khan, then ruler of the Karnatik, one of the most enlightened native noblemen of that period, died. His nephew and nearest of kin. Dost Ali, at once occupied the vacant masnad, with- out, however, obtaining the sanction of his immediate superior, the Viceroy of the Dakhan. It may have been partly on that account that Dost Ali showed very early a disposition to lean uj)()n European support, and *The account of tlie previous ser- tlated September 4, 1742, eoufirming vices of M. Dnmai is taken I'rom the the ennoblino- of M. Duma.s on \\\\\ii\. -On i/on. 74 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP. But the intimacy ■with Dost AH was productive of raorc important results. Dost Ali had two sons, of whom 173(j the elder was Safdar Ali, and several daughters, one of whom was manied to his nephew, Murtiza Ali, and another to a more distant relation, Chanda Sahib. Of these Safdar Ali, whilst he did not altogether share his father's liking for the French, had a very great respect for their power, and especially for the fortifications of Pondichery ; Chanda Sahib, on the other hand, carried liis admiration for the foreigners to a very high pitch. xMone, perliaps, amongst his countrymen, he understood them. Born himself without wealth, but possessing great capacity, considerable energy, and unbounded ambition ; brought, moreover, by his marriage with the daughter of Dost Ali, into a position, in which, whilst he dared openly aspire to nothing, he might secretly hope for almost anything ; yet possessing but a small personal follo^ving, and being ever in the presence of relatives whose claims and whose power were superior, and whose ambition was equal to his own ; he had been for a long time sensible that he must look for support beyond the circle of his own family. The position of the French had early attracted him. He appears even then to have detected their latent desire to increase their territory. It is certain, at all events, that he took the first opportunity to proffer his aid to bring fresh lands under their rule. That he did this with the view to obtain for himself French support is scarcely to be doubted. Ever since his connexion with Dost Ali, he, of all the native allies of M. Dumas, had been the most frequent visitor at Pondichery, and had attracted, more than any other, the personal regards of the high officials in that city. It had happened that at the end of the year 1735, the Hindu Raja of Trichinapalli had died without issue. A contest for power immediately arose between his widow, the Eanf, and a relation of the deceased prince. CHANDA SAHIB TAKES TRICHINAPALLI. 75 In her distress, the Rani appealed to Dost Ali for assist- chap. ance. The opportunity was too tempting to be fore- ^^^' gone. Dost Ali despatched a force, of which his son j^-.q Safdar Ali was the nominal, his son-in-law Chanda Sahib the real, commander, to take possession of the disputed territories. The kingdom was soon overrun ; the capital alone bade defiance to the invaders. Of this, however, Chanda Sahib obtained possession the 26th April, 1736, on taking an oath,* that his troops should be employed only in the service of the Rani. But he kept this oath only until Tricliinapalli was in his power; he then imprisoned the Rani, and being invested by Safdar Ali, who returned to Arkat Avith plenary powers, he assumed the government as lieutenant for his father- in-law. While in that position he continued to main- tain intimate relations with the French. Adjoining Trichinapalli, lying between it and the Koromaudel coast, lay the Hindu kingdom of Taujur. This was bounded on the north side by the river Kolnin, which falls into the sea about thirty miles below Pondi- chery. Tanjur, one of the conquests of Shahji, father of the famous Sivaji, had been bestowed in perpetuity by the latter on his brother Venkaji. Venkaji was succeeded by his son Tukaji. This latter, dying in the month of February 1738, left behind him three sons — Baba Sahib, and Sahuji, legitimate, the third, Partab Singh, the offspring of a concubine. Baba Sahib succeeded to the sovereignty, but died, the same year, without issue. After a short interregnum, during which Sa'id Khan, the Muhammadan commandant of Tanjur, raised two candidates only to cause them immediately to disappear, the surviving legitimate son, Sahuji, obtained possession of power. But in a very short time Sa'id Khan brought *Orme states that the people of himself free from the responsibility the country believed that ihe Rani of tlie oath, because he had tuk-'n it had fallen in love with Chaada Sa- upon a brick instead of upon the Ku- hil); but the story is improbable, ran -i he brick having bueu wnipped Chanda Sahib may have considered upinthousualeovcringof the Kuran. 76 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH TOWER IN INDIA. CHAP, forward Siduji, a pretended cousin of Sahuji, and en- , deavoured to effect a revolution in his favour. Suddenly 1738. collecting their friends, they seized on the palace and on the strong places in Tanjur. Sahuji had barely time to save himself on horseback. Accompanied by a few friends, he passed the Kolriin, and took refuge in the pagoda, Chelambram, a very strongly fortified position about six miles north of the Kolrun, and only twenty-four distant from Pondichery. From this place Sahuji opened negotiations with M. Dumas. He offered to make over to the French the town of Karikal, and the fort of Kirkangarhi, ten villages in the country adjacent, and all the lands depending upon them, if M. Dumas would afford him material aid in the recovery of Tanjur. The offer was the most tempting that could have been made. The French had been long engaged in endeavouring to effect an arrangement which would secure to them a footing in the kingdom of Tanjur, but up to that time they had been thwarted by the jealousy of the Dutch at Nagapatan, a settlement a few miles south of Karikal. Now, however, all that they desired was offered to them. The risk was but little, for they had but to supply one of the contending parties with material aid to ensure an easy victory. M. Dumas did not hesitate He at once entered into an engagement with the envoys of Sahuji, by which he bound himself to supply that prince with a lakh of rupees in silver, to furnish him with arms, gunpowder and other warlike stores, and to render him all other assistance in his power. In return for this engagement, Sahuji sent him a formal cession of the town of Karikal, of the fort Kirkangarhi on the river Karikal, of the ten villages, and of the lands dependent upon them. In pursuance of this engagement, M, Dumas despatched two ships of war, the "Bourbon" of sixty guns and the "St. Geran" of forty, with troops, artillery, and warlike stores, to take possession of Karikiil, and to afford the jjromised PRUDENCE OF M. DUMAS. 77 assistance. These ships anchored before Karikal in the chap. month of August of that year (1738).* ^ _J"- Meanwhile Sahuji had been using other methods 173^^ more congenial to him than force. By dint of bribes and promises he had gained over the principal nobility of Tanjur, and amongst them the all-powerful Sa'id. A plan of operations was agreed upon, in pursuance of which, the usurper, Sidaji, was suddenly seized in his palace. Intelligence of this was at once dispatched to Chelambram, and Sahuji immediately mounting his horse, returned in triumph to Tanjur. This was the intelligence that greeted the captains of the " Bourbon " and the " St. Geran," when they an- chored in the roads of Karikal. It was accompanied by an intimation that the French succours were not wanted ; that Karikal was occupied by between three and four thousand troops under Khan Sahib, a trusted officer of Sahuji ; and that any attempt to land would be con- sidered as a hostile act, and would be met accordingly. In consequence of this intimation the senior French captain determined to suspend action pending instruc- tions from Pondichery. But whilst Sahuji had transmitted instructions of the nature we have recorded to Karikal, he had written in a somewhat different strain to M. Dumas. To him he declared his perfect willingness to surrender Karikal, but the impossibility of doing so immediately. He was, he said, scarcely secure in his own capital, and he was threatened at the same time by Chanda Sahib from Trichinapalli. He pointed out the impossibility of sur- rendering, under such circumstances, resources which were essential to his safety. These excuses, plausible though they were, did not deceive M. Dumas. Yet there can be no doubt that * The account of the expedition Dumastothe AhbeGuyon.andfrom a against K&rikal hasbeen taken mainly very old paper entitled, Memoire par- from the statement communicated by ticuUere sur Vaquisition de Kdrikdl, 78 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IX INDIA. ^^^^- the slipping frum his grasp of this much-coveted place , - just at the moment his hand was closing upon it, caused 1738. him great mortification and annoyance. He was well aware that with the force in the two ships of war before Karikal, it would be easy to take possession of the place, and that, to a less prudent man, would have been a very great temptation. But M. Dumas' great characteristic was prudence. He would not risk, even for so valuable a prize, the character gained by the French as a non- aggressive nation. He preferred to wait for the oppor- tunity which he felt sure would, sooner or later, present itself, satisfied that he had made a great step in advance in having secured from the Raja of Tanjur the legal cession of Karikal and its dependencies. He therefore recalled the ships to Pondichery. The opportunity he waited for soon came. No sooner did the intelligence reach Chanda Sahib that Raja Sahuji had refused to fulfil his engagement regarding Karikal, than he realised that the moment had arrived for him to cement his alliance with the French. He accordingly wrote to M. Dumas, informing him that he was at war with Sahuji, and offering to march his own troops upon Karikal, to conquer it, and to make it over, in full sovereignty, to the French. From them he asked no assistance : he would employ, he said, none but his own soldiers. Chanda Sahib, it will be recollected, was son-in-law of Dost Ali, Nawwab of the Karnatik, and feudal lord of the territory to the north of the French possessions ; he himself, as Dost All's lieutenant, held the country on the south-west ; that on the south-east alone was held by the Raja of Tanjur. It was clear then that Chanda Sahib's offer to conquer a portion of that Raja's posses- sions involved no risk to the French ; it did not even invoke the suspicion of a greed for territorial extension. It was the offer of a powerful Indian potentate to com- pel a weaker ruler to adhere to his agreement. M. THE FEENCH ACQUIRE KJiRlKAL. 79 Dumas then violated no principle of his predecessor's chap. policy by accepting that offer. This he did almost as ' _ , soon as it was made. 1739_ No sooner had Chanda Sahib received this authority to act, than he detached four thousand horse, com- manded by Francisco Pereira, a Spaniard in his service, but who was entirely attached to French interests, to Karikal. The Tanjur forces fell back at their approach, and Pereira arrived at Karikal, February 6, 1739, with- out meeting with any opposition. He found, however, the fort of Kirkangarhi, on the river Karikal and about a mile and a lialf from the town, occupied by about four hundred Tanjurians. He immediately at- tacked this fort, stormed it the same day, and hastened with the news to Pondichery. M. Dumas, delighted with the prompt success, at once equipped a small vessel of a hundred and fifty tons burden, and des- patched her with all the troops and stores she could carry to Karikal — Pereira accompanying them. They reached their destination in four and twenty hours. Then Karikal, the fort of Kirkangarhi, and the ad- jacent territory, previously ceded by Sahuji, were made over to the French by Pereira. This cession bears date February 14, 1739. A few days later, on receiving an account of the French occupation, M. Dumas des- patched to Karikal a ship of war, laden with every- thing necessary to place the settlement in a state of security.* The effect of these forcible measures upon Kaja Sa- huji was such as might have been expected from a man of his weak and unmanly nature. He was com- pletely overawed. He at once sent messages to Pondi- chery, casting all the blame of the previous hostile con- duct on the evil counsels of the Dutch at Nagapatan; * Full details of these occurrences partiou-iere sur Vacquisition de Kd- are given in Guyon's Hiatorie des rikdl. hides Orientales, and in tlie Mimoire 80 THE KISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, stating that he had always intended to cede the territory . ' , at the proper time ; and professing his readiness now to 1739. execute in full the treaty of Chelambram. As a proof of his sincerity, he sent at the same time two instru- ments, dated April 25, 1739, one of which contained a ratification of the former treaty, and the other, an order to the inhabitants of the districts he had yielded, to acknowledge and obey the French in future as their masters. It is probable that the complaisance of Sahuji in this matter was quickened by the fact that one of the clauses of the treaty of Chelambram con- tained a stipulation for the payment to him of 100,000 rupees — a stipulation which the French, now in pos- session, might, according to oriental notions, have been inclined to evade. Before, however, his propositions reached Pondichery, a domestic revolution hurled Sahuji from his throne. But his successor and half- brother, Partab Singh, not only confirmed the agree- ment of Chelambram, but added to it a greater extent of territory. In a personal interview he held with M. Dumas in the beginning of the year 1741, Partab Singh even recommended him to fortify the towns in his new possessions. From this date, the district of Karikal may be regarded as an integral portion of the French possessions in India.* But meanwhile events of great importance had oc- curred. The Muhammadan conquests in the south of India had aroused the jealousy of the Marathas, and an army of 50,000f men of these famous warriors had * The ceded districts consisted of 5,000 inhabitants. The fort of the town of Karikil, the fortress of Kirkangarhi was ahout punsliot dis- Kirkangarhi, ten villages on the tance from Karikal. Both are on sea-coast, and a ti'act of country iif- the river Karikal, a branch of the teen or sixteen miles in extent, very Kolriln, navigable for vessels of fertile in rice, and producing also about 200 tons burden. Karikal is cotton and indigo, inhabited by ten 75 miles south of Pondichery and 12 or twelve thousand people, and yield- miles north of Nagapntan. ing a yearly rent of ten thousand t Grand Dufl' {History of the pagodas, equal to about £4,500 ster- il/ara^Aas).— Captain Duff took the Ung. The town of Karikal, at the numbers from Maratha manuscripts: time of cession, contained 638 houses they differ somewhat from those of stone and brick, and upwards of given by Orme and other writers. DOST ALI DEFEATED AND SLAIN. 81 assembled under the orders of Raghuji Bhonsla — serv- chap. ing under whom, his first campaign, was the afterwards . famous Murari Rao — and had marched eastward with 1739. the avowed intention of plundering the long-untouched Karnatik. But Dost All was not prepared to grant them an easy ingress. Learning, towards the end of 1739, that they were approaching by the Damalcheri pass in the northern Arkat district, he occupied that strong position with the only troops at his disposal, amounting to about 10,000 men, and sent pressing orders to his son, Safdar Ali, and to his son-in-law, Chanda Sahib, to hasten to his assistance. But both vSafdar Ali and Chanda Sahib were prosecuting their conquests in the south of India, and though they pro- fessed their readiness to obey the summons they had received, they moved, especially Chanda Sahib, with slow and unAvilling steps. Before they could arrive, the Marathas had approached the pass. This, as the most important, was held by Dost Ali in person, but there was a gorge, or opening, to the south of his posi- tion, the defence of which he had intrusted to one of his commanders, a Hindu. This latter had allowed himself to be seduced from his allegiance, and permitted the Maratha army to march through the gorge he was guarding on the night of the 19th May. The Marathas thus secure of their prey, moved swiftly at daybreak the next morning on the rear of the position occupied by Dost Ali. This chieftain, noticing the approach of cavalry, imagined that his son, Safdar Ali, had arrived to reinforce him, and was only undeceived when their movements indicated undisguised hostility. Driven to bay, however, he determined to sell his life dearly. The battle which ensued was, notwithstanding the disparity of numbers, contested most desperately, and it only terminated when Dost Ali himself and his second son, Hasan Ali, lay dead upon the field, and his first minis- ter, Mil- Asad, had been taken prisoner. Almost all G 82 THE RISE OF THE FKENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, the principal officers were killed or trodden under foot , , by elephants, and the slaughter was unprecedented 1740. even in that age. No rout could have been more com- plete. The account of this defeat spread dismay and con- sternation in the Karnatik. Safdar Ali, the son of the deceased Nawwab, received the news when he had advanced as far as Arkat ; he immediately, for greater security, moved at the head of his forces to Vellur, which was better fortified, there to wait the course of events. Chanda Sahib, more dilatory, had not moved beyond the boundary of his satrapy. The intelligence he received determined him to remain within it, and to place its chief city in the best possible state of defence. He returned, therefore, to Trichinapalli. On one important matter, however, the two brothers- in-law acted as though they had been inspired by one brain. Regarding the result of the contest with the Marathas as extremely uncertain, they bethought them of the protection which the fortifications of Pondichery might be able to offer, and they determined to consign, the one his father's family, the other his own, with all the valuables that could be lightly carried, to the courtesy of M. Dumas. M. Dumas was placed, by the result of the battle, in very much the same position as that in which M. Martin had found himself after the defeat of Sher Khan Lodi, by Sivaji. On that occasion, as on this, the Marathas had completely defeated the actual rulers of the country — the allies and protectors of the French. There was, however, this difference, that the Pondichery governed by M. Dumas was far more capable of offering an effec- tive resistance than the infant city under the rule of Francis Martin. But M. Dumas, notwithstanding his confidence in the defences of Pondichery, was very well aware of the difficulties of his position, and he prepared to act with his usual prudence and judgment. He M. DUJrAS RECKIVES THE WIDOW OF DOST ALl. 83 greatly strengthened, with all the means at his disposal, chap. the west fortifications of the place. For fifteen days . carts and beasts of burden were seen pouring into um. Pondichery laden with grain and other stores. ]\I. Dumas superintended himself all the arrangements for procuring and storing this grain, and of ordering the defences. No point was neglected ; his industry was untiring. At the same time, the natives of the surrounding country, who had anything to lose, arrived in vast numbers, bringing with them their stores and valuables. But other and greater guests w^ere approach- ing. On May 25th, five days after the battle, whilst the preparations we have above alluded to were still progressing, a grand cortege was seen moving towards Pondichery. This proved to be the widow of Dost Ali Khan, with her children, her dependents, her jewels and other property, under the escort of a large body of cavalry. Arriving before the walls, she at once sent a message to the Governor, praying for admission into the city. None knew better than M. Dumas, tliat if anything would most certainly draw down upon himself the powxr of the Marathas, and would infallibly induce them to mov'e upon Pondichery, it would be the knowledge of the fact that the city contained within its walls the most valuable property of the late Nawwab. It is certain that under any circumstances, the chivalrous feelings natural to a real man would have incited him to throw wide open the gates to one who was not only a woman, but a woman in distress. But there was no occasion for him to act from mere feeling. It was in his eyes more politic to run the risk of bringing the Marathas upon Pondichery, than to undergo the certainty of being dis- honoured and contemned throughout India. Safdar Ali also was still unsubdued, and the refusal to admit his mother would undoubtedly make an enemy of one, who had even then the best chance of becoming the feudal 84 THE KiSE OF THE FKENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, lord of the country about Pondichery. However, before . replying to the request of the Avidow of Dost Ali, M. 174U. Dumas summoned a Council. He told the members that, in his opinion, honour, gratitude, humanity, and policy, all pointed to the admission ; he added his reasons, pointed out the risks, and then asked for their opinion. The Council approved his arguments, and a decision was at once arrived at to admit the cavalcade. This was done with great state and ceremony. The garrison was placed under arms, the ramparts were manned. The Governor himself, in a magnificent palan- quin, and followed by his horse and foot guards, went down to the Valdavar gate. The gate was then thrown open. Immediately there entered the widow of the Nawwab, her daughters and relations, in twenty-two palanquins, followed by fifteen hundred cavalry, eight elephants, three hundred camels, two hundred bullock- carts, and two thousand beasts of burden. The en- trance of the principal personage was saluted by a discharge of cannon from the ramparts, and she was conducted by M. Duraas in person to the apartments he had provided her.* A similar hospitable reception was accorded a few days later to the wife and son of Chanda Sahib. t Meanwhile the Marathas, taking advantage of their victory, had marched upon Arkat, and had occupied it without opposition. Thence they sent detachments to pillage the country. But though the devastation they caused was ruinous and often wanton, the actual receipts fell far short of their ex- pectations. The inhabitants of the Karnatik had taken advantage of the tirst rumours of war to remove all their valuables into fortified places. Some had fled to Madras, some to A^ellur, some to Pondichery. The * These details, togellier with the Sat'dar Ali albo took refuge in account generally of >I. Dumas' ad- Pondichery, but it appears from the ministration, are taken from the ex- correspondence of M. Dumas with tracts given in the Abbe Uuyon's the Marathas that she joined her Mork ah-eady referred to. husband at Vellur. t Orme states that the wife of HE REFUSES TO SUllRENDER HIS GUESTS. 85 consequence was, that though the Marathas gleaned chap. every blade of grass, there was but little else to gather, . and they were beginning to feel that, looking at it with 1740. the eyes of marauders, the campaign had been a failure. That was a frame of mind which would willingly have listened to offers of payment for retiring from so barren and desolated a country, and such offers they did receive at the proper time. They had liberated Mir Asad, first minister of the deceased Dost Ali, and he, betaking himself to Vellur, prevailed upon his new master to make proposals of peace to the invader. Mir Asad was a bitter enemy of Chanda Sahib, and he had succeeded in imbuing the mind of Safdar Ali with sus- picions as to the designs of his brother-in-law. He had easily convinced him also that the sacrifice of Chanda Sahib would lighten the conditions likely to be imposed upon himself. This being agreed upon as a basis, negotiations were opened, and after a short interval, a treaty was signed in the month of August, 1740, by which it was arranged that Safdar Ali should be recog- nised as Nawwab of the Kamatik in place of his father ; that he should pay by instalments ten millions of rupees to the Marathas ; that he should join his troops to those of the Marathas to drive Chanda Sahib from Trichina- palli; and that all the Hindu princes on the Koromandel coast should be reinstated in possession of the places they held prior to 1736. The two last articles, however, were kept secret, and the better to prevent their exis- tence being suspected, the Marathas at once retired from the Kamatik. Some information, how^ever, regarding the secret clauses of this treaty reached M. Dumas, and he did not fail to take advantage of it. He had already been threatened by Raghuji Bhonsla, and a correspondence, not tending at all to accommodate matters, had ensued between them. He had been asked to pay tribute, and he had refused ; he had been called upon to give up the 86 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP. III. 1740. wife and son of Chaiida Sahib with their treasures, he had replied that all the French in India would die first ; Pondichery had been threatened with the fate of Bassein, then recently captured by the Marathas from the Portu- guese, he had answered that if the Bhonsla came against Pondichery, he would try to deserve his esteem by successfully defending it.* In this state of the * The following are extracts from the correspondence between Kaghuji IJhonsla and M Dumas : From llaghnii Bhonsla. " Forty years have elapsea since our sovereign gave you permission to establish yourselves at Pondichery ; nevertheless since oiir army has arrived in these parts, I have not received a single letter from you. " Our sovereign, persuaded that you were deserving of his friendship, that the French were people of their word, who would never fail in their engagements towards bim, made over to you a considerable territory. You asreed to pay an annual tribute, which you never have paid. At last, after a considerable time, the army of the Marathas has arrived in these districts. It has beaten the Musal- mans, puffed up with pride, and forced them to pay tribute. "We need not tell you this news. We have now orders from the Maharaja to take l)ossession of the fortresses of Trichi- napalli and Jinji, and to put garri- sons in them. We have also orders To collect the tribute due from the European towns on the sea-coast. I am obliged to obey these orders. When we consider your conduct, and the manner in which the King has favoured you, in allowing you to es- tablish yourselves in his territory, I cannot hinder myself from saying that you are wrong in not paying this tribute. We had consideration for you, and j'ou have acted against us. You have given refuge to the Mughals in your town. Was that well done? Again, Chanda Sahib has left, under your protection, the treasure chests of Trichinapalli and of Tanjur — the precious stones, ele- phants, horses, and other things of which ne possessed himself in those kingdoms, as well as his family — was that, too, well done? If you wish that we should be friends, you must give up this treasure, these jewels, these horses, these elephants, as well as the wife and son of Chanda Sahib. I send my cavalry to whom j^ou can make them over. If you decline to do so, we shall be com- pelled to force you to it, as well ns to the paj'ment of the tribute which you have kept back for forty years. " You know how we have treated the town of Bassein. My army is very numerous, and it wants money for its expenses. If you do not act in conformity with ray demands, I shall know how to draw from you wherewith to pay my whole army Our ships will arrive in a few days. It will be bitter for you to terminate the matter quickly. I rely upon your sending me, in conformity wdth this letter, the wife and son of Chan- da Sahib, with his elephants, horses, jewels, and treasure." Extract from the reply of M. Du- mas: "You tell me that we have owed for forty years past a tribute to your King. Never has the French nation been subject to any tribute. It would cost me my head, if the King of Fiance, my master, were in- formed that I had consented to pay tribute to any one. When the prin- ces of the country gave to the French a piece of land on the sands of the sea-shore, upon which to build a fort- ress and a to"«Ti, they required no other conditions, but that the pago- das and the religion of the people should be unmolested. Although your armies have never yet appeared in our nt^ighboiarho^d, we have al- ways faithfiiUy observed these con- ditions. ********* " You say that you have orders to take possesi-ion of the fortresses of Jinji and Trichinapalli. Well and good, so long as that does not oblige you to become our enemy. As many SAFDAR ALI VISITS PONDIGllERY. 87 correspondence, the intimation he had received regard- chap. ing the secret clauses was of great importance. He ' . continued, ^vith the same ardour, the repair of the 1740. fortifications at the same time that new defences were erected. He formed a body of European infantry 1,200 in number, and supplemented them by four or five thousand Muhammadans, whom he armed and drilled in the European fashion — the germ of the sipahi army — and who were found most useful in performing the routine duties of the garrison. He brought into the town also, all the crews of the ships in the roads, and exercised them in the various operations of land warfare. Stores of all sorts he likewise continued to accumulate. Whilst these preparations were going on, the new Nawwab, Safdar Ali, paid a visit to Pondichery. The avowed object was to thank M. Dumas for the protec- tion he had afforded to the female members of his father's family. None knew better than Safdar Ali, how galling to the Marathas had been the knowledge that the families and valuables of his late father and of of the Mughals as have been masters French in India would die rather here have treated the French with than deliver her to you. * * * * friendship and distinction. From " You threaten me finally that if I them we have received only favours. do not comply with your demands, In virtue of this friendship, we have you will send your armies against ffiven shelter to the widow of the late me and lead them hither yourself. I Nawwab, Dost Ali Khan, with all am preparing- myself to the utmost her family. Ou?ht we to have shut of ray ability to receive you well, our gate's and leave them in the and "to deserve your esteem, by counti'v ? Men of honour are incap- showing- that I have the honour of able of such cowardice. The wife of commanding the bravest nation in Chanda Snhib has also come hither the world, who know how to defend with her mother and her brother, themselves with intrepidity against and the others have proceeded to those who attack tlum unjustly. Arkat. Above all I place my confidence in " You have written to me to make Almighty God, before whom the most over to your horsemen this lady, her powerful armies are like the light son, and the riches she has brought straw which the wind blows awa}'._ here. Y'ou,who are a nobleman full I hope He will favour the justice of of bravery and generosity, what our cause. I have heard what has would j'ou think of me, if I were happened at Bassein, but that i)laee capable of such baseness ? The wife was not defended by Frenchmen." — of Chanda Sahib is in Pondichery Memoire dans lex Archives tie la under the protection of the King of Compagnie des liules. France, my master, and all the 88 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP. Chanda Sahib were in safety behind the walls of Pondi- III . chery. He was well aw^are that Raghuji Bhonsla, their 1740. leader, had expressed his determination to make the French suffer for their audacity ; and he, in common with the other chiefs of the Karnatik, had been struck wnth admiration at the quietly defiant attitude assumed by M. Dumas. His object in visiting him now was to thank and to reward him. He was quickened in this also, by a message his mother sent him from Pondi- chery, desiring to see him. Chanda Sahib, who knew little of the storm that was brewing against him, and who had already at Arkat offered homage to his brother- in-law as Nawwab of the Karnatik and his liege lord, accompanied liim on this occasion to Pondichery. There they arrived on the evening of September 1, 1740, and were received with great demonstrations of friendship and respect by M. Dumas, in a tent, splendidly adorned and illuminated, without the walls. After resting there som.e time, Safdar Ali was conducted to the house which had been set apart for his mother and sisters in the public gardens. Here he remained for two days in mourning and seclusion. On the 4th, Safdar Ali paid a visit of state to M. Dumas. He thanked him repeatedly for the courtesy and hospitality extended to the members of his father's family, at a season of great difficulty and danger ; declared that it should never be forgotten, and that henceforth the French should be as much the masters of the Karnatik as he himself was. Although these words were merely the expression of the oriental form of gratitude, and were doubtless only taken as such, the Nawwab had evidently deemed it sound policy on his part to con- ciliate M. Dumas by some practical proof of his esteem. Simultaneously with the announcement of his arrival at Pondichery, he had delivered to the French Governor a parchment conferring upon him personally lands border- ing on the southern territory of Pondichery, bringing in CHANDA SAHIB ATTACKED BY MARATIIAS. 89 a yearly revenue of 10,000 rupees. This cession was chap. soon afterwards confirmed by a firman from the Court ' ^ , of Delhi. 1740. After a stay of several days in Pondichery the visitors left, Safdar Ali with his father's family proceeding to Arkat, Chanda Sahib, leaving his wife and family with their jewels in Pondichery. making his way alone to Trichinapalli. To the immediate fortunes of this chief- tain we must now turn our attention. That M. Dumas had a strong idea that all danger from the Marathas had not passed away, is evident from the fact that even after their departure, he continued to labour at the fortifications and to store supplies. That he had communicated these suspicions to Chanda Sahib, and had induced him, on the strength of them, to leave his family and valuables at Pondichery, is extremly probable. Yet it is certain that Chanda Sahib had no sooner quitted Pondichery than he began to act in a manner entirely inconsistent Avith the idea that he had any fear of a second Maratha inroad. During the first invasion, he had taken the precaution to store Trichinapalli with grain, under the conviction that with ample supplies within the walls, the fortifications were strong enough to keep out the Marathas for an indefi- nite period. But no sooner had he returned from his visit to Pondichery, than, as though he felt assured of the future, he sold the grain, and so far from thinking that any necessity to defend his own territories could arise, he began to entertain a design of adding to them, and sent for that purpose his brother, Bara Sahib, to Madura. This was in the end of November. An account of the movements of Bara Sahib and the un- provided state of Trichinapalli was quickly conveyed to Eaghuji, who at the head of his Marathas, had retired only to Sivaganga, some eighty miles in a southerly direction from the capital. The news was that for which Raghuji had been waiting. "Without an hour's 90 THE RISE OF THE FllENCll POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, loss of time, he assembled his forces, made forced ^^^' marches upon Trichinapalli, and sat down before it, 1740. before Clianda Sahib had taken any steps to replenish his empty stores. Nevertheless, though taken by surprise, Chanda Sahib resolved to defend himself with resolution. He had hopes from his brother, Bara Sahib, and to him accordingly he sent a message urging him to march to his relief. Bara Sahib at once complied, and collecting supplies, escorted them, at the head of three thousand horse and seven thousand foot, towards Trichinapalli. The Marathas, however, had knowledge of all his move- ments, and on his approaching to within about fifteen miles of the city, they detached a superior force — amounting to about 20,000 men — to intercept him. A desperate encounter ensued, Bara Sahib fighting with all the energy of despair. A chance shot, however, hurled him from his elephant, and his followers, missing the inspiration of his presence, at once gave way. The body of Bara Sahib, which was found on the field of battle, was carried to the camp before Trichinapalli, clothed there in rich stuff's, and sent in to Chanda Sahib, to announce to him, as under similar circumstance the head of Hasdrubal had announced to Hannibal, the futility of depending upon his brother for aid. Thus driven to depend upon his own resources, Chanda Sahib continued to display unflinching resolu- tion and determined courage. At last, after defending himself for upwards of three months, having exhausted all his money, stores, almost all his ammunition, and having lost some of his best troops, he had no alternative but to surrender. The terms were hard, his life only being secured to him, but they were the best he could obtain. On the 21st of March, after a siege of more than three months, he opened the gates of the city, and surrendered himself a prisoner. He was at once sent off" under a strong guard to Satara, whilst the RAGIIUjf THREATENS PONDICHERY. 91 Marathas appointed Murari Rao as (Tfo\(>iii()r of the chap. fortress, with 14,000 men to support him. . Whilst engaged in the siege of Trichinapalli, Kaghuji 1741. Bhonsla had not ceased to lavish his threats upon M. Dumas. His demands even increased. They now em- braced the immediate payment of 6,000,000 rupees, a regular annual tribute, and the delivery to him of the wife and son of Chanda Sahib, with their elephants, horses, and jewels. To these demands M. Dumas con- tinued to oppose a steady refusal. He took, however, the precaution of despatching a special messenger to the Isles of France and Bourbon, requesting the early trans- mission of as many men as could be spared thence to reinforce his garrison. The Maratha, however, was bent upon intimidating him. In this view, w^iilst still himself before Trichinapalli, he despatched a force of about 16,000 men to beat up the coast. These marched upon Portonovo, a town about thirty-two miles south of Pondichery, and then used as a depot by the Dutch, French, and English. This they plundered, though little to the detriment of the French, who had taken the precaution to move the greater part of their pro- perty within Pondichery. They next moved upon Gudalur, an English settlement twelve miles from Pondichery, and pillaged it. Marching then to within five miles of the French settlement, and halting there, they sent in threatening letters to M. Dumas, whilst they detached small parties to ravage the country and to collect plunder. At the same time, in pursuance of advices received from the Bhonsla, they organised an expedition on the western coast to attack the French settlement of Mahe. M. Dumas was not appalled by these letters, nor by the still more threatening visit of one of the chief officers of the Maratha army, sent to inform him that the fate of Trichinapalli was reserved for Pondichery. On the contrary, he received this ofhcer with the utmost polite- 92 THE RISE OF THE FEEXCH POWER IX IXDIA. CHAP, ness, showed him the supplies he had stored up, the guns . bristling on the ramparts, tlie drilled Europeans, the 1741. armed sipahis; he hid, in fact, nothing from him, He then calmly informed him, that so long as one French- man remained alive, Pondichery would not be evacuated. AYith reference to the demand of the Maratha general for tribute, he sent a message to him through the envoy that the territory occupied by the French possessed neither mines of gold nor mines of silver; but that it was rich in iron, and that those who occupied it were ready to use that iron against any assailants. The envoy left immensely impressed with the power and resources of the French settlement, and with the resolute bearing of its governor. It happened that on taking his leave, the Maratha envoy had received from M. Dumas, under the name of cordials, a present of ten bottles of liqueurs. Some of these he made over to his general, Raghuji Bhonsla, and he, in his turn, gave them to his wife, who found them so much to her liking that she insisted upon others being procured, whatever might be the cost. The in- fluence of woman is proverbially powerful. Raghuji was most unwilling, after all his threats, to abate one iota of his demands against Pondichery. Yet the Nantes cordials had given the French an ally against which he was but a child. These cordials were to be obtained by any means, and it seemed they could only be secured by friendly communication with M. Dumas. The determi- nation to possess them led, therefore, after a good deal of circumlocution, to negotiations, which ended finally in a pacification. Raghuji was so charmed by the oppor- tune present of thirty bottles of these cordials, that he soon became disposed to forget all his previous anger against the French. He prohibited any pillaging in the neighbourhood of Pondichery, and he began to listen without anger to the reports which were made to him that in attacking Pondichery he had everything to lose M. DUMAS RESIGNS. HIS CHARACTEE. 93 and nothing to gain. He accordingly withdrew his chap. demands for the payment of a sum of money, as tribute, ^^^ and for the surrender of the family of Chanda Sahib, 1741, and retired without any further demonstrations, fortified by cordials, to the western coast. The expedition against Mahe, to the organisation of which we have alluded, resolved itself into a blockade, which lasted eight months, when it was put an end to by M. de la Bourdonnais in a manner to which we shall presently refer. The conduct of M. Dumas on this occasion — his bold and resolute refusal to deliver up his guests ; the cool- ness with which he had defied the conqueror of Trichin- apalli — procured him, amongst the nations of southern India, the reputation of a hero. Congratulations and thanks poured in to him from oil sides. The Subadar of the Dakhan, Nizamu-1-Mulk, wrote to him a letter of thanks couched in terms of the highest respect, and transmitted to him, at the same time, a dress of honour. Safdar Ali, as a mark of esteem, sent him the armour of his deceased father, richly adorned with gold and precious stones, together with three elephants, several horses, many swords and jewelled weapons, and accom- panied by a letter carried by his favourite minister. The Emperor of Delhi, Muhammad Shah, on hearing of this successful resistance to Maratha presumption, con- ferred upon M. Dumas the rank of Nawwab, with the title of Man(:;abdar of 4,500 horse, 2,000 of whom he was allowed to keep about his person in time of peace, without being at any charge for their maintenance. On the application of M. Dumas the title and command were declared transferable to his successor. Shortly before the receipt of these honours, M. Dumas had intimated to his masters his wish to return to his native country. His resignation had been accepted, and Joseph Francis Dupleix, the successful Intendant of Chandrauagar, had been nominated to succeed him. 94 THE KISE OF THE FRENCH TOWER IN INDIA. CHAP. M. Dupleix arrived at Pondicherv iu the month of III ' , October, 1741, and took at once the oaths as Governor- 1741. General, at the same time that he caused himself to be acknowledged as the Mughal's Nawwab, and Man^abdar of 4,500 horse, in succession to his predecessor. The records of the six years' administration of M. Dumas show with sufficient clearness that he was no unworthy successor to Francis Martin. His adminis- tration was signalised by the display of tact, prudence, courage, and skill. He understood the native character thoroughly. So well did he make use of that know- ledge that though all his allies were beaten, he managed to reap advantage, in the most legitimate manner, from their misfortunes. So adroit was his conduct that the territory which he coveted he gained without drawing the sword ; he even accepted it as a favour to his native friends, instead of asking for it as a benefit to himself. Under his rule the dominions of the French on the Koromandel coast increased very greatly in extent and value, whilst the prestige of the French power attained in the eyes of the natives, a height which, even to us Avho look back at it, appears perfectly astounding. It seemed, indeed, when Dumas left Pondichery, that it would be only necessary for his successor to continue the same cautious and prudent, yet daring and acquisi- tive policy, to make Pondichery the most powerful and important city in Southern India. That successor, as we have seen, was Dupleix. We left him last engaged in restoring the credit and fortunes of Chandranasfar. This he had succeeded in accomplishing beyond his most sanguine expectations. It could not be expected that, occupying as he had the position of Intendant or Director-General of Chand- ranagar, nominally under the orders of the Governor and Superior Council of Pondichery, yet practically irresponsible — daily and hourly forced, in fact, to act upon his own responsibility — he should not sometimes DUPLEIX ASSUMES THE REINS. 95 have run counter to the ideas of his immediate superior, chap. The very promptness of Dupleix's acts must have made them often appear rash and precipitate in the eyes of 174] men of prudence and caution. Difference of opinion on tliese points had latterly arisen between himself and M. Dumas, and Dupleix, chafing under a control which he felt to be unwise, and believed to be unauthorised, had requested M. Godeheu, a member of his Council, who was returning to Europe, to explain, more fully than he could write, the exact state of affairs. The Directors at Paris entered fully into the views of their agent at Chandranagar, from whose daring yet practical genius they had so largely benefited, and, on the resig- nation of M. Dumas, they appointed Dupleix to succeed him at Pondichery. He was installed there in the month of October, 1741.* He left Chandranagar, which he had found almost a ruin, the most important European settlement in Bengal, possessing two thousand brick houses, an extensive trade, and unsurpassed credit. He had made for him- self, by private trade — a proceeding not only allowed but encouraged by the Directors — an enormous fortune. In the early part of the year in which he was appointed to Pondichery, Dupleix had married the widow of one of his councillors, Madame Vincens,f a lady who had been born and educated in India, but whose strong yet devoted character and brilliant intellect made her an admirable companion for the far-sighted and dee[)- scheming politician. Her proficiency in the native languages rendered her aid invaluable to Dupleix in his confidential dealing with native princes. She likewise * Neither Mr. Orme nor Mr. Mill correct. The fact that Dupleix gives the exact date of the appoint- visited Chandranagar in r712 may ment of Dupleix. The writer of the have misled the other authorities, article on Dupleix in the Xati:>nal t She was the daughter of a M. Heciew, a.ndi the NotiveUeBiocfraphie Albert, a Frenchman. Her mother Generale give 1742, but the Archives belonged to the Portuguese family of de la Compagnie des Indes give the De Ca-tro. By M. Vincens, her pre- month of October, 17tl, as the pre- vious husband, she had six children, cise date ; and this is undoubtedly 96 THE RISE OF THE FKENCH POWER IN INDIA CHAP, added to that proficiency a quickness of comprehension ' ^ . and zealous devotion to his interests, such as form, 1741. when united, an inestimable endowment. On assuming the Government of Pondichery, Dupleix found the settlement suffering from the effects of the Maratha invasion. These marauding warriors, where they had not eaten up the land, had, by the fact of their presence, prevented its being tilled, and now the misery of famine had succeeded to the desolation of war. Added to this, the Karnatik was in a condition border- ing upon anarchy. Safdar Ali had only rid himself of the anticipated rivalry of Chanda Sahib to fall into the real clutches of Nizamii-1-Mulk, the Subadar of the Dakhan, who loudly called upon him for the arrears of revenue, due by him as a vassal of the Mughal. The fortifications of Pondichery, too, however formidable they might have appeared to a native power, were quite insufficient for defence against an European enemy, and there were no funds available to enlarge or to repair them, notwithstanding that, even at this date, the rumours of the probability of war between France and England were brought out by each sailing vessel. But Dupleix was equal to the occasion. Convinced that Pondichery had now attained such a stage of de- velopment as to require that the power of France should be recognised and acknowledged, he at once assumed, with an ostentatious publicity, the dignities that had been conferred upon him by the Mughal, receiving homage from those petty chieftains in the neighbour- hood who were of a lower order of nobility. He at the same time set himself to work to inquire into the causes of the increasing public expenditure, to check corruption among the subordinate officers of the ad- ministration, and to examine the state of the defences. On these st'\eral points, with the mode in which they should be remedied, he transmitted full reports to the Company. Having thus set everything in train, he IS REQUIHED TO PRACTISE ECONOMY. 97 proceeded to Bengal to be installed as Nawwab at chap. Chandranagar. When the ceremony, which was con- , ducted with great pomp, was concluded, he went in 1742. state to Hugli for the purpose of paying a visit of respect to the Muhammadan Governor. But this latter, recognising the superior rank of Dupleix, insisted upon making the first visit himself.* The honours with which he was received, and the state which he assumed, appear to have made a deep im- pression upon the natives, prepared as they were to regard with favour everything that was French, and to have rendered his relations with them of a still more intimate and agreeable character. On his return to Pondichery from these visits, Dupleix at once assumed a greater state than had been indulged in by any of his predecessors. It was a part of his policy to impress upon the native princes in his vicinity that he too was an officer of the Mughal ; that he owed his rank to the King of Delhi. He, therefore, would not permit a single sign or symbol which rightfully belonged to his rank to be omitted or neglected. Situated at Pondichery, fir away from the reach of the distracted court of the descendant of Akbar, he was able to avail himself of the credit which his position as an officer of that monarch gave him amongst the nativ^es, without in the smallest degree confining his own action, or making any infringement on the duties he owed to his sovereign. He, in fact, was absolute master of the situation, and he simply used the power given him by his title to strengthen and confirm his position. Just at this moment, whilst engaged in this laudable design, and preparing at the same time to make Pondi- chery really as impregnable as the natives believed it to be, Dupleix received from the Company one of those strange despatches so often written by narrow-minded • Histoire des Indes Orientales, vol. iii, a 98 TIIK KISE OP THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, officials holding supreme power, to cripple and thwart , their more capable agents on the spot. In this des- 1743. patch, dated September 18, 1743, he was informed by the Directors that, in consequence of the approaching prospect of a war between France and England, they were compelled to restrict the number of vessels for India to four, two of which were destined for Pondi- chery, and two for Bengal ; they then proceeded to press upon him, as the greatest and most important service he could render, (1) the reduction of all the expenses in India by at least one-half; and (2) the suspension of all expenditure on account of building and fortifications. To carry out this service, they added their belief, " that this operation cannot be intrusted to better hands than yours, whose wisdom and zeal are known. It is that which determines it " — the Com- pany — " to charge you alone with the sole execution of this operation, free from consulting with the Council regarding it."* The announcement in this despatch, that a war with their great European rivals in India and on the seas was impending, and the injunction which accompanied it to spend no money on the fortifications — the unsatis- factory condition of which was, nevertheless, known to the Company — must have sounded strange in the ears of Dupleix. Not only were the fortifications in bad order, but on the front facing the sea there was a space of a thousand toises — nearly a mile and a quarter — which was absolutely open. Regarding this in con- nexion with the intimation he had received of the ]H'ospect of an European war, in which the enemies of France might obtain the mastery of the Indian seas, he felt that his duty as Governor of Pondichery — a place for which he was responsible to his sovereign — was paramount to every other. The orders which he re- ceived he therefore boldly disregarded. He caused a * ^feraoire pour Dupleix. ASSUMES THE RESPONSIBILITY OF IIIS ACTS. 99 solid rampart to be erected along the entire length of chap. the open space, with a broad and deep ditch in its '_. front. On this, night and day, workmen were em- 1743 ployed ; yet with all their vigilance, the rampart was not completed until nearly two years' after war with England had broken out, and it required the exercise of all the genius and talent of Dupleix to prevent an attack, by a powerful English squadron, on the un- finished defences. The expenses of this undertaking Dupleix supplied by his purse and by his credit. From the same sources he furnished cargoes to the two vessels which, in pursuance of the notification, came out to Pondichery, and which otherwise would have been forced to return empty. The other point, that of reducing the public expenditure, he carried out with a firm hand. The difficulty of his situation in this respect was enhanced by the fact that he alone was intrusted with the execution of the order ; that he was thus not only deprived of the support of his Council, but its members might cast obstacles in the way of the carrying out of a requisition, in which they were so lightly treated. Abuses were put down, corruption was strangled, salaries were reduced, until, in spite of mur- murs on all sides, which, however, were not directed against him personally, the necessary reductions were effected.* These proceedings on the part of Dupleix were most agreeable to the Company. His very disobedience of their order, in repairing and completing the fortifications of Pondichery, seems to have met with their approval. No wonder, perhaps, considering that the expense of those repairs and of that completion had fallen upon himself! We find them writing to him a letter, dated November 21, 1744, regarding the provision of cargoes for the two ships they had sent out : ^'The Company, as you will see by this letter, has been very much pleased * Memoire pour Dupleix. H 2 100 TITE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, at the zeal which you and the Councils of Pondichery - and Chandranagar have displayed for its interest in pro- 1744. curing cargoes for our two ships, the 'Fleury'and the ' Brillant,' sent from the Isle of France. As it is by your endeavours that this operation was completed, it is proper that you, especially, should enjoy the honour of it." With respect to the fortifications, they wrote, under date November 30, 1746: — "The promptitude with which the town of Pondichery has been enclosed on the side facing the sea, has given us real pleasure ; we are under a great obligation to you on that account " — for this disobedience of their orders ! Further on — " we have not seen with less satisfaction all the measures you have taken, both to provide, notwithstanding your poverty, cargoes for the ships, the sailing of which we had announced to you, and to second M. de la Bour- donnais in the operations which he was planning."* But before the receipt of this second letter war between France and England had been declared. This war had been long threatening. The death of the Emperor Charles VI. without male issue, had tempted France, Prussia, and Bavaria to combine to despoil his heroic daughter of the possessions she had inherited. In this war, the King of England, George II., soon found himself involved as Elector of Hanover. Without any declaration of war on the part of England, he had, in 1743, transported a combined army of English, Hanoverians, and Hessians into the valley of the Main, to co-operate with the Austrians. On the 27th June of the same year, when in danger of being compelled to surrender with his whole army to the French general, the Due de Noailles, the mad impetuosity of the Due de Gramont not only saved him from that calamity, but enabled him to gain a great victory before even the two nations were professedly at war. But this was too " Memoire pour Dupleix. PEOPOSES NEUTRALITY TO THE ENGLISH. 101 much for the endurance of France, and in the month ^^J^^- of March, 1744, she formerly declared war against ^ 1 . England. 1744. It will thus be seen, that the event which now took place had been long expected, that the breaking out of war had been regarded as a mere question of time. AVe have seen how Dupleix prepared himself to meet those hostilities when they should come. We have now to regard him in a different aspect, to notice how earnestly and indefatigably he strove to ward them off altogether. When the Directors of the Company of the Indies intimated to their Governor-General at Pondichery, that war with England was inevitable, they apprised him at the same time that they had instructed the Governor of the Isle of France, M. de la Bourdonnais, to proceed with a squadron to his assistance, but they especially urged upon him to endeavour to bring about a treaty of neutrality with the Governor of the English settlement, and to arrange with him that the commercial operations of both countries with India should continue without molestation from either. Those instructions found Dupleix in the very mood to comply with them, though very little hopeful of success in the negotiation. Of the movements of La Bourdonnais he had no positive knowledge. Even before the declaration of war, the English cruisers had spread themselves over the Indian seas, ready to carry devastation into French commerce.* Yet from stray vessels, and from other sources, intima- "^;ion had reached him that a squadron under Commodore Bamet was on its way out, especially charged with the entire destruction of the French settlement. Nevertheless he made the attempt, earnestly, almost beseechingly. But Mr. Morse, the Governor of Madras, and his Council, had precisely the same reasons for • The French commerce with the fitted for the Indian trade. Ten or Indies had made great progress since twelve of these were sent every year the time of Lenoir. In 1740 the io ihelmlieii.—Histoire des Ind'es. Company possessed forty large ships 102 THE RISE OE THE ERENCU POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, wishini^ for war, by which Dupleix was influenced in his . desire for peace. The squadron under Commodore 1774. Barnet was, he well knew, in the Eastern seas, engaged in intercepting the French traders between China and Europe ; it was shortly expected, with its prizes, at Madras ; letters had been received some time previously, announcing its proximate arrival, and those letters con- tained the instructions for the annihilation of French commerce to which we have just alluded. To the urgent requisition of Dupleix, Mr. Morse pleaded therefore the orders he had received from England. f Another disappointment awaited the French Governor. He had hoped that, should these negotiations fail, he might derive some assistance from the promised squadron of La Bourdonnais. But, just about the time that the unfavourable reply was received from Mr. Morse, intimation reached him that in obedience to instructions received from Paris, La Bourdonnais had sent back his squadron to France, and was apparently powerless to assist him. Ignorant, as he was then, of the undaunted energy and persistent resolution which so eminently characterised the Governor of the Isle of France, Dupleix felt himself at tliat moment absolutely cast upon his own resources. He had but himself to depend upon. With a garrison of 436 Europeans, the fortifications of Pondi- chery progressing, but not then finished, with but one small ship of war at his disposal, he had to meet the threatened attack of three men-of-war and a frigate, sub- sequently increased to six vessels of war, whose cannon alone, playing upon the unfinished rampart from the roadstead, could demolish the French town. Even the one vessel at his disposal he despatched to the Isle of France, with an urgent requisition to La Bour- donnais to come to his aid. This was a situation to test in the most searching manner the capacity of a man. AVas it possible, under such circumstances, to escape the t Dupleix, Ornii-, Cambridge. STATE OF THE KARNATI^. 10 O threatened danger, and even to turn it to his own profit? chap. It did not seem so certainly, yet Dupleix proved that it ' , , could be done. It was when the European enemy 1744. appeared most threatening, that the policy adopted from the commencement — the system inaugurated by Martin and carried on by his successors — the system of treating the natives of India as friends and as equals, bore its natural fruits. From the menaces of Mr. Morse, Dupleix appealed to the friendship of the successor of Sher Khan Lodi and of Dost Ali. The reply he re- ceived showed that the esteem, which the Nawwabs of the Karnatik had always professed to feel for the representa- tive of the French nation, was no transient or fair-weather sentiment. Anwaru-din Khan, the representative, though not the relative, of those chieftains, had inherited their traditions ; he responded to the call made upon him with a fidelity to professions not always exercised in Europe, and Pondicheiy was saved. To render the account of subsequent events more clear and intelligible, it is necessary that we should state very briefly the principal events that had occurred in the Karnatik since we last left it. The Karnatik suffering from the famine caused by the invasion of the Marathas ; Chanda Sahib a prisoner at Satara ; his brother-in-law, Nawwab Safdar Ali, pressed by his feudal superior, the Subadar of the Dakhan, for arrears of revenue : such was the condition of the Karnatik in the middle of 1741. It was worse for the people than for the ruler. The people had been plundered and were starving. Safdar Ali, on the con- trary, had had his treasures well guarded at Pon- dichery. Notwithstanding his professions, he had still abundance of wealth to pay up the arrears de- manded by the Subadar. But he did not choose to pay them. The Subadar had not supported his demands by force, and Safdar Ali was resolved not to yield to a mere verbal request. He amused therefore the Suba- 104 THE RISE OE THE EitENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, dar -vvith excuses, and, to be prepared for the worst, he . ^ ' ■ took up his residence at Vellur, whilst he deposited his 1742. treasures in the custody of the English at Madras.* But a crisis was at hand. The assessment, which the stipulated payment to the Marathas had compelled Safdar Ali to impose upon his nobility, had made him extremely unpopular, and had even caused a combina- tion amongst some of his courtiers to resist it. The unsatisfactory nature of his relations with the Subadar had induced these conspirators to believe that his over- throw would not be regarded with disfavour in that quarter. Amongst those who had joined this con- spiracy, was the other brother-in-law of Safdar Ali, Murtiza Ali by name, a man well known for his cowar- dice, his cruelty, his wealth, and his parsimony. On September 2, 1742, this man, taking advantage of the confidence inspired by the contempt which the Nawwab felt for him, seized the opportunity of Safdar Ali being with but few attendants, first, to cause him to be poisoned, and, that proving inefi'ectual, to have him stabbed to death. He then proclaimed himself Naw- wab, and obtaining by artful representations possession of Vellur and acknowledgment from the troops, installed himself at Arkat. But the detestation of his crime combined with the contempt felt for his cowardice to make his tenure of office extremely brief. His prin- cipal officers appealed to Murari Rao, Governor of Trichinapalli, and he declared war against him. The English were requested by the insurgent nobility to protect the family and treasure of Safdar Ali, whilst the army, the support of his power, suddenly made a tumul- tuous demand upon him for the payment of their * Orme states that he transferred nexion which existed between his confidence, in regard to the cus- Chanda Sahib and M. Dupleix. tody of his family and treasures, This Asad was, as has been already from the French to the English on told^ the bitter enemy of Chanda the advice of his Prime Minister, Sahib, and the author of all his Mir. Asad, who suspected the con- calamities. ANWARU-l>fN NAWWAB. 105 arrears. Murtiza Ali terrified at these demands, and chap. . . ... Ill not possessing spirit equal to his villainy, bent before . the storm, and disguising himself in woman's clothes, 1742, fled in safety to the fort of Vellur. On his flight becom- ing known, the son of Safdar Ali, Sa'id Muhammad Khan, an infant who was with his mother at Madras, was at once proclaimed Nawwab. The appointment of an infant to this position did not 1743. tend to the tranquillity of the province. Every noble- man assumed an independent position. But, in the beginning of the following year, Nizamu-1-Mulk, the Subadar of the Dakhan, appeared upon the scene at the head of an army of 80,000, horse and 200,000 foot. He at once became the master of the situation. He put down upstart noblemen, threatening to scourge them, should they dare to assume the title of Naw- wab — a practice which had become common amongst them — and appointed one of his chief officers, Khoja Abdullah Khan, to administer the province. The Subadar then moved upon Trichinapalli, which the Marathas evacuated without striking a blow in its defence. Having recovered this principality for the Mughal, he returned to Golkonda, taking Khoja Abdullah with him. It had been intended by the Subadar that this officer should return to assume the regency of the Karnatik the following year, but on the very eve of starting, he was found dead in his bed. Anwaru-dm, known as a brave and experienced soldier, was appointed to succeed him as temporary governor and guardian to the son of Safdar Ali, until the latter should attain his majority. But a few months, however, elapsed, before, at a wedding to which Murtiza Ali, the murderer of his father, had been invited, Sa'id Muhammad Khan was assassinated. In the confusion that followed Murtiza Ali took to his horse, and escorted by a body 106 THE RISE OF THE ERENCH PoWER IN INDIA. ^V.f^- of cavalry, escaped to Vellur. The immediate result - was that Auwaru-din, who was no relation of the old 1745. family, was appointed permanent Nawwab of the Karnatik. This was the man to whom, in the difficult circum- stances in which he was placed, the Governor of Pondi- chory made his appeal. He reminded him of the long- standing frendship between his predecessors and the French nation ; of the moral support and protection to the families of those predecessors given at the time of the Maratha invasion ; he alluded to the conciliatory disposition always shown by the French ; to their de- sire to be at peace with all around them ; and he urged upon the Nawwab to prevent, by his authority, the aggression of the other European nation occupying a portion of the seaboard of the Karnatik, upon those who had always been friends to his predecessors, and whose Governor was himself a high officer of the IMughal. Anwaru-din was not insensible to the force and reason of this appeal. Neither of the European powders on the Koromandel coast had shown up to that point any aggressive tendencies, nor hiad then the superiority of the European soldier in the field been demonstrated in any way. It was natural that he should desire to maintain peace in his jurisdiction and its dependencies, and it is very probable — indeed, subsequent events proved — that he was not at all insensible to the marks of friendship and cordiality which the rulers of Pondi- chery had always evinced. He therefore sent a press- ing message to the Governor of Madras, informing him that he would not permit any attack on the possessions of the French on the Koromandel coast. The despotic character of this resolution he endeavoured to soften by a show of fairness ; for he informed Mr. Morse, at the same time, that should hereafter the French power pre- ponderate, he would use the same authority to prevent LA BOUIIDONXAIS. 107 auy agsressive action on their part. Mr. Morse had no chap. couibe but compliance. J^ , But though he was thus saved from immediate attack, 174G. the situation of Dupleix was still particularly trying. The English squadron had come round to the coast, had even received reinforcements, and the vessels of which it was composed, cruising about, did their best to inter- cept and destroy the French merchantmen. The Com- pany of the Indies, even before the outbreak of the war, had ceased to send any ships to Pondichery, so that Dupleix was dependent for his information on stray arrivals. Still, amid the doubt and despondency that surrounded him, he maintained a bold and resolute bearing. Though within all was anxiety, without, there was the security of apparent composure. He was, how- ever, immensely relieved, when, in the month of May, 1746, he learned from a sure source, that the long- announced and long-despaired of squadron of M. de la Bourdonnais had been heard of at Mahe. La Bourdonnais was last introduced in these pages as the skilful and enterprising officer who had devised the means by which Mahe — so named, it will be re- membered, after himself — had been captured in 1725. We shall now briefly relate the course of his life during the nineteen years that had elapsed since that first brilliant essay of arms in India. Reduced by the peace, to which France at that period seemed disposed, to inactivity. La Bourdonnais, after the capture of Mahe, fitted out a ship on his own account, and traded for three or four years in the Arabian seas. The ascendency which he here speedily assumed over all with whom he came into contact, and which especially signalised itself on the occasion of a disturbance, that he succeeded in quelling, between some Portuguese and Arab sailors, in the harbour of Mocha, recommended him to the Governor of Goa, and induced that Viceroy to offer him the command of a ship of war under the King of 108 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP. Portugal — an appointment carrying with it several . . '^ . orders and titles. La Bourdonnais accepted the offer, 1746. and made an expedition to Mozambique, and several cruises in the Indian seas. But the situation of a foreigner in the service of another country can never be wholly satisfactory, and at the end of two years La Bourdonnais found that the annoyances to which he was constantly subjected were not compensated by either the pleasure or profit of his command. He therefore threw it up and returned in 1733 to France. There he married, and, in 1735, he was appointed to succeed M. Dumas as Governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon. 1710. To understand all that La Bourdonnais accomplished in his new position, it is necessary that we should refer to the connexion of the French with those islands from the time of their earliest occupation. We have already* given a brief sketch of their history from their first discovery by the Portuguese to the occupation of Bour- bon by a small number of the baffled colonists of Madagascar in 1672, and the settlement in the Isle of France at some period between 1710 and 1719. It is probable, that the remnants of the Madagascar colonists, never much caring for labour on its own account, would, had they been able, have taken an early opportunity of leaving an island, in which they seemed entirely cut off from association with the outer world. But they had escaped — a mixed crew of men and women — the latter, it is stated, being natives — in two canoes, and they had no means of proceeding in any direction. They betook themselves therefore perforce to the erection of huts, and to the cultivation of articles of food. Fortunately the nature of the soil was such that a very small expenditure of labour was sufficient to enable them to live in abundance. Soon after, their numbers were increased by the wreck upon their coast of a piratical * Chapkr I. THE ISLES OF FRANCE AND BOURBON. 109 craft,* on board of which were many female prisoners, chap. By degrees too they were joined by deserters from East . Indian ships which touched there. These were for the uki most part attracted by the easy life which the fertility of the soil enabled its inhabitants to enjoy. The pros- perity of the island increased in a greater degree than could be imagined, if the elements of which its so- ciety was formed were alone considered. Houses were erected, small trading vessels were built, many of them for piratical purposes, slaves were purchased, and articles fit for export were cultivated. So glowing indeed were the accounts of this prosperity taken home to France, by ships which touched at the island, that towards the close of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century, the French Company put in their claim to its possession, and sent thither five or six families and a Governor. f The Governor was well received at first, but the descendants of the pirates and deserters soon found him an inconvenient incumbrance. They accordingly seized and imprisoned him, and kept him in a dungeon till he died. Their rebellion had no other result. A new Governor was sent with orders to punish the ringleaders, and to erect a fort for his pro- tection — orders which he is stated to have carried out effectually. In 1717, the population of the island was computed at two thousand nine hundred free men, and eleven hun- dred slaves. In the following year an event occurred * It is stated that amongst other the island." — Dalri/mples Oriental additions from various sources, the Bepertory, vol ii. early inhabitants of Bourbon "re- tit would appear, however, from ceived an increase by some English the Calendiier des Isles de France et pirates, who came along with Avery, de Bourbon that the inliabitauts had England, Condon, and Pattison, who, had a regular succession of governors after acquiring considerable riches in of their own since the formatiou of the Red Sea and coasts of Arabia the settlement. Thus, it is recorded and Persia, quitting their way of that "in 1675 Pei-e Hiacinthe, Ca- life, settled on the island, and had a pucliin. arrived there in the quality pardon from the King of France. of Cure, and took upon himself the Some of them were alive in 1763, and right of Governor." their descendants are numerous on 110 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. ^V,^^- which gave an impetus to its trade, and which assured . its future prosperity. This was the introduction of the 1723. cultivation of coffee, which thenceforth became the staple trade of the island. Two years prior to this, possession had been taken of the deserted Isle of France, although no earnest attempt at colonisation was made before 1721. An edict, dated November of that year, however, decreed the erection of a Provincial Council in that island dependent upon that of Bourbon, and in 1723, M. Dumas was appointed Governor of both islands. Great inducements were at the same time held out to the inhabitants of Bourbon to emigrate into the larger island. For this purpose grants of land were made to settlers, and sums proportionate to each grant were advanced to each settler by the Company. Yet for several years, it seemed as though the colonisa- tion of the Isle of France was likely to be unprofitable, and its abandonment was constantly threatened. The colonists had been unable at the expiration of twelve years to set on foot a trade sufficient even to enable them to repay the sums that had been advanced them by the Company. But, in the crisis of the hesitation as to the line of action to be adopted. La Bourdonnais arrived in France. The fame of his skill, his energy, his indomitable resolution, had preceded him, and the Directors resolved to give one more chance to the new colony, by appointing as Governor of the Isles of France and Bourbon, one who had given so many proofs of the possession of great qualities. La Bourdonnais went there. He found in Bourbon a fertile soil, a healthy air, and, comparatively, a settled community, He found the greater part of the Isle of France, on the other hand, still covered with almost impenetrable forests; possessing two harbours, one of which at all events, up to that moment unimproved and scarcely safe, might, w4th a little labour, be made excellent for all purposes ; a soil less fertile indeed than THE ENERGY OF LA BOURDONNAIS. Ill that of Bourbon, but still capable of production ; and a chap. climate, mild, temperate, and healthy. The fact that it "'' possessed a harbour gave to the Isle of France a great 1735^ superiority in the eyes of La Bourdonnais over Bourbon, and he at once made it the seat of government. But the people ! Had La Bourdonnais been less of a real man than he was, he might well have been appalled at the task of making anything of a race to whom toil of any sort seemed the worst species of evil. Almost naked, defenceless, and starving, having preferred to be comfortless and miserable rather than to exercise even the small amount of labour which in such a clime would have amply supplied their necessities ; dwelling in wretched cabins ; possessing no energy, living in fear of their lives from the attacks of the Maroons — the free descendants of the slaves who had been kidnapped from Madagascar, and who had found refuge in the interior — endowed apparently merely with the animal love of existence — these so-called colonists were yet capable of combining to resist any lawful authority over them. But La Bourdonnais was not a man to be baffled. He taught them, in a hundred of instances, that he was resolved to be master. And yet, in doing this, he showed such tact, he was so gentle while so determined, his measures were so wise, and the benefits resulting from them so evident to all, that he forced these colonists, even whilst murmuring against him, to admit in their reasonable moods, that he was the wisest, gentlest, and best of governors, the only man who could have induced them to forego their old habits of indolence and sloth. By his own personal teaching — whether as regarded the merest rudiments or the higher requirements of agriculture — the first principles of mechanical labour or the acquirements of the skilled artisan ; by constantly impressing on the minds of these people the absolute necessity under which they lay to work, he succeeded 112 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH TOWER IN INDIA. CHAP, before long in forming out of this unpromising raw . material a civilised community. Under his influence, 1737. some took to planting, some to manufacturing, others to soldiering. La Bourdonnais assisted them in various w^ays. He imported negroes from Madagascar, and employed these as policemen, as cultivators, and as arti- sans. In a short time the island assumed a new appear- ance. In place of the uncultivated waste of the interior, and the wretched hovels scattered along the coast, he caused to be built substantial private dwelling houses, magazines, arsenals, barracks, fortifications, mills, quays, canals, and aqueducts. Of these last, one in particular is mentioned, built for the purpose of bringing down fresh water to the port and to the hospitals, as having been 3,600 toises (more than four miles and a quarter) in length. But his greatest efforts were directed to the sea-coast. There were, we have seen, two harbours, one on the south-east side of the island, open to the prevail- ing winds, the other on the noth-west side, sheltered from the wind, but only to be entered through a narrow channel. On this he bestowed all his efforts, and he very soon made it fit in every respect for the reception of thirty-five or forty ships. He provided it likewise with wet and dry docks, pontoons, canoes, yards, and timber. It became thus as easy to lay up and repair ships at Port Louis, for so he named the capital, as in any port in Europe. In 1737, eighteen months after his arrival, he was able to launch a brigantine ; the following year, he built two good ships,* and put another of five hundred tons on the stocks. This, however, was but a portion of what he effected in that respect during his viceroyalty. * As might have been expected, haul her ashore agfain, and rip off a the first attempt at shipbuilding was great deal of timber and put other in not altogether a success. It is related her place before she was fit for sea." of his first ship, that "after a great This vessel, the "Insulaire," was lost deal of trouble, time, and expense in in 1746, in the Ganges, on her way building, she was found so heavy in to Chandranagar after the action launching, that they were obliged to with Commodore Peyton. bis PEOPOSALS TO FLEURI. Il3 His internal administration was equally energetic and chap. judicious. He took very good care that the negroes . were not unduly oppressed by the colonists. He com- 1737. pelled the landowners to lay out tapioca plantations, five hundred yards square, for each negro and family serving under them. He encouraged the cultivation of sugar, soon to become a great success, prevented the indiscriminate slaughter of cattle, and, until the breed should revive, he forced the ships' crews to live upon fish and turtle during their stay in port.* Nor was he less successful in Bourbon, though that island, at the time of his arrival, was further advanced in civilisation than the other. His principal object was to administer the two islands, so that they should be valuable to France, and to make them fit to be the commercial station between France and India. To this end, it was necessary that they should be fortified. Though the means were apparently wanting, La Bour- donnais commenced the work, and in less than five years he succeeded in providing them with such fortifications as would have rendered an attack upon them by a small force extremely hazardous. In 1740, La Bourdonnais returned to France. On his arrival there he learnt that complaints preceded him. Cardinal Fleury was then still Minister. A timid economist, with little breadth of view, Fleury had but one principle of external policy. This was the maintenance of peace, especially of peace with England, at any price. It was partly from a fear of giving umb- rage to England, partly from his economic habits, that he starved the French navy, neglected the army, and gave no encouragement to commerce. Such a man could have little sympathy with a genius so fertile, an energy so buoyant, a desire to advance French interests so irrepressible, as were bound together in the person of La Bourdonnais. When therefore some of those * Memoire pour La Bourdounais. — Raynal's India. I 114 THE KISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, repressed speculators, and baffled ship-captains, whose , gains and depredations had been lessened by the 17il. measures of La Bourdonnais, presented to the Minister and to the Directors of the Company a long list of their grievances, accompanied by insinuations common to their class, that La Bourdonnais was working mainly for his own interests, the narrow mind of the Cardinal did not repel the charges, and, worked upon at the same time by the Directors, he began to concert with them measures for his disgrace. It was partly the intima- tion of this, and the consequent desire to justify himself, that had brought La Bourdonnais from the scene of his labours. Though narrow-minded to a degree, Fleury was not intentionally unjust. He received the great colonist with marked disfavour at the outset, but he did not remain long proof against the candour and frankness which cha- racterised alike his demeanour and his statements. La Bourdonnais in fact insisted upon being informed of all that had been said against him, and, this done, he had little difficulty, not only in justifying his conduct, but in convincing the Minister and the Directors of the great value of the measures he had accomplished. The per- sonal charges against him dissolved into air. He showed, in the course of his justifications, that he had never pos- sessed a foot of land in the islands ; that he had never traded for a single livre; and that so great had been the confidence of the colonists in his impartiality, that all the differences in the isla,nds had been terminated by his arbitration, without recourse ha\dng been had, except in one solitary instance, to a lawsuit. Released from the charges against him, and reinstated in the confidence of his masters, the fertile mind of La Bourdonnais began at once to revolve fresh schemes. At that time (1740-41), hostilities between France and England seemed imminent. The two nations had taken opposite sides in the war of the Austrian succession, and TAKES ElVE SHIPS TO THE ISLANDS. 115 it was evident that not all the devices of Fleury would chap. be able much longer to keep back a declaration of war. "^" Under these circumstances, La Bourdonnais foreseeing j-^^j that that nation which, on the breaking out of the war, should have an overwhelming superiority of force to the other in the Indian seas, would be able to crush its rival, advised that he should be allowed to equip and fit out a squadron of six or eight ships as vessels of war. With these he proposed to sail to the Isle of France, there to await the breaking out of hostilities. On that ev^ent occurring, he would be able, he said, to intercept and capture the English merchantmen, and then, steering to India, ruin the English settlements in that country. This plan, practical, easy of execution, and, under an unfettered La Bourdonnais, certain of success, was never- theless too grand in its grasp to commend itself to the timid and cautious policy of the Directors of the Company of the Indies. These therefore declared against it at once. But Fleury, timid as he was, had too much of the states- man in his composition, not to perceive the immense ad- vantages that might accrue from its successful operation. La Bourdonnais too was on the spot, and La Bourdonnais was careful to point out to him, amongst other arguments, that his consent to the plan did not commit him to any overt act of hostility against England, that the squadron would patiently await in the harbour of Port Louis the first declaration of war. Fleury, convinced by these and similar arguments, gave in to the plan, merely altering some of the details ; the opposition of the Directors he for the time silenced. The alteration in the details of the scheme, as origin- ally proposed, consisted in the idea of substituting at least two ships of the French navy for those which La Bourdonnais was to fit out. But, in France, in the reign of Louis XV., action seldom followed counsel. When the time came for the squadron to sail, the two King's ships, with which so much might have been eflfected, were I 2 u/ THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, diverted to some unimportant purpose, and La Bour- . donnais found himself reduced to the command of five 1741. vessels belonging to the Company. But these would have been sufficient for his purpose, had he been allowed to pursue that purpose to its end. They carried a con- siderable armament,* and they had on board 1,200 sailors and 500 soldiers. Yet even amongst these, he had difficulties to contend with. But few of the sailors had ever been at sea, and the soldiers had been but little in- structed in military exercises. With both tliese classes, La Bourdonnais pursued the course he had found so successful with the colonists of the Isle of France. He taught them what their duties were, and he set them himself the best example of doing them. To train them to the various labours likely to devolve upon them, was his constant and unremitting business on the voyage ; and to such an extent did he succeed, that the ships which left France on the 5th April, 1741, manned by landsmen as sailors, and carrying recruits for soldiers, arrived at the Isle of France on August 14th following, with crews as efficient as those which manned the King's navy, and soldiers as well trained in all their musketry exercises as those who fought at Fontenoy. It was the sad fate of those heroic men who struggled to establish a French Empire in India, to find their chief- est and most redoubtable enemies in France itself. The genius of Clive, the persistent valour of Coote, and the almost forgotten gallantry of Forde,f might have strug- gled in vain to overturn a settlement which was based on the solid foundations on which the early rulers of Pondi- chery had begun to build up a French India, had France herself been true to her struggling children. But the France of Louis XV. more resembled the Medea of the ancient story than the tender and watchful mother. * These ships were the " Fleury" nommee"of 28, and the " Parfaite," of 56 guns, the "Brillant" and of 16. "Aimable" of 50 each, the "Re- f Vide the "Decisive Battles of India." IS THWARTED RY INTRIGUERS. 117 Often (lid slie, "with her own hands, imniohite her off- chap. Ill spring," and, failing this, she treated the best and bravest . of her sons rather as enemies to be thwarted, baffled, per- 1741. secuted, and driven to despair, than as men who were devoting all their energies, the every thought of their lives, to increase her dominions. In the course of this history it will be seen how opportunity after opportunity was missed; how the Indian interests were persistently neglected; when a well-timed effort would have secured the empire for which the sons of France on the spot were gallantly struggling. And it was now that France betrayed her champion. She betrayed the man, who, but for the acts of the rulers of France, would have enjoyed the best opportunity of effectively establishing a French Empire in India, of rooting out every rival. La Bourdonnais had scarcely set sail, when those infamous intriguers and whisperers — the certain hangers-on of cori'upt Governments — began to uplift the voices which in his presence had remained mute. Amongst the Directors, the cry was raised that this expensive armament was useless for the purposes of France ; that it was intended to minister to the ambition of its promoter. They declared that a policy of neu- trality in the Indian seas was the only sound policy, and they expressed a conviction that, in case of war, the English would be glad to accede to such an arrangement. From the Directors the cry rose to the Ministry. The weak Fleury, then ninety years old, and no longer under the influence of the spell of I^a Bourdonnais' presence, after a short struggle, gave way to the clamour. In an evil hour for France and for French India, this dispenser under Louis XV. of the fortunes of his country trans- mitted orders to La Bourdonnais to send back his ships to France, " even though they should have to sail with- out cargoes."* Meanwhile, La Bourdonnais, unsuspicious of back- * Memoire pour La Bourdonnais. 118 THE BISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, stairs iiiilueiice, had, as we have seen, arrived at the Isle ^^^' of France. The intelligence which awaited him there, 1741. "^vas of a nature to stimulate all his energies. He received the news, which had some short time before arrived, of the danger which threatened Pondichery from the anticipated attack of Raghuji Bhonsla, and further that the authorities of the islands, obeying an urgent requisition from M. Dumas, had despatched their garrisons to India. Impressed with the necessity of saving Pondichery at all costs, La Bourdonnais re- mained only a week at the Isle of France, and sailed then for Pondichery. Arriving there on September 30, he found that the tact and skill of M. Dumas had warded off the danger from that settlement, but that Mahe was still beleaguered. Thither, accordingly, to the scene of his early Indian triumphs, he sailed, and arriving there speedily re-established French ascen- dancy. There being nothing more for him to accom- plish in India, he sailed back to the Isle of France to carry out the scheme he had concerted with Fleury. It was on his return thither that he experienced the bitter pang which those alone can feel who, prompted in their actions by noble and generous sentiments, find themselves restrained and held back by men of inferior powers. Then for the first time the order reached him to send back his ships to Europe. He knew the full significance of that order ; he felt that it was to give up, for the coming war, at all events, all hope of French preponderance in India ; he felt that it would leave him a powerless spectator of the triumphs of the English — disarmed and defenceless, perhaps even a prey to their attacks ; he felt that it destroyed the hope of his life, the object of all his toil, the certain accom- plishment, but for that, of his legitimate ambition. But what was he to do ? The order was imperative. He must obey it. With a pang, the bitterness of which few men can have experienced, and which must THE E^^GLISH PROFIT BY HIS PROPOSALS. 119 have been euliauced afterwards by the prompt realisa- chap. tion of all his anticipations, he sent back the fleet. . With it, however, he sent his own resignation, with an 1741. earnest prayer that he might be speedily relieved. Why did he obey ? Surely it was not his fault that he did obey. But what cruel destiny was it that was weighing down the fortunes of France ? A few favour- ing gales, a swift-sailing ship, an energetic captain, and the fate of India might have been changed ! Scarcely had the first keenness of the disappointment caused by the departure of the fleet been obliterated in the ener- getic action which now found a vent in the care of the colony, when there arrived at Port Louis a French ship conveying a despatch from the Controller of the Finances and Minister of State, M. Philibert Orry, authorising La Bourdonnais to retain the fleet, and expressing a hope that he had disobeyed his previous instructions. Cardinal Fleury, in fact, was dying, Orry was virtual Minister, and taking in at once the great importance of La Bourdonnais' schemes, he had sent out this ship and these instructions. Too late, alas ! for La Bourdonnais' hopes. The ships had gone, and there was no possibility of recalling them. It is difficult to imagine the aggravation of dis- appointment which this message from the new Minister must have caused. How many it would have utterly crushed ! How many it would have driven to despair ! But La Bourdonnais was made of a very hard material. He was not proof against all the attacks of fortune, for he, too, as we shall have occasion to describe, had his weak side ; but this disappointment neither crushed him nor stopped his action. Learning a little later that the Minister and Directors refused to accept his resig- nation, he calmly resumed his duties as Governor of the islands, and began at once to make preparations for a possible future. The French Ministry refused to accept the resignation 120 THE KISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, of La "Bourdonnais, but they did not immediately send , back the ships. They informed him that he possessed 1743. all their confidence, and that it was to him they looked to take the supreme post in India in case of any accident happening to Dupleix. Meanwhile, Cardinal Fleury had died (January 29, 1743), war had been declared between France and England, and La Bour- donnais saw with pain the great rivals of his nation reaping the field which he had sown to gather.* That English fleet, under Commodore Barnet, of which we have already spoken, had come to cruise in the Indian seas, and French merchantmen were picked up in every direction. La Bourdonnais could do nothing to hinder their depredations. As if to add to his perplexities, he, at this time, when utterly powerless himself, re- ceived a pressing message from Dupleix, with whom he had been some time in correspondence, begging him to hasten, with all the force at his disposal, to the defence of Pondichery. 1741:. Then was seen, in full perfection, an example of the truth of the maxim that great difficulties are nothing more than obstacles which a real man may overcome. It would seem impossible that this man, left destitute himself, should have been able to carry assistance to a countryman in distress. But no axiom is more true than this, that nothing is impossible to a brave man — brave, we mean, not in the narrow view of personal courage, but in its widest and its broadest sense ; brave to bear the reproach, the obloquy, the hatred, the discontent, of his fellow-men ; brave to disregard the studied neglect, the insolent glance, the open attacks, of men whom accident has placed higher than himself in the social scale ; brave still, despite of all, to go on straight to the end he has marked out to himself, * " We are now executing against he had taken, "that which M. de you," said Commodore Barnet to the la Bourdonnais had projected ag-ainst captain of a French merchantman us.'' HE CONQUERS THE IMPOSSIBLE. 121 despite of jeers and taunts, of open opposition, and chai'. secret calumny. It was in that sense that La Bour- . donnais was brave, and being thus brave, he conquered 1744. the impossible. What was the impossible ] Without ships, without sailors, without an army, the Indian Ocean covered by hostile cruisers, with no resources but those which he had made in the colony, he was asked to embark an army, to traverse the Indian Ocean, to avoid or encoun- ter the trained fleet of the enemy, and to relieve the beleaguered capital of French India. Could he stamp upon the ground and bring into existence the men, the guns, the material, the ships, that he had not 1 Did it not seem a very impossibility ] Yet, undeterred by this seeming, La Bourdonnais set to work calmly, patiently, steadfastly, to accomplish the undertaking. To succeed in such an attempt it was especially necessary to greatly dare ; to throw to the winds all dread of responsibility ; to use to the utmost extent the powers at his disposal. La Bourdonnais thus acted. Every ship — and some, despite the English cruisers, did arrive — that touched at Port Louis, likely to be suitable for his purpose, he detained. The objections of the captains and of others interested in the vessels he peremptorily silenced. It was unfortunate that, in addition to other difficulties, the islands, owing to an unwonted scarcity caused by a total failure of the crops, were unable to supply sufficient food for the crews; equally so that a vessel laden with piovisions from Europe, the " Saint Geran," had gone down at the very entrance of the harbour. Such was the scarcity, that the inhabitants of the islands were restricted by an order of the local council to daily rations of one pound of bread or rice for every European and freeman, and a pound and a half of rice for each negro. The necessary requirements for the equipment of the ships, carpenters and smiths and tailors to work 22 THE RISE OF THE FKENCII POWKi: IN INDIA. CHAP. ii])()ii them, sailors sufficient to mau them, and soldiers III . . . to be conveyed by them, were alike wanting. But 1745. La Bourdonnais determined to make what he had not. He himself, carpenter, engineer, tailor, and smith, constructed with his own hands the model of all the articles that were required. Under his own personal superintendence, some men were trained to act as tailors, to cut out and prepare sails ; others, as carpenters, busied themselves with gun- carriages, and fitted the vessels to receive them. Some were set to work to prepare materials for building ships, others to put together those materials. Then, again, the sailors were trained to work together, to serve the guns, to scale walls, to fire at a mark, to use the grappling hook. Finding their number insufficient, he recruited from the negroes, and formed the whole into mixed companies. Working in this way, he soon found himself at the head of a body of men, well taught and well disciplined, and ready to undertake any enterprise he might assign to them. Nor was he less painstaking and energetic regarding the supply of provisions. He had already detained and had begun to equip five vessels, including the twenty- six gunship which had brought him the pressing requisition from Dupleix, when he received intelligence from France that a squadron of five ships had started from L'Orient, and would be with him in October of that year (1745), The arrival of this squadron would cause a double strain upon his slender stock of pro- visions. He therefore arranged that, so soon as a ship should be equipped, she should sail at once for the coast of Madagascar, and there lay in supplies of rice and other articles of food that might be procurable. In this way he managed to over-ride that which other- wise would have been an insurmountable difficulty. 1746. Xhe squadron, promised in October, 1745, arrived in January of the following year. It consisted of one A STORM SHATTERS HIS FLEET. 123 ship of war of seventy guns, the " Achille," and of four chap. unarmed merchantmen.* To arm and equip these latter, and to reconcile their officers to the displacement u^q^ of their several cargoes,f tasked all his resources. However, he succeeded. The armament consisted almost entirely of eight and twelve pounders, a calibre insignificant when compared with that of the guns ordinarily found, even in those days, on board a man-of- war. Even of these he had an insufficient number, and almost all his improvised fighting ships were pierced for a greater number of guns than they actually carried. However, one by one, partially equipped as they were, they left the island for the rendezvous at Madagascar. When all had taken their departure, he himself, brimful of bright hopes and enthusiasm, set sail to join them.J This was on March 24. Scarcely, however, had he sighted his squadron, when one of those tempests which periodically sweep over the Indian Ocean burst upon him His ships Avere driven from their anchoring ground, and for three days were tossed about by the storm. One of them foundered ;§ the admiral's ship, the " Achille," lost her three masts, and many of the others suffered equally. At last, however, they found a safe refuge in the Bay of Antongil, on the north- eastern coast of Madagascar. In this bay, laying off a • La Bourdonnais' expression re- pierced for 42, carrying 34 guns ; the gavding these vessels runs as follows : " Phenix," pierced tor 44, carrying 38 It is proper to observe regarding guns; the "Neptune," pierced for these vesstls that they were very 36, carrying 30 giins ; the "Saint badly off for crews. The 'Achille' Louis," pierced for 3(), carrying 26 alone was fitted out as a ship of war. guns ; the "Lys," pierced for 36, The others were no more armed than carrying 24 guns; the "Due simple merchant ships."— JI!fe/now-e. d' Orleans," pierced for 36, carrying t The armament of these vessels 24 guns ; tlie " Renoramee " pierced necessitated the landing of all the for 28, carrying 24 guns ; and the merchandise with which they were " Insulaire" of 30, carrying 20 guns, lad^n. to the great loss of the owners. — 3Iemoire pour La Bourdonnais. X We subjoin a list of the names § The "Neptune des Indes." of of the vessels forming the squadron 34 guns, not included in the above and their respective armaments. The list. "Achille" of 70 guns; the "Bourbon 124 THE IJISE OF THE FRKNCII POAYER TN INDIA. CUAP. desert island within it, the work of refitting was under- '_, taken. Perhaps never was such a work begun under 1746. so many accumulated disadvantages. The island was marshy and insalubrious ; the periodical rains had begun ; the ships had suffered fearfully, and their crews were knocked up by fatigue. There was no landing- place ; the forest whence wood was to be procured was on the mainland, upward of two miles distant ; between it and the shore was a marsh three miles in circum- ference ; a winding river, with sufficient water to render the frequent crossing it wearisome, but not sufficient to float the logs down to the sea ; and, even when in the sea, they were yet three miles from the shipping. But these difficulties, great as they were, were all overcome. He built a quay of the stone which the island pro- duced, he erected workshops for the construction of masts, ropes, and other appliances ; he threw a road across the marsh ; he caused the logs to be dragged along the bed of the river, and constructing rude canoes, he launched them at its mouth, and by their aid paddled the logs to the side of the disabled vessels. To choose these logs, he penetrated into the pestilential forests, in order that he might be sure that he had the advantage of the best species of wood procurable. His example stimulated the whole fleet. Those who, at first, had been inclined to show discontent, could not long resist his magic influence. But a short time elapsed before all worked with an energy of which before they had scarcely seemed capable. At the end of forty-eight days they had repaired every damage, though at a loss, from climate and exposure, of ninety- five Europeons and thirty-three negroes. The fleet, however, was saved, and was once more ready to sail for the long-wished-for goal.* At length, on June 1, it started. It consisted now of but nine ships. Besides the " Achille " of seventv * Memoire pour La Bourdonnais. ENCOUNTERS THE ENGLISH FLEET. 125 guns, one vessel carried thirty-eight guns, one thirty- chap. four guns, one thirty guns, one twenty-six, three twenty- . four, and one twenty guns. He had on board 3,342 17 ^q. men, of whom nearly one-fourth were Africans. Sailing with a fair wind, constantly exercising and encouraging his crews, La Bourdonnais arrived off Mahe at the end of the month. Here he learned that the English fleet had been last heard of off Nagapatan, below Karikal ; that though inferior in the number of ships, and slightly inferior in the number of crews, it was much superior in weight of metal, being armed with 24- pounders, and that it was waiting at Nagapatan to intercept him. Summoning his captains on board his ship, La Bourdonnais at once held a council of war. He was resolved to fight, but he wished first to test the temper of his subordinates. To his delight he found in them an eagerness almost equal to his own, a desii'e to gain, if possible, the empire of India on the sea. His mind entirely at ease on this point, he altered his course, and a few days later arrived off Trinkamali. It is time now that we should turn to the proceedings of the English fleet. We left Commodore Barnet, pre- vented by the interdiction of the Nawwab Anwaru-din from attacking Pondichery, reduced to the necessity of confining his operations to sea. Taking up a position at Mergui, near the entrance of the Malacca Straits, he had employed himself industriously in intercepting French traders, and in effectively stopping French com- merce. Hearing some rumours in the early part of 1746 of the intended expedition of La Bourdonnais, ho had returned to the Koromandel coast, and anchored off Fort St. David. Here in the month of April he died, and the command of the squadron devolved upon Commodore Peyton. This squadron consisted of one ship of sixty guns, three of tifty, one of forty, and one of twenty guns, six 126 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, ships in all.* But they carried mostly 24-pouiiders, ^^^' , and were armed with their full complement of guns. A 1746. daring commander would have been able, with such a force, to cause terrible destruction amongst the lightly- armed vessels of La Bourdonnais. Intelligence had been conveyed to Commodore Peyton of the appearance of a French fieet off Ceylon, and he was cruising off Nagapatan to intercept it. Early on the morning of July 6 it was descried. The discovery was made about the same time on board the French vessels, and the hostile squadrons began at once to manoeuvre, the English to preserve the advantage of the wind, the French to gain it. La Bourdonnais, knowing his inferiority in weight of metal, and his superiority in men, had felt that his only chance of success lay in a hand-to-hand encounter, and his great object Avas to board. But the skill of Commodore Peyton, who divined his enemy's object, defeated this intention, and at half-past four o'clock in the afternoon that officer had gained a position which enabled him to open fire at a safe distance on the French. This distance was all in favour of the English. With their 24-pounders they inflicted great damage on the French ships, which these latter, with their 8 and 12- pounders and musketry, were very partially able to re- pay. Three of their ships were disabled at the begin- ning of the action — one, indeed, completely dismasted — and had not La Bourdonnais, coming up with the " Achille," the only ship of his squadron that carried its proper complement of heavy guns, drawn upon him- self for half an hour the whole tire of the English, the squadron could not have escaped defeat. As it was, * Subjoined are the names of the Bertie, 50 guns; the " Medway's vessels and theii- commanders :— The Prize," Captain Griffith, 40 guns ; "Medway," Commodore Peyton, 60 *^° " TiimWr " nnnfuin M^va-na 9.r> ^nns; the " Preston," Captain Lord Northesk, 50 guns; the ''Harwich," Captain Carteret, 50 guns ; the " Winchester," Captain Lord T. esseis auu lueu coininauuers . — xue jrniic, \ja,i>i.a.Lu. vjniutu, ^^ ^uub, Medway," Commodore Peyton, 60 the "Lively," Captain Stevens, 20 ^uns ; the " Preston," Captain Lord guns. The total number of the crews Northesk, 50 guns; the "Harwich," amounted 1,660 men.— GVose's £ast Captain Carteret, 50 guns ; the Indies, REPULSES IT AND REACHES PONDICHERY. 127 night separated the combatants before a decisive advan- chap. tage had been gained on either side. . Day broke showing the French squadron formed in irie. line, the advantage of the wind still being, as on the previous day, with the English. It rested with the latter, therefore, whether the contest should be renewed. There were very many weighty reasons in favour of prompt and vigorous action. The English had had but sixty men killed and wounded * the previous day, and one only of their ships had received any considerable damage from the enemy's hre ; they were all ships of war ; eight of the French ships were but imperfectly and lightly armed ; the English fleet had been stationed off Nagapatan to obstruct the advance of the French fleet; to abandon the field, therefore, was to leave Madras a prey to the enemy. But in 1746 the English were not accustomed to regard the empire of the seas as their own. Some of those on board that squadron might, perchance, have recollected the time when the English channel had been scoured for weeks, unopposed, by the victorious fleet of de Tourville— the English fleet having sought refuge in the Thames. f Certain it is, that Commodore Peyton acted as English commodores of the time of the revo- lutionary war never would have thought of acting. Because one of his ships was leaky he deemed the attack too hazardous to be made. A council of war having confirmed this view, he made sail to the south, bound for Trinkamali, leaving the way open to Pondi- chery — deserting that Madras which he had been sent to protect. If J La Bourdonnais was relieved by the departure of * The Englisli lost fourteen men t La Bourdounais states in his killed and forty-six wounded; the memoirs that it «as with extreme Freuch, twenty-seven kiUed and regret he saw the English escape fitty-three wounded. him. He adds, that being without t Afterthebattleoff Beachy Head, provisions, and having on board a June 30, 1690. great number of sick and wounded, 128 THE RISE OF THE FKENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAP, his enemy, he did not show it. On the contrary, he . made an appearance of pursuing the English. But it 1745. '^^'as only an appearance. He must, in reality, have been greatly relieved by their sheering off. He had expended a great portion of his ammunition, he had provisions but for twenty-four hours longer. The disappearance of the English left him free to accomplish his object. His dismasted ship, the " Insulaire," he ordered to Bengal to be repaired ; then, quickly collecting the remainder of his squadron, he resumed almost immedi- ately his northerly course, and on the following evening cast anchor in the Pondichery roads. One portion of his seemingly impossible task had thus been accomplished. Pondichery was safe, the French fleet mistress of the Indian seas, Madras uncovered. The positions of the contending rivals had been exactly reversed. It would now be for the French to threaten, for the English to sue for neutrality. What will be the result 1 Will the Nawwab of the Karnatik, standing neutral between the contending parties, extend to the English the same protection he had accorded to their rivals'? If not, it would seem as though their case were almost desperate. Abandoned by their fleet, with but three hundred Europeans within its walls, Madras presented far fewer means of defence than Pondichery. Governor Morse, too, was neither a Dumas nor a Dupleix. On the other hand, the French had at their head two masters, both men of genius, of energy, of ambition ; the one a master in council, an adept at statecraft, skilled in all the wiles of a subtle policy, but himself unacquainted with war and its he was constrained to renounce their which many ships had only four and pursuit. In his letter to Dupleix, twenty hours' supply, maae me con- howerer, he says nothing about the template the frightful situation in disappearance of the English, but which I should be, if I were to fall writes thus : — " The fear of missing to the leeward of the place: this Pondichery, the large amount of determined me to bear up for Pondi- money for you on board, and, more chery." than that, the scarcity of food, of POSSIBILITIES LOOMING IN THE FUTURE. 129 details ; the other, a man great in action and prompt iu chap. council, accustomed to command, accustomed to see his . will obeyed, to bear down every obstacle ; but whether 1740. equally fitted to carry out the will of another, as yet unproved. The uncertainty in this respect formed the only cloud in the horizon of the fortunes of French India. Would the active genius, who had " conquered the impossible," who, by the sheer force of his will had created the soldiers and the sailors, the ships and the guns, wherewith he has relieved Pondichery, would he now subordinate that will to the will of another man, his superior in position, but whom he has yet only heard of as a successful trader \ Up to the moment of casting anchor at Pondichery not a shadow of a contest had arisen. Hitherto each had acted independently of the other. The communications between the two Govern- ors had been most friendly, " The hoDour of success," wrote Dupleix in the early part of the year, " will be yours, and I shall hold myself lucky in contributing thereto through means that owe their value entirely to your skill." " We ought," wrote La Bourdonnais on his side, " to regard one another as equally interested in the progress of events, and to work in concert. For my part, Sir, I devote myself to you beforehand, and I swear to you a perfect confidence." But circumstances had altered. Success had now been attained ; the two men were about, for the first time, to come in contact. Which of them was to take the lead % It was in the chance of some disagreement between those strong natures, both conscious of the possession of genius, both accustomed to command, that lay the best chance of Governor Morse and Madras. 130 CHAPTER IV. LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP. Xhe eight ships which formed, after the repulse of the - English fleet, the squadron commanded by La Bourdon- 1746. nais, anchored off Pondichery on the evening of July 8, 1746. The meeting between the governor and the vic- torious admiral was cordial.* There was no reason why it should not be so, for they were striving alike after the same object — an object which could be at- tained only by their mutual co-operation. La Bourdon- nais held an independent command, but on the con- tinent of India he was subordinate to the Council of Pondichery. f In the contemplated expedition, how- ever, against the English, Dupleix was very willing to give up the entire control of the operations to La Bourdonnais. Lie was mainly anxious to see that the operations themselves were well-matured, but he was naturally resolved to hold in his own hands the supreme political power. The correspondence between the two had been conducted, as we have seen, in the most cordial manner. Dupleix had declared that the honour of success would belong to La Bourdonnais ; that he would use every effort in his power to contribute to that success. He had added : " I shall esteem myself * La Bourdonnais asserts in his t The order sent from Paris to La memoirs that he was received in an Bourdonnais in 1741 provided, that unbecoming (pen decente) manner; whilst under all circumstances he but even if it were the case, which was to command on the seas, his we doubt, it does not appear, if we control over the land forces, m any may judge from the correspondence, French settlement beyond the limits to have affected the friendly terms of the Isles, was dependent on the upon which he consorted with Du- authority with which the local Coun- pleix for the first few days after his oils might invest him. — Extrait des arrival. Ordresdn Ministre, 16 Janvier, 1741. DESIGNS OF THE FRENCH OX MADRAS. 131 happy to have contributed to it by causes which will chap. only derive merit from your conduct and its happy ^^ results, for which I am ardently desirous. I hope that 1746. my previous assurances, as well as this one, will con- vince you of the light in which I regard the question. I feel too much the importance of our union, not to give myself entirely to bring it about. Have no fears, there- fore, on the score, but count on me as on yourself,"* La Bourdonnais had replied in similar terms : " Be assured," he wrote from the Malabar coast on June 21, " that my conduct will be guided as much as possible by your counsels. I burn with impatience to embrace you, and to consult with you measures for repairing our losses." There certainly seemed no reason why these two men should clash. And yet there was seen here, what the world has seen so often since, an example of the extreme difficulty with which men of action, accustomed to command — to plan as well as to execute — submit to a superior authority. They will obey, it is true, a man of acknow- ledged genius, in whose hands is vested irresponsible power. Thus Massena and Ney, Soult and Suchet, acknowledged and obeyed genius and power combined in the person of Napoleon. But away from the in- fluence of his presence, Ney chafed and grumbled when placed under the orders of Massena, and even Sachet, able as he was, refused to make a movement which would have given to the French army a great superiority over Lord Wellington, when, as a consequence of it, he would have been brought under the orders of Soult. Perhaps it was, at Pondichery in 1746, that La Bour- donnais, conscious of his own abilities, felt a revulsion which he could not control at being called upon to work under one who was known to fame chiefly as a successful merchant and trader, and whose skill as a manager of men he had had no opportunity of testing. * Dated, April 23, 174G, and received by La Bourdonaais at Mahe. K 2 132 I^A BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP. This is certain, that La Bourdonnais had not been long ^ on shore before he began to adopt a line of conduct 1746. entirely inconsistent with his well-known character for enterprise, to show doubt, hesitation, and uncertainty, to refuse to move on an expedition without positive orders from the Council, of which, in virtue of his com- mission as admiral, he was a member, to decline even to make an election of the two alternatives which were presented to him — to go in search of the English fleet, or to sail at once for Madras. The taking of Madras had been all along regarded by the two French leaders as the first fruits of a de- cisive victory at sea. A very few days after his arrival at Pondichery, La Bourdonnais addressed a lengthy letter to Dupleix on the subject of his plans, and he thus alluded to the project regarding Madras : " At the time of our former squadron of 1741, you know what designs I had formed upon Madras. Encouraged by M. Dumas, to whom I had communicated my project, I begged him to communicate it to you, at the time of your installation. You approved of it, and made pre- parations which the continued peace rendered useless. Since the outbreak of war, persisting in my first design, I have imparted it to you, begging you at the same time to add to your former preparations, others to facilitate our success My plan is to destroy or dis- perse the English squadron, if it be possible ; the cap- ture of Madras must result."* The reply of Dupleix was couched in the same spirit. " Your idea regarding Madras," he wrote,f " is the only one which can indemnify the Company for all its losses and expenses, restore the honour of the nation, and procure for this colony a more solid footing than hither- to. This enterprise is very easy, and your forces are more than sufficient to carry it out, but it cannot be * Dated July 17, 1746. t Dated July 20, 1746. VACILLATION OF LA BOURDONNAIS. 133 attempted with safety, before the English squadron is chap, destroyed or beaten." As to the treatment of Madras, ' . in case it should fall into his hands, La Bourdon- 1746. nais had thus, on July 17, addressed the Governor- General : " If fortune favours you," he wrote, " what do you think we ought to do with Madras ? My idea is to take possession of and carry off all the mer- chandise we may find there, and to ransom the re- mainder ; for if we should raze every stone in the town, it would be rebuilt in a year, and Madras would be much stronger than it is now." The answer of Dupleix on this point deserves to be remembered. He replied, on June 20 : — " I cannot say at present what it would seem good to do with Madras ; if you should have the good fortune to take it, circumstances will decide as to the fittest course to be adopted. But I beg you to recollect, that so long as Madras remains as it is, Pondi- chery will languish, and commerce will fall off. It is not sufficient to think only of a present, and, perliaps, an uncertain advantage ; we must look forward to the future. I am not of the opinion that this town, once dismantled, could be restored in a year. It has taken very many years to make it what it now is, and the facilities and means for re-establishing it are less than they were for making it." In the letter from which we have extracted, La Bour- donnais had given an exact statement of the condition of the armament of his fleet, and had requested Dupleix to supply from the arsenal of Pondichery the deficiencies under which he laboured. He had indented upon Du- pleix altogether for forty-four eighteen, and fourteen twelve-pounders. It was not in the power of Dupleix to comply literally with this demand, without weakening to a dangerous extent, the defences of Pondichery. But he supplied instead a larger number of guns than were asked for. In place of forty-four guns of eighteen, and fourteen of twelve, he sent him twenty-eight of eighteen, 134 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, twelve of twelve, and twenty-two of eight, and offered . to change those which were only slightly damaged. He 1746. accompanied this offer with an explanation so frank and courteous, that it seems surprising that his conduct in this respect should ever have been made the subject of animadversion.* Yet notwithstanding the supply of guns, ammunition, provisions, and men,'|' La Bourdonnais could not make up his mind to set sail. The idea that the English fleet might keep out of sight until it were reinforced from Europe, and that, thus reinforced, it might take him at a disadvantage when before Madras, seemed at first greatly to weigh upon him. To obviate this risk, and to draw the English within fighting distance, he proposed, on August 10, that a force should proceed to Gudalur, twelve miles south of Pondichery, to attack Fort St. David, built by the English in its vicinity. If the Eng- lish fleet were to bear up to assist that fort, he would then attack it ; but if it should not, it would be a proof that it had been very severely handled in the former * After enumerating: the necessity not place it in jeopardy. Never- that Pondichery should be a strong theless, to act up to his orders and place, under whose walls French ves- your demands, I am ready to make sels might always find aseciire refuge, over to you twenty-eight eighteen- and alluding to the probable increase pounders, twelve of twelve, and to their naval enemies by the chances twenty-two of eight, and to change of a war with Holland, Duplcix adds: those which are but slightly da- " This augmentation of enemies, the maged, and which, after being re- only thing we have to apprehend paired, can be made serviceable ought to render me more circumspect 'i'hese guns will make a great gap, with regard to a place so consider- but the word of honour you give me able ; the safety of which depends to return them, and the moral cer- entirely on others : " (the victorious tainty I feel of your victory over the course of the French fleet). " A thou- enemy, permit me to take the step of sand mishaps, to which sea forces are dismantling the walls with less dis- subject, might disappoint this place quietude." — 31. Dupleix d M. de la for a long time of the guns which Bourdonnais, July, 20, 1746. you wish to take from it. The Mi- tThe reinforcements furnished by nister has given me orders to assist Pondichery consisted of 200 Eu- you, and I obey willingly orders so ropeans, 100 topasses or Indio-Por- deserving of respect. But I cannot tuguese, 300 sipahis, besides officers, persuade myself that his intenticms in addition to lascars, as well as 170 are that I should risk the safety of sailors and HO European soldiers be- Pondichery. I believe, on the con- longing to the garrison already serv- trary, and I flatter myself that he ing on the fleet, will be better pleased, that I shoukl HE CONTINUES TO HESITATE. 135 action, and he would have no difficulty in taking Fort chap. St. David.* ^^• Against this plan, as an alternative to the long-medi- 1746. tated attack upon Madras, Dupleix strongly protested. " Gudalur and Fort St. David," he wrote on the 12th, " are not worth the powder and shot you will expend upon them." He pointed out that their capture would very probably range the Nawwab on the side of the English, and that this would save Madras. " The enter- prise against Madras," he added, " is the only one which can indemnify us, and do honour to the nation in India, and I cannot agree with you in your plan of abandoning that project for one which merits neither your attention nor mine, and of which the consequences will be costly and injurious to us." He continued to urge upon him, in a lengthened argument, that two principal objects had brought him to India — the destruction of the Eng- lish squadron and the taking of Madras — and that abandoning one of those, he ought to attach himself with his whole heart to the other. The day after this correspondence. La Bourdonuais took advantage of a favourable breeze to go in search of the English squadron. He arrived off" Karikal on August 13, and there obtained, with some difficulty, positive information of the enemy. They had been descried on the 10th, six vessels in number, a little to the north of the northernmost point of Ceylon, about fifteen miles off" the coast. To the Dutch officer who boarded them they stated that they had been repulsed by the French, but that they were only waiting the arrival of reinforce- ments to renew the attack. All their damages had been repaired. Satisfied, then, as he stated, that he was free from all attack on that side, La Bourdonuais • It is in this letter that La Bour- taken in at Pondichtry. In his rac- donnais informs Dupleix of the sick- moirs, he makes of this a charge nes3 caused on board his squadron, against Dupleix, insinuating that it and from which he himself especially was a part of tlie general scheme to suffered, from drinking the water annoy him. 136 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX CHAP, resolved to return at once to Pondichery, and, arriving ' _ , there on the 19th, to embark the soldiers, sipahis, and 1746. troops awaiting him, and to proceed immediately with the grand design against Madras. He added in his letter, however, that his health was greatly enfeebled, and that not for all India would he stay on the coast after October 15, when the monsoon would set in. Instead, however, of acting upon this plan, which he had communicated to Dupleix through M. Paradis, the commandant of the Karikal garrison. La Bourdonnais suddenly changed his mind and went in search of the English. He found them off Nagapatan, and endeavoured to bring them to action. But though he hoisted Dutch colours to deceive them, they fled before him, he reported, in a manner that soon took them out of sight.* Think- ing that they might return to Nagapatan, he waited there two days ; but not meeting them, he again put out, and on the evening of the 25th anchored off Pondichery. This escape of the English, and the uncertainty whither they had proceeded, completely changed the views of La Bourdonnais. He who, on the 14:th, when he knew the English fleet to be below Nagapatan wait- ing for reinforcements, had declared his readiness to proceed with the utmost haste to Madras, had become on the 2Gth, after that fleet had sailed he knew not whither, hesitating and doubtful. He dwelt on the difference between commanding King's ships and ves- sels belonging to the Company. " In the former," he said, " one hazards everything for glory, in the latter one must look to profit;" and he stated his opinion that his squadron was insuflicient for the double task of * Mr. Orme states that " the Eng- think, be considered sufficient by any lish, i)erceiving the addition ofcaiinon Enslish admiral of the present day. with which the enemy had been sup- The English ships were mostly armed plied at Ponrlichery, avoided an en- with24-pounders,whereastheFrencb gagtment." Mr.Mill simply remarks had only taken on board twenty-eight that the English fled. The reason IS-pouuders, and others of smaflei' given by Mr. lOrme would not, we calibre. THE PONDICHERY COUNCIL'S ULTIMATUM. 137 attacking Madras, and beating off the English squadron chai*. reinforced by its expected ships. In this difficulty , . he appealed to the Superior Council for its advice** 1746. An extraordinary meeting of the Pondichery Council took place to consider this appeal. There were present at it thirteen members, and they came to a very decided opinion. This was contained in a letter addressed to La Bourdonnais bearing the same date.f In this letter, after recapitulating the preparations that had been made, the time that had been lost, the change in the opinions of the admiral, they set before him the choice of two alternatives. " Either, "they said, " you should go to Madras and attack it, or you should go and drive the English fleet from these seas. At present they are," they said, •' m a position in \vhich they can intercept every vessel coming from Europe, whilst you are liere, effecting nothing now, and talking of leaving us to the mercy of the English fleet in October." They concluded with these words : " We are bound to add also that it would be shameful and disgraceful for the nation to abandon these two means, whilst we have a moral cer- tainty that the treasure and the vessels which we expect from Europe will be taken by the enemy's squadron, and an equal certainty that you can succeed in one of the two. It is equally important not to render useless the strength of your squadron, and the money spent upon it. What reproaches will you not have to make yourself, if at the same time that you abandon the pro- ject which would serve to indemnify us, our enemies take possession of the vessels we are expecting from Europe, almost within sight of your squadron." It is strange the transformation which a forced sub- ordination to authority can sometimes make in the entire character of a man ! Who would have believed that the daring, energetic leader, who had " conquered * M. de la Bourdonnais a M. t Lettre du Conseil Superiour Duploix, 26 Aoxlt, 174G. du 26, Aout 1746. 138 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLKIX. CHAP, the impossible " at the islands, who had there made ships and sailors, and soldiers and guns, who had sailed 1746. across the ocean with his untried crews, and had met and scattered the war-ships of the enemy, that the man whose motto was " action," should have suddenly so changed as to call forth an incitement to action couched in the terms we just given "? Yet we have seen in our own day how blind to all perception of right, how oblivious even of the ordinary obligations of politeness, how open to the malignant suggestions of whisperers and sycophants, wounded vanity will make even those who, in other respects, soar far above the common run of their fellowmen. Up to the time of the despatch of that letter, Dupleix and the Council had met every requisition on the part of La Bourdonnais in the most obliging spirit. They had made over to him the par- ticular officers he had asked for, of whom Paradis was one, all the stores, ammunition, and, as we have seen, all the guns they could spare. They had only pressed upon him to act. But the feeling that he was thus under control, that he, who had always impressed his own will upon all around him, should be subject to the will of another, had changed the heart and the blood of La Bourdonnais. The burden of all his letters was, that he could not attack Madras, because the English squadron had not been destroyed ; that the English squadron had not been destroyed, because he could not bring it to action, and that he could not stay on the coast later than October 15. The meaning was that he would do nothing till then. Even the letter of the Superior Council failed to move him. Plain as were its terms, that he should either attack the English fleet or Madras, he had the boldness to declare that its con- tents prevented hira from moving, because it did not prescribe precisely which of the two courses he was to adopt. Taking the letter in his hand, he declared publicly to all who would listen to him, that the WOUNDED VANITY OF LA BOUEDOxNNAlS. 139 Superior Conncil was the only obstacle to action on his chap, part. This proceeding thoroughly roused Dupleix. . He re-summoned the Council on the 27th, and put 1746. before it, for consideration, the course adopted by the Admiral. The deliberations of the Council at this crisis were short, prompt, and to the point. They resolved to serve on La Bourdonnais a summons, calling upon him, " on the part of the King and the Company, to make choice of one of the two plans which had been presented to him on the 26th — the only plans we consider practic- able, suitable to present circumstances, to the glory of the King, the honour of the nation, the interests of the Company, the force of his squadron, and the weakness of our enemies by sea and land ; in default of doing this — of the choice of which he is left master — he is to be held responsible in his own name for all that may happen in consequence, as well as for all the expenses which his project on Madras, so long meditated and conducted to the point of execution, has occasioned the Company. If hindered by sickness from acting himself, as there is no time to lose and moments are precious, the Council consider M. de la Portebarre, of whom the capacity and prudence are known, to be very capable of executing whichever of the two plans he may select." The reply of La Bourdonnais was short : " I have received," he wrote, " the citation and its contents. I consulted the Council of Pondichery only regarding the affair of Madras. It rested with it to give its opinion for or against that. As to the destination of my squadron, it has no right to interfere with it. I know Avhat I ought to do, and my orders have been given lor it to leave Pondichery this evening."* The fleet accordingly sailed under M. do la Povte- * !A Messieurs dii Conseil Superieur de Poudicliory, 27 Aout. 17-iG. 140 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, barre,* La Bourdonnais himself alone remaining behind , on account of his sickness. The squadron sailing along 1746. the coast succeeded in capturing two small vessels in the Madras roads. It then returned to Pondichery. The health of La Bourdonnais, meanwhile, had im- proved, and his announced determination to attack Madras seems to have improved his relations with the Council. On the evening of the 12th, accordingly, he embarked to proceed on this long-meditated enterprise. On the 14th, approaching the shore, twelve miles south of Madras, he landed 500 or 600 men, with two pieces of cannon. Sailing slowly, parallel within these troops, on the ] 5th, he arrived at midday within cannon-shot of of the town. lie then landed with 1,100 Europeans, 400 sipahis and 400 Africans, and summoned the place to surrender. He had still from 1,700 to 1,800 men on board his squadron. 1 G39. Fort St. George, and the town of Madras, of which it formed the defence, had been built upon a plot of groundjf which a petty raja subject to the last of the Hindu rulers of Bijanagar had made over to the Eng- lish in 1639. Fourteen years later, the little settle- ment had been raised to the rank of a Presidency, and • Mr. Mill states, that Dupleix answer to the King for the place carried his " unfriendly proceed- which he has confided to me, &c." in}? " so far as to command La Bour- But it is not less true that on re- donuais to "re-land the Pondichery ceiving in reply from La Bourdon- troops." It is very true that on nais a lutter of the same date, in- August 27, knowing onlj% by the forming him of the destination of reply of La Bourdonnais to the cita- the squadron, that it was " to sweep tion, that the fleet was to leave, hut the Madras roads." and that it would ignorant of the direction it was to not be absent for ijiore than eight take, or the object on which it was or ten days, he withdrew from the to be employed, Dupleix directed the i^quadron only 125 Europeans and 50 re-landing of 250 soldiers and 100 sipahis retaining those for the de- fiipaiiis with their officers, assigning fence of Pondichery. the following as a reason: "The t Mr. Wheeler (" Early Records distance which your squadron may of British India") thus gives the find itself from this place by some story of its purchase: "A certain event which God alone can foresee, Mr. Day bought the strip of ground and the>'e troops being useless in your from the Hindu raja of Chandra- vessels, I beg you to disembark the gheri. The English agreed to pay a troops above referred to, in order yearly rent of 1,200 pagodas, nearly that I may be in a condition to i'fiOO .sterling for this piece of land." MADRAS. 141 it coustitutecl for a long time afterwards the priucipal chap. emporium of the English in India. It was not very ^^ well situated for that purpose. On a bluff point of the i639 coast, where the current was always rapid, and exposed to all the violence of the monsoon, and the inconveni- ence of a surf which made navigation for English boats impossible, it would have been difficult to find a posi- tion less adapted for commercial purposes than Madras. The roadstead was dangerous during some months of the year, especially from October to January, so much so, that on the appearance of anything approaching to a gale during those months, vessels were forced to slip their anchors, and run out to sea. Nor did the fertility of the neighbouring country compensate for these dis- advantages. The soil was hard, dry, and barren ; the population poor and sparse. In those days, however, it was apparently the custom of the different European nations to select, as their settlements, points on the coast in as close a contiguity to one another as was possible. And the situation of Madras probably owed its value in the eyes of Mr. Day, the English merchant who negotiated for the land, to the fact that it was but four miles from the Portuguese settlement of St. Thome. But notwithstanding its unfavourable situation, the industry and enterprise of English settlers soon brought prosperity to Madras. In 1768, the native population, attracted thither by the protection and opportunities of traffic they enjoyed under the English flag, amounted to 300,000, and the revenue, derivable from taxation, was estimated, nine years later, at about 160,000 rupees, equal, allowing for the probable increase of population during that period, to a capitation tax of eight annas. In 1696, Mr. Thomas Pitt, the grandfather of the great Commoner and possessor of the famous Pitt diamond, became Governor, and held the office for eleven years. It was during his administration that Madras first came 142 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAi' iuto liustile coutact with the native princes of the coun- ^^' try. Daud Khan, Nawwab of the Karnatik under the 1702. Emperor Aurangzeb — a chief noted for his fondness for the strong waters of Europe — made a sudden de- mand upon Mr. Pitt (1702) for 10,000 pagodas, about 40,000 rupees. Mr. Pitt endeavoured by civilities and sumptuous entertainments to amuse the Nawwab into forgetfulness of his demand. But if Daud Khan loved cordials much, he loved rupees even more. Finding his requests evaded, he subjected Fort St. George to a strict blockade, cut off all supplies from the country, seized all the goods coming into the place, and only raised the siege when Mr. Pitt consented unwillingly to a compromise. In adaition to Madras, and subordinate to it, the English possessed at this time, on the Koro- mandel coast, the settlement of Fort St. David, close to Gudalur, sixteen miles south of Pondichery, and the factories of Porto Novo, Pettaipoli, Machlipatan, Mada- pallam, and Vioshakpatan. It does not appear that the history of Madras was marked by any other incidents of importance till the period of which we are treating. In 1744. the year 1744, Mr. Nicholas Morse was appointed Gover- nor of Fort St. George. Morse was an old Company's merchant, ignorant of politics, caring little for them, a quiet, easy-going, sedate sort of man, who ever carried out, with a literal obedience, and regardless of any changes that might have occurred in the interval, the orders of his masters in England. Thus it was, that when, shortly after his acqession to office, he received overtures from Dupleix to preserve neutrality in India during the coming war. Governor Morse, well convinced, all the time of the wisdom of the measure, excused him- self from entertaining it, on the ground of the instruc- tions he had received from the Company. 1745. We have seen how little these instructions had availed the English. Although they had the command of the seas when the war broke out, they had, nevertheless, GARRISON or MADRAS. 143 Deen prevented by the interest of M- Dupleix with the chai' Nawwab Anwaru-din, from profiting to the full extent . from their advantage. A positive prohibition had been 1746. placed upon them with reference to the French settle- ments on the coast, and they had been compelled to confine their operations to the capture of stray mer- chantmen on the seas. The Court of Directors, deem- ing themselves secure of conquest, had never contem- plated the possibility of Madras being in danger. They had, therefore, altogether neglected to supply soldiers for its defence ; nor does its appear that the contin- gency of defence being necessary ever presented itself to Governor Morse. When, therefore, the news in quick succession reached Fort vSt. George, that La Bourdonnais' squadron had left the Isle of France, that it had engaged and repulsed the English squadron off Nagapatan, that it had an^ved at Pondichery, and was making preparations for an attack upon Madras itself, the surprise and consternation which prevailed amongst its residents may perhaps be imagined. The defences of Fort St. George were certainly not very formidable. The fort itself was an oblong, 400 yards by 100, sur- rounded by a slender wall, defended by four bastions and four batteries, very slight and defective in their construction, and unprovided with outworks. The English garrison consisted of 300 men, of w^hom 34 were Portuguese vagabonds or deserters, or negroes ; of the remainder only 200 were fit for duty. The officers were three lieutenants, two of whom were foreigners, and seven ensigns who had risen from the ranks.* In his extremity. Governor Morse applied to the Nawwab of the Karnatik. It will be recollected that when this nobleman had forbidden the exercise of hos- tilities by the English against any place in the posses- sion of the French on the Koromandel coast, he had * East India Chronicle, 144 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX CHAi". accompanied his order by a promise, that should the ^^' French at any future time obtain the superiority, he 174(3. would place similar restrictions upon them. The event, which had then seemed so improbable as to be impos- sible, had now happened. The French were preparing to attack the English settlements on the Koromandel coast. Governor Morse, therefore, claimed at once the interference of the Nawwab. It cannot be supposed that a man possessing the Indian experience of Governor Morse was unacquainted with the formalities necessary for approaching an Indian ruler. It is, nevertheless, certain that he managed the mission to the Nawwab — a mission, on which the very existence of the English at Madras seemed to depend — in such a manner as to militate very much against its chances of success. It is a time-honoured custom in Eastern Courts that an envoy should never go into the presence of the Prince to whom he is accredited empty- handed. Whether the custom is good or bad is not the question. It is a custom, the form of which is kept up by the English even in the present day ; to neglect it, in the days of which we are writing, was regarded as nothing less than an intentional insult. But Governor Morse, in his blunt English way. as though he had been dealing with his own countrymen, did neglect this precaution. He sent his messenger empty-handed into the presence of the Nawwab, to remind him plainly of his promise, to claim for the English that protection which he had so recently accorded to the French messenger, well provided with presents, and who had returned to beg the Nawwab's permission to punish his rivals. It thus happened that, when the English mes- senger arrived, he found the Nawwab apparently un- decided, and though that nobleman declined to give any formal permission to the French to attack Madras, he refrained, equally to their advantage, from giving utterance to a direct prohibition. LA BOURDONNAIS ATTACKS MADRAS. 145 Governor Morse was under the influence of the dis- chap. appointment attending his negotiations with the Naw- wab, when, on August 29, the fleet of La Bourdonnais 1746. appeared in the roadstead. The unskilful manner in which the squadron was handled made it evident, how- ever, to the garrison of Fort St. George, that the famous admiral who had brought the ships from the Isle of France was not with them.* Seeing^ nothing of the English fleet, and finding the way open, the oflicer commanding tlie squadron, M. de la Portebarre, con- tented himself, as we have seen, with making prize of two merchantmen he found in the roadstead, and then returned on September 5 to Pondichery. Eight days after, La Bourdonnais embarked, and arriving before Madras on the 15th, summoned it, as already recorded, to surrender. Up to this point. Governor Morse had been partially sustained by the hope, that Commodore Peyton would yet be prepared to strike a blow for the preservation of the principal English settlement on the Koromandel coast. But these hopes were destined to be disappoin- ted. Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the French fleet, he received the disheartening intelligence, that the Commodore with all his ships had appeared on September 3 off" Pulikat, and had then borne up for Bengal. That leaky sixty-gun ship was again assigned as the reason for the desertion of Madras, the excuse for avoiding a trial of strength with the battered squadron of La Bourdonnais. f Meanwhile, La Bourdonnais, having landed his troops on the 15th, prepared, on the evening of that day and during the 16th, to erect batteries which should play upon the town. On the 17th the native portion of the garrison made a sortie, but they were easily repulsed, and the French, following up theii* success, took posses- sion of the Governor's house — about half-musket range * Urme. t Orme. 146 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, from the walls of the town — and fortified themselves in ' ^ , it. On the 18th, early in the morning, they commenced 1746. the bombardment from their land batteries, and as soon as night fell, the three vessels of the squadron posses- sing the strongest armament opened tire on the town. A cii'cumstance occurred in the course of the night of the 18th, which shows how easy it would have been for Commodore Peyton, commanding as he did a squadron which sailed better than that of the French, to have saved Madras. On September 17, four ships were sighted off Pondichery. Dupleix conceiving they might be part of the English squadron, wrote off hurriedly to La Bourdonnais with the information. To him this news was most startling. Had it been true, it would have been but a confirmation of the views which he had so often pressed upon Dupleix, that to attempt the siege of Madras before the English fleet had been destroyed, was the height of rashness. He himself declares that he felt, under these circumstances, that but one path lay before him, and that was to push the siege with the utmost vigour. Mr. Orme, indeed, asserts, though upon what authority we know not, that " the report caused so much alarm in the French camp, that they were preparing to re-ship their heavy cannon." How- ever this may have been, this at least is certain, that had Commodore Peyton borne up at that moment for Madras, and attacked the half-manned French fleet in the roadstead, he would have inflicted upon it very great damage, even if he had not compelled the raising of the siege. But on the morning of the 19th, an express arrived from Dupleix, stating that the information regarding the strange ships was incorrect. Relieved on this point, yet not knowing how soon a hostile squadron might appear, La Bourdonnais pushed the siege with vigour, and with such effect, that in the evening he received a letter from Mrs. Barneval, the daughter of Madame Dupleix, and MADRAS SURRENDERS TO THE FRENCH. 147 married to an English gentleman in Madras, offering chap. on the part of Governor Morse to treat. ^^' The reply of the French Commander being favourable 174^. to such a course, Messrs, Monson and Hally burton pre- sented themselves on the following morning in the French camp. They proposed to enter into negotiations to pay a certain sum to induce La Bourdonnais to retire from before the town. This, however, in unmistakable terms, the Frenchman refused, and the deputies returned to demand fresh instructions from the Governor. On the departure of the deputies, the fire recommenced, and continued till three o'clock. Between that hour and eight o'clock in the evening, however, no one appeared on the part of the English, except a foreigner in the service of the Nawwab, without powers or authority to negotiate. At eight o'clock, therefore, La Bourdonnais reopened the fire, and maintained it throughout the night both from the land batteries and the ships. The re- appearance of the English deputies on the following morning caused it to cease.* This time, these latter were armed with full powers to capitulate. After some discussion, they agreed to the conditions, of which the following are a free summary. They agreed, first, to make over to M. de la Bourdonnais at 2 P.M. on that day, September 21, Fort St. George and the town of Madras with their dependencies. All the garrison, and generally all the English in the town, to become prisoners of war. All the councillors, officers, employes, and other gentlemen in the service of the Company to be free on their parole, to go and to come as they wished, even to Europe ; provided only they did not carry arms against France, offensively or defensively, without being exchanged. The articles of the capitulation having been signed, it was arranged that those regarding the disposal of the * The French did not lose a single five.— Grose s East Indies. man in the siege : the English only L 2 148 LA BOURDONNAIS AXD DUPLEIS. CHAP, place should be regulated in a friendly way by M. de la '^ . Bourdonnais, the Governor, or his deputies, the two last 1746. engaging on their part to deliver faithfully to the French the goods and merchandises received or receivable from merchants, the books of account, the arsenals, ships, provisions of war and supplies, together with all the property appertaining to the English Company, without reserve ; besides materials of gold or silver, merchandises, goods, and any other effects whatever, contained in the fort or town, to whomsoever they might belong, without exception. The garrison was to be conducted to Fort St. David, as prisoners of war. But should the town of Madras be ransomed and restored, the garrison might be allowed to re-occupy it, as a means of defence against the natives. But in this case, an equal number of French prisoners (made elsewhere) were to be restored to the French. The sailors were to be sent to Gudalur, and their exchange begun with those actually in Pondichery, the remainder to proceed in their own ships to England. But they might not carry arms against France until regularly exchanged, either in India or in Europe. On the same day that this capitulation was signed, La Bourdonnais wrote a few hurried lines to Dupleix. His first letter, dated 2 p.m. on the 21st, simply states that he had just entered Madras at the head of 500 men, and that the white flag had been hoisted on the ramparts. The second, dated 8 p.m. of the same day, is more im- portant, as shoAving the view which La Bourdonnais entertained at the time regarding the conditions he had granted. In this he says, — "The haste with which I informed you of the taking of Madras did not allow me to enter into any detail ; I was too much occupied in relieving the posts of this place. The English surren- dered to me with even more precipitation than I wrote you. I have them at my discretion, and the capitulation CONDITIONS OF SURRENDER OF MADRAS. 140 which they signed has been k'f't with me, without their chap. having dreamt of demanding a duplicate." ^^ Two days later, the 23rd, he wrote a long report, in 1746. which he discussed the whole question of tlie future. This letter began thus : " At last Madras is in French hands. The conditions on which it surrendered, place it, so to say, at my discretion. There is, nevertheless, a sort of capitulation signed by the Governor, of which I subjoin a copy ; but it does no more, as you will see, than authorise me to dispose of the place." It would appear from these extracts, and from the tenor of the capitulation itself, that Madras had surren- dered at discretion ; that the town, the fort, and every- thing belonging thereto, had become absolutely French property. It is equally clear that there had been some discussion between La Bourdonnais and the English deputies regarding a ransom, but that it was finally resolved to leave this question for future adjustment.* * La Boiu'donnais thus describes agree with him regarding the ransom, in. his memoirs the engagement he The deputies having then demanded entered into regarding the ransom: that this proposition should he in- " The next day, the 21st, the deputies, serted in the capitulation, M. de la returned for the second time and Bourdonnais consented, and it was agreed at last to suiTender on the made an article. The deputies then conditions which had heen proposed took back the capitulation to the to them the previous evening, that is Grovernor, who signed it. In bring- to say, on the condition of being per- ing it back again, they asked M. de mitted to ransom the town. Imme- la Bourdonnais for his pande, as an diately the articles of capitulation addition to the promise regardin? the were written out, Mr. Hallyburton ransom. 'Yes, gentlemen,' replied he, took them to the Governor, who ' I renew to you the promise I made having examined thtm, sent them you yesterday, to restore to you your back by the same Mr. Hallyburton, town on condition of a ransom, which with orders to represent to M. de la we will settle in a iriendly way, and Bourdonnais, that neither the Go- to be reasoniibl- regarding the con- vernor nor the Council ought to be ditions.' ' You give us then your regarded as prisoners of war so long word of honour,' answered the depu- as the question of the conditions of ties. 'Yes,' said he. 'I give it vou, ransom should be under consideration. and you may be assured that it is Upon this representation, M. de la inviolabL-.' 'Very well,' replied the Bourdonnais, who wished the Go- two Englishmen, "here then is the vemor and his Council to remain capitulaiion signed by the Governor; prisoners of war until these condi- you are now master of the town, and tions shoul I be agreed upon, con- j'ou can enter it when you like.' " tented himself with assuring the de- It must always be borne in mind, puties that he would give an act however, when reading the memoirs of liberty to the Council and the of La Bourdonnais, Istly, that they Governor, as soon as they should were written some time after the 150 LA BOURDONNATS AND DUPLEIX, ^^y^'- Meanwhile, the intelligence had reached the Nawwab - Anwaru-din that the French had really carried out 1746. their intentions, and had laid siege to Madras. Inclined as this prince undoubtedly was to French interests, nothing was further from his intention than to permit their establishing themselves in the territories of their European rivals. He, therefore, at once despatched a messenger on a swift dromedary to Dupleix, the bearer of a letter, in which the Nawwab expressed his sur- prise at the events passing at Madras, and threatened that unless the operations against that place were in- stantly put an end to, he would send an army to enforce obedience to his commands. But Dupleix thoroughly understood Asiatics. Determined not to forego his designs upon Madras, yet unwilling to bring down upon himself the hostility of the representative of the Mughal, he devised a plan whereby, as he thought, Madras would be lost to the English for ever, even if it events described, and, 2ndly, that my discretion. There is, nevertheless, they were written with the view of a sort of capitulation siened by the exculpating himself from specific Governor, of which I enclose a copy ; charges brought against him. Now, bnt it does no mo>e, as you will see, the question of the ransom, and es- than authorise me to dispose of the pecially the question as to whether jjlace.^' Again, not a word of the any absolute engasement was en- solemn and reiterated promises re- tered into at the time of the sur- corded at such full detail in the render, formed one of these specific memoirs! charges. On such a point, therefore, If, further, we examine the capi- it is necessary to read La Bourdon- tulation itself, we shall find every- nais' own statement with the greatest thing conditional. There had un- caution. The official correspondence doxibtedly been some discussion is a far surer guide. Let us see what regarding a ransom, but the question that says. We have given all that had been referred for further deli- relates to the proceeding relative to beration ; tbat it was a doubtful one the surrender, in the text. From is, we think, shown by the words this we find, first, that no mention employed in the fourth article, in is made of any promise regarding a which it is stated, that " if the town ransom. In the letter dated 8 p.m. is restored by ransom, then the Eng- of the 21st, written only six hours lish. &c., &c." after the inter-view he describes However this may be, it is certain above. La Bourdonnais says : — " The that there was no occasion for La English surrendered to me with even Bourdonnais to make such an offer, more precipitation than I wrote you, Madras being completely at his have them at discretion." Not a mercy ; and, likewise, that it was word about ransom. In the more entirely opposed to the views which elaborateletter written two day slater he knew that Dupleix, his superior he writes: — "The conditions on which officer on Indian soil, entertained, it surrendered, place it, so to say, at Vide also appendix A. DUPLEIX CAJOLES THE NAWWAB. 151 were not gained to the French. In accordance witli tiiiAP this idea, he sent instant instructions to his agent at , ' , Arkat, to inform the Nawwab that ho was conquering 1740, Madras for him, and that it was his intention to make it over to him on its surrender. Well acquainted with the vague ideas regarding the ransom of Madras, to which La Bourdonnais had given utterance in previous correspondence, it became im- peratively necessary for Dupleix to make known to the admiral the engagement into which he had just entered. At 8 p.m., on the evening of the 21st, there- fore, he despatched to him a special messenger con- veying a letter, in which La Bourdonnais was informed of the negotiations with the Nawwab, and was specially w^arned to entertain no proposals for the ransom of Madras after its capture, "as to do so would be to deceive the Nawwab, and make him join our enemies."* This letter reached Madras on the night of the 23rd, Before its arrival La Bourdonnais had, as we have seen, sent to Dupleix a copy of the capitulation, together with a long letter, in which he entered fully into the subject of the reasons by which he had been actuated. Three courses he stated were before him. He might either make Madras a French colony ; he might raze it to the ground, or he might treat regarding its ransom. j* * The perusal of this letter -will with what the English will be able leave nodoubt on the reader's mind to ransom it. So long, too, as Madras of the sincerity of Dupleix's nego- remains as it is, it will always be an tiations Avith Anwaru-din. Hewrites: obstacle to the increase of this place. — " I have informed the Nawwab I beg you to weigh well these con- through my agent at Arkat, that as siderations." — Dupleix to La Bow- soon as we are masters of the town donnais, dated Pondichery, Septem- of Madras, we will make it over to her 21, 1746, 8 p.ir. him, it being well understood, in the t The fact that, in this letter, state in which we may think tit," which accompanied the capitulation, meaning, he would tirst raze the for- La Bourdonnais expressly considers tifications. He adds : — "This infor- himself at liberty to decide upon one mation ought to determine you to of the three courses indicated, two of press the siege vigorously, and not to which would have rendered the ran- listen to a7iy propositions tchich may som of the place impossible, proves he made you for the ransom of the conclusively that up to the 3rd he place after its capture, as that icouhl had entered into no binding engage- he to deceive the Nuivivdh and make ments to ransom Miidra?, and that him Join our enemies ; besides, once the story related in his memoirs was masters of the place, I do not see manufactured afterwards. 152 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP. IV. 1746. The first he did not consider advisable, because it was not, in his opinion, for the interests of the Company that they should have on the same coast, and in close vicinity to one another, two rival establishments. He added : " By the first orders received from the Minister, I was forbidden to keep any conquests ;* it is certain * As this is the only place in the entire correspondence in which La B.)urdonnais alhi'h's to the pnihibi- tion ou the part of ilie French Minis- try to keep any town or settlement conquered from the euemv, and. as, nevertl'.eless, he uses it in his me- moirs as a principal justification of his conduct ; as, moreover, Mr. Orme, M r. Mill, and other writers of Indian history down to the latest, Mr. Mars!i- man, have adopted A\dthoiit examina- tion the asseitiunsof La Bourdoimais on this point, it becomes necessary to subject those assertions to the test of critical inquiry. It is perlectly true that the French Ministry had si-ut to La Bourdonnais an order prohibiting him "from taking possession of any settlement or comp- toir of the enemy for the purpose of keeping it; " but even inde^). ndently of the circumstance that such an order did not render necessary the restoration of the captured place to the enemy, it is a fact that this order bore no reference to the camijaiga in which La Bourdonnais was engaged in 1746. It is true, that in his me- moirs, he places it among other orders issued ill 1745 and 1746, to all of which the date is attached, but he has curiously omitted to assign any date to this one. The fact is, it was issued in 1741, at a time w!ien La Bourdonnais had just been placed at the head of a combined Heet of King's and Company'.s ships to cruise m the E tstem sea.^, the moment hostilities should break out. But, even under those circumstances, it was not in- tended to be jjrnhibitory in its action. As Professor H. H. Wilson justly remarks (Wilson's Mill, vol. iii. p. 49, ?jo^('):— "The Ltter to the proprietors explains the purport of M. La Bourdonnais' instructions more correctly (than Mr. Mill had stated). He was not to form any new settle- ment, and the only alternatives in his power with regard to Madras were to restore or destroy it. The olijectof the French East IndiaC'om- pany was to improve their existing settlements, at least, before new ones were established." Thus, even when I'riginally issued, the real purport of the order was very different to that which La Bourdonnais assigned to it. But the circumstiinces of 1746 were far different from those of 1741, In 1746, he was acting on territory, which the moment it became French by conquest, fell at once under the sway of the Governor-General of French India. It was clearly beyond his authority to maintain that be- cause, when conducting an indepen- dent cruise five years tjefore, he had been restrained from making con- quests that were to be permanent, he was, theref ire, restricted from carry- ing out then the instructions of one who had su])reme authority on all Indian soil that had become or that might become French. The fol- lowing extract from the commission borne byDupleix shows very clearly that his powers were of that ex- tensive nature. He was nominated " Governor of the I'own and Fort of Pondiehery, and of the places sub- ordinate 10 it, President of the Su- perior Council, to command there, not only the inhabitants of the said places, the clerks of the Com- pany and other inhabitants esta- blished there, but all Frenchmen and foreigners who may est;ibli.sh them- selves there hereafter, of whatsoever quality they may be; likewise all officers, soldiers, and ge)is de guerre who may be there or in garrison." I'urther he was ordered "to do ge- nerally whatever he might consider proper for the preservation of the said compUiirs and commerce, and the glory of our name, and to be entitled for the said charge to the accustomed honours, authority pre- THE POLICY OF LA BOURDONNAIS. 153 that at the peace, the surrender of this place would form chap. one of the articles of the treaty, the King will restore . it, and the Company will have no advantage from it." 1746. Against the second plan, the destruction of the place, he argued, that it would be impossible to prevent the English from establishing on the coast some other em- porium equally fit for their purpose, and at a less ex- pense than they would now willingly pay for the ransom of Madras. He then added that his opinion was strongly in favour of that plan, and that there would be no difficulty in carrying it out, as Governor Morse was ready to give bills on England for the amount de- manded, and to make over eight or ten hostages till payment had been made. This letter, Avith the capitu- lation accompanying, was sent to Pondichery by M. Paradis, then commanding the Pondichery contingent. On the following day. La Bourdonnais wrote a short note to Dupleix, summarising his arguments, and beg- ging that he might be furnished with the idea of the Governor-General as to the manner in which Madras should be treated ;* and on the 25th, he sent a formal reply to a letter he had received from the Superior Council of Pondichery thanking him in the name of the nation for the difficulties, the cares, the labours, the fatigues, he had experienced and overcome — which con- tained this remarkable expression : " I have received the gracious letter you have done me the honour to write me on the subject of the taking of Madras ; after the thanks you have to render on that account to the eminence and prerogative, and to their assertion of the supreme autho- all the appointments ordered by the rity of the Governor of Pondichery Company." Further, all the otHeers on Indian soil. and servants of the Crown and clerks * Dated September 24, 1746. The of the Company were ordered to re- actual words were "Faites moi done, cognise the said Sieur Dupleix in the Monsieur, un plan suivi de la fayon said quality of Governor and Pre- dont vous pensez que je doive traiter sident of the Superior Council, and cette ville ;" a request which shows to obey him, without contravention very plainly that no positive engaare- in any sort or manner on pain of dis- ments to ransom the town had been obedience." The orders of October, entered into on the 21st. 1745, were even more categorical in 154 LA BOURDOJSNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP. God of armies, it is M. Duplcix who deserves your gratitude. His activity, his attentive care in supply- 17-iu. ii^g ^'^^ ^vith all that I needed for the siege, were the chief causes of its success." We have thus alluded in detail to the course pursued by La Bourdonnais after the taking of Madras, in order that no doubt may exist as to the actual occurrences of that much canvassed period. We think it is clear, firstly, that La Bourdonnais had, as commander of the expedition, no right to conclude any definite treaty with the English, without the consent of the Governor- General of French India; secondly, that up to Sep- tember 25, the fifth day after the capitulation, no such definitive treaty had been entered into, although there had been some conversation regarding a ransom ; and, thirdly, that, up to that date, the feelings of La Bour- donnais, gratified by success, had been most friendly towards the Pondichery authorities. He had even gone out of his way, as we have seen, in a letter to the Superior Council, to render justice to Dupleix. We have now to refer to that action on the part of Dupleix and the Pondichery Council which changed that friendly feeling into one of fierce and bitter hostility, ruinous alike to the cause and to the leader. But before doing this, we must examine at some length the motives which influenced Dupleix, in the respon- sible position which he occupied, in deciding upon his course of action. There can be no doubt but tliat at this period the main object of the policy of Dupleix was the expulsion of the English from the Koromandel coast. The ex- perience of the three preceding years had taught him that the safety of the one European power could only be assured by the expulsion of the other. It had tasked all his energies, he had had to draw upon all his resources, to preserve Pondichery from the dangers which had threatened it in 1744. But the prohibition DUPLEIX OPPOSES THE RANSOM OF MADRAS. 155 given by the Nawvvab Anwiini-diii, the French settle- chap ments must then have been destroyed. But that was a reed upon which it would not be wise to lean for 1746. ever. The successor of Anwaru-din might not be animated by the same sentiments ; another incursion of the Marathas might render powerless the representa- tive of the Mughal; or anarchy might again prevail, as it so recently had prevailed, throughout the Karnatik. That he could not depend upon the French Ministry, or on the Directors of the French Company the events of the last few years had fully convinced him. With a three years' warning of the hostilities that were pending, the men who governed French India from Paris had literally starved their most important dependency. They had sent it neither ships of war, nor money, nor even good information. Hesitatingly and fearfully they had despatched two merchant vessels in as many years, with most inadequate supplies. Nay more, when another enterprising Governor had proposed a plan, whereby, at the smallest amount of risk, the ascendency of France in the East could be secured, and had wrung from the aged Minister an assent, they had taken the earliest opportunity to cancel the scheme, and had deprived the Governor of the means by which he had hoped to carry it into execution. From France then Dupleix had little to hope. On the other hand he beheld England thirsting to destroy him, England strong in the energy of her sons, the re- sources of the India Company, and, more than all, in her comparative good government. He had jseen that in the year which was now going on, England had acted as La Bourdonnais had proposed to act, and had thereby reaped the most important results. That stroke on the part of England, but for the interference of the Nawwab, would have destroyed him. The su- perior energy and good direction of the England of the eighteenth century over the France of Louis XV., 156 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUI'LEIX. CHAP, could not then have failed to impress him with the IV • • , belief, that, in all probability, an opportunity would be 1740. afforded to the English of renewing the attempt under more favourable conditions. What then formed his chance of success at such a conjuncture 1 Surely there was but one. It was to adopt that policy, even then consecrated by genius, the policy of Alexander, of Hannibal, of Gustavus — to carry the war into the enemy's country, and to use the means, which had been so wonderfully, so unexpectedly, placed at his disposal, to crush him at once and for ever. Madras in his hands, Fort St. David could scarcely hold out, and then, secure of the Koromandel coast, it might be possible to despatch a fleet to Bengal, to destroy the colony which had rivalled, and was now threatening to surpass, his own tenderly nursed settle- ment of Chandranagar. Such being his views, his mortification may be well conceived, when he learned that notwithstanding his previous warnings, notwithstanding the positive ar- rangement he had made with the Nawwab, La Bour- donnais was still harping upon the ransom of the place which he had conquered. The result of this he felt could only be, that the moment the English fleet should recover its former superiority in the Indian seas — an event daily dreaded alike by Dupleix and La Bour- donnais — an attempt would promptly be made to sub- iect Pondichery to the fate of Madras, an attempt of which, if successful, the English would undoubtedly take the fullest advantage. Lnpressed with these ideas, he wrote on September 25, a letter to La Bourdonnais, in which, whilst re- minding him that according to the orders of the Minis- ter, he was subject to the authority of the Superior Council of Pondichery, he pressed upon him the necessity of abandoning all notion of ransom, "The ransom which you are thinking of demanding from LA BOURDONNAIS DEFIES DUPLEIX. 157 Madras," he said, " is only a momentary, and, at the ^^^^• most, an uncertain advantage. All the hostages which . ^^ , . you may have will not bind the English Company to 1746. accept the bills which the Governor may give you, and he, now a prisoner, will probably say that he has acted under compulsion to procure his freedom, and the Com- pany will say the same." The same post conveyed to La Bourdonnais an official letter from the Superior Council on the same subject. This letter, and the tone of superiority which per- vaded it, seem to have decided the action of La Bour- donnais. It would appear that up to, and during, September 26, he had been engaged in discussing with Governor Morse and the English deputies the terms of ransom. On the morning of the 26th he wrote to Dupleix to state that he had almost agreed with Mr. Morse regarding the conditions ; that there remained only a few slight differences to adjust, and to arrange the terms of payment. But during the 26th he received from Dupleix not only the letters to which we have alluded, but another from the Council, dated the 24th, in which he was informed that Messrs. Dulaurent and Barthelemy would arrive that day from Pondichery to congratulate him on his success, and to form with MM. Despremesnil, Bonneau, Desforges, and Paradis, all Pondichery men, a Council, over which he was to preside. Instantly his part was taken. He states in his memoirs that from that moment he could not doubt the views of Dupleix ; that he saw that he was resolved to be master of Madras and of the ships, to dispose of all as he wished. The assumption of such superiority he resolved at once to dispute. Although the ransom-treaty was not then signed, he wrote to Dupleix as though it had been : " I wish with all my heart," he said, " that the deputies had arrived five or six hours earlier ; there would have been time then to inform them of all that passed between the 158 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP. English Governor and myself. But all had been con- ^^' eluded at the time of their arrival." He added : " if ^74(3 nevertheless these gentlemen wish to employ themselves during their stay in this town, I will find them employ- ment." At the same time he addressed the Council, taking up high ground ; acknowledging that all the then French establishments in India were under the (lOvernor-General of Pondichery, he claimed the right of disposing of Madras, because he had conquered it. He disavowed, in fact, all subordination to Pondichery. The next morning he put the seal to his declarations, by sending to Madras the copy of an unsigned convention with Governor Morse, by which he bound himself to restore Madras to the English on receiving bills for 1,100,000 pagodas, payable at certain dates not very distant.* Then ensued between the two men a contest injurious to the cause which they had equally at heart, to the country to W'hich they belonged, and fatal in its result to the fortunes of one of them. Dupleix, feeling that this restoration of Madras was in effect to leave Pondichery open to attack, the moment La Bourdonnais and his squadron should have sailed to the islands, determined to maintain the authority which the King and the Company had conferred upon him. La Bourdonnais, on his side, unwilling to submit to any authority, and im- patient of all control, declared that the Minister having left to him, as admiral, the sole conduct of his operations, he was even on Indian soil independent of the Govern- ment of Pondichery. Admitting that the phrase, "master of his operations," used by the French Minister to La Bourdonnais, seemed to convey to him an independent * Equal to four lakhs and forty equal payments of 200,000 paafodas thousand rupees or £421,666 sterling. each, the first payment to be made one The teims were 500,000 pagodas, month, and ''he second one year, after payable in Europe at six months' the arrival of the ships from Europe, sight, in tive letters of exchange of A pagoda is worth nearly nine shil- 100,000 each; and 600,000 in three lings. WHAT WEKE THE REAL REASONS OF LA BOURDONNAIS 1 159 authority, we regard it as clear that it could never have chap. been the intention of the French Government thus to ^^' establish a second supreme authority, an imperium in 174(3^ imjierio, within a few miles of the seat of their Government. Yet La Bourdonnais cared little for such considerations. Although, before starting on this ex- pedition from Pondichery, he had carried his recognition of the authority of the Council to such an extent as to refuse to act without a positive order from them ; he now, when the victory had been achieved, and when he was required by them to carry out their instructions, as emanating from an authority paramount to his own, daringly disavowed his subordination, and refused to recognise their supremacy. It may not be out of place to iuquire here what it really was, what was the motive reason that prompted him to this insubordination, to this sacrifice of the best interests of his country ] Was it solely because he deemed his own policy to be the correct policy 1 That could hardly be. No one had felt more strongly than La Bour- donnais, that it would be impossible for him to remain on that coast, with any degree of safety, later than the second week in October. His plan had been to send two or three of his ships to winter at A chin, and to bear up with the remainder, laden with cargoes, for the islands, en route to France. Yet, it was not once or twice, but many times, that Dupleix had explained to him that, under those circumstances, Pondichery would be in the greatest danger; unprotected by a squadron, having incurred the ^vrath of the Nawwab, and invited the retaliation of the English, nothing but the return of La Bourdonnais in the spring, with an overwhelming force, could have long saved the French capital, situated as it was between two English settlements — Fort St. George and Fort St. David — from capture. The ransom of Madras, then, not for cash, but for bills of exchange not then accepted, with the vision looming in the future 1746. 160 LA BOURDO.XNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAF. that Madras shortly being in a position to demand a ^^' ransom from Pondichery, could not have seemed, even to La Bourdonnais, a sound policy for France. But there is another light in which it is necessary to regard the transaction. Let us inquire whether, though it was not a sound policy for France, it did not seem a sound policy for the private interests of La Bourdonnais. And here we meet with some revelations which cannot fail to startle. We have seen in the course of the pre- ceding narrative, that during the six days, from the 21st to the 25th of September, a negotiation had been going on between La Bourdonnais and Governor Morse, as to the amount and the terms of the ransom. But besides the question of public ransom for Madras, there was the other, the perhaps equally weighty question, of private present to La Bourdonnais. That he did receive* a considerable present is undeniable, and, though such a transaction accorded with the customs of India in those early days, this acceptance of money must in almost every case, have considerably influenced the conduct of those who received it. With the knowledge of this fact before us, the refusal of La Bourdonnais to entertain the statesmanlike plans of Dupleix becomes at once Intel ligible. Knowing, as we know now, that of the thre<- measures which he himself submitted to Dupleix, viz., the occupation of Madras by the French, its destruction, and its ransom — that of the ransom was the only one which would bring him in material advantage, all the mystery that enveloped his conduct disappears. He stands robbed of much of his glory — of that bright halo of pure disinterestedness with which historians have sought to encircle him — but he is at least an in- telligible being. We can watch his acts now, morally certain that we have our eyes on the secret spring by which all those acts were directed. But we would not be understood to assert that this was * Vide, Appendix A.—" The private present to La Boiu-donnais." THE SECRET MOTIVES OF THE RIVALS. 161 the sole motive vv^hich influenced him. We even ch^p. conceive it possible that La Bourdonnais himself did > ^ , not fully realise the consequence of his actions. Even 1746. great men are very often unconsciously acted upon. More especially was this likely to be the case with a man who chafed so fretfully against superior control as did La Bourdonnais. Determined not to subordinate his will to the will of Uupleix, he may have been himself unaware of that secret influence, which, notwithstanding, most powerfully moved him. What can be more probable than that the two motives, powerfully assisting one another, so worked upon and mastered his reasoning powers, that he w^as but faintly, if at all, aware of the real moving and guiding power within him, but persuaded himself that he was influenced by considerations of duty — the selfish and sordid views which lay at the root of his conduct being kept entirely out of sight ] However that may be, we have in this place to judge of the man by his acts. And in looking at those acts, we cannot but take advantage to the full of any circumstances which tend to throw light on the motives that prompted them. Hitherto, no con- sideration has been paid to those motives. In the contest between Dupleix and La Bourdonnais, the former has been ruthlessly condemned — condemned, we are satis- fied, without a full and fair inquiry — without having been heard by means of public documents in his own defence. Yet, it is surely something in the question between them to inquire, whether there were any secret motives besides those that have been assigned, which might have tempted either of them to overstep his powers. In the case of Dupleix, we see the avowed reason — the determination to root out the English at any cost from the Koromandel coast — based upon the powers which as Governor-General of French India he believed himself to possess — but we can find no trace of any other. He had no personal objects to gain by refusing to ransom Madras. It appeared to him so plain that the restora- M 162 I-A BOUKDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, tion of that place involved two dangers — hostility from ^^' the Nawwab, and renewed hostility from the English — ^"lY^Q^ to Pondichery which might be defenceless: the reason of his conduct is, in fact, so plain, so apparent, that w^e search in vain for any secret motive, least of all for any which might have been beneficial to his private fortunes. But it is not so with La Bourdonnais. It is now clear that up to September 26 he had entered upon no positive engagements to ransom his conquests. It is, we think, certain that on that 26th he agreed to terms with Governor Morse, one of those terms stipulating for a private present to himself of the equivalent of about £40,000 ; that, receiving on the same day convincing intimation from Pondichery, that Dupleix and the Superior Council would be no party to any scheme for a ransom, he suddenly resolved to break with them, to assert his own independent action. Is it too much to infer that the alarmed private interests stimulated, perhaps unconsciously, his jealous and easily roused ambition to a revolt against the better feelings of his nature ] To return to the narrative. We left La Bourdonnais on the evening of the 26tli and on the morning of September 27, refusing to acknowledge the authority of the agents sent to co-operate with him by the Superior Council, sending to Pondichery for ratification a copy of the treaty of ransom, and yet — strange incon- sistency — asserting his entire independence of the con- trol of that Council But before this actually happened, some intimation that it was about to happen had reached Pondichery. Amongst the officers of the besieging army — the com- mandant, in fact, of the Pondichery contingent — was M. Paradis, a Swiss by birth, and a man of a bold, energetic, daring nature. He had previously been known to La Bourdonnais, and the latter had, even DUPLEIX APPEALS TO LA BOURDONNALS. 163 CHAP. IV. before his arrival at Pondichery, made a special applica tion for his services. Placed in command of the Pon dichery contingent, and second only, on land, to La 1746 Bourdonnais himself, he liad behaved in a manner to give the greatest satisfaction to his chief, and until the time of the capitulation, the relations between the two had been of the most cordial nature. On the 26th, we learn for the first time that some difference had arisen on a point connected with the command of the troops, and that Paradis had left Madras for Pondichery on the 23rd, armed with letters from La Bourdonnais for Dupleix. It seems probable that Paradis, from his position in the force, had been made acquainted with the nature of the negotiations that were progressing at Madras, and that he had pointed out to the Superior Council that, unless they asserted their authority, none would remain to them. The Council were probably in- fluenced by these considerations when they sent MM. Despremesnil, Dulaurent, and Barthelemy to Madras. But on the 28th, they received the defiant letters of La Bourdonnais. They at once wrote to him a letter, in which they recapitulated the arguments they had used against the restoration of the place to the English; told him that M. Despremesnil, the second member of Coun- cil, and then at Madras, would be authorised to take over from him the command of the place, with the Pondichery contingent under him; and concluded with a formal protest against all the engagements he might contract without the knowledge and confirmation of the Superior Council. On the following day, Dupleix des- patched to him a letter written with his own hand — most touching, most entreating in its terms, conjuring him as a brother, as a friend, to give up all idea of ransoming the place, and to enter heartily into the de- signs he was nursing for the uprooting of the English. After dwelling upon the worthlessness of a ransom agreed to by prisoners, and adducing examples from history to M 2 164 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, prove that conditions made under such circumstances . had never been considered binding, he added: "in the 1746. name of God; in the name of your children, of your wife, I conjure you to be persuaded of what I tell you. Finish as you have begun, and do not treat with an enemy, who has no object but to reduce us to the most dire extremity. Such are the orders which the enemy's squadron executes wherever it is able. If it has not done more, it was because it could not do more. Provi- dence has been kinder to us than to them. Let us then profit by our opportunity, for the glory of our monarch, and for the general interests of a nation which will regard you as its restorer in India. Heaven grant that I may succeed in persuading you, that I may convince you of the necessity of annulling a treaty which makes us lose in one moment all our advantages, the extent of which you will recognise, immediately, if you will pay attention to my representations." Meanwhile, the three Councillors, MM. Despremesnil, Dulaurent, and Barthelemy, hnding their powers dis- avowed by La Bourdonnais, transmitted to him on the 27th, a formal protest against his usurpation of authority, as well as against the restoration of Madras to the English ; they sent also to the various commandants of troops copies of the King's orders conferring supreme authority in India upon Uupleix — a step to which, they said, they had been driven by the measures adopted by M. de la Bourdonnais in opposition to the orders he had received from Pondichery. On the 30th, the three Councillors made a second protest, and announced their intention to withdraw to St. Thome, there to await further orders from Pondichery. This was only the prelude to other and stronger measures. On October 2, a Commission, composed of the Major-General de Bury, M. Bruyere, the Procureur- General, and M. Paradis, arrived at Madras, armed with powers to execute the orders with which they were DTJPLEIX SUPERSEDES LA BOURDOKNATS. 165 intrusted by Dupleix, as representative of his Sovereign chap. in the East Indies. They carried a declaration made by , Dupleix on behalf of the King and the Company of the 174(5. Indies, which they were instructed to read publicly at Madras, setting forth, amongst other terms, that the treaty of ransom had been made "by the simple act, without lawful authority, of M. de la Bourdonnais, with prisoners who were unable to engage others on their account, especially in an affair of such importance; that it was null and void, and to be regarded as never having been executed." A second declaration, issued by Dupleix, on behalf of the King, and carried by them, created a Provincial Council of Fort St. George, "to render justice in the name of the King, civil as well as criminal, to all the inhabitants present and to come." Of this M. Des- premesnil was appointed President, and MM. Dulaurent, Barthelemy, Bonneau, Desforges, Bruyere, and Paradis, members. By another declaration M. Despremesnil was nominated Commandant and Director of the town and fort of Madras, "to command in it, under our orders, the officers of land and sea forces, the inhabitants, the clerks of the Company, and all other Frenchmen and foreigners, established in it, of what condition soever they might be." They carried with them, besides, two requisitions, one from the Superior Council of Pondichery, the other from the principal inhabitants of the town, both alike protest- ing against the usurpation of authority on the part of La Bourdonnais, and against the restoration of Madras to the English, as a measure injurious to the national in- terest, and fraught with danger to Pondichery. Early on the morning of October 2, six* of the members of the newly appointed Provincial and Execu- tive Councils, accompanied by their chief clerk, entered Madras, and proceeded to the head-quarters of La Bour- donnais. By him they were received and conducted to * They were, Ws\. Despremesuil, Paradis, Dulaureut, Barthelemy, Lrayere, and General de Bury. 166 LA BOURDONNATS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, the large hall. Here the business of the day was com- , menced by General de Bury handing over to La Bour- 174(i. donnais a letter from the Superior Council, stating that lie, the general, was authorised to reply to his letter of the 27th ultimo. The chief clerk then read aloud, in the presence of a large concourse of people, who were attracted by the rumours of some extraordinary scene, the several declarations and protests we have enumerated above. Whilst this reading was going on, officers of all grades came crowding into the hall, the great majority of them belonging to the troops who had come with La Bour- donnais from the isles. As soon as the clerk had finished. La Bourdonnais replied. He stated that he w^ould recognise no authority in India as superior to his own ; as the orders which he had received from France con- cluded with a special proviso, leaving him " master of his operations." * M. Despremesnil replied, that the authority just quoted in no way invalidated the powers conferred upon the Governor-General, and, in fiict, bore no reference to the subject. La Bourdonnais, however, wa:: obstinate, and seeing himself supported by a number of his own adherents, he assumed a haughtier tone, and threatened to cause the buglers to sound the assembly, and get the troops under arms. Immediately a cry was raised in the assembly against taking up arms against one another. Upon this La Bourdonnais assembled in the next room a council of war, composed of the officers who had come with him from the islands, and after a short sitting, communicated the result to the deputies from Pondichery. This was, in effect, that they con- * Undoubtedly this was the case, may be observed in addition, tliat the and this was recog^nised by the Coun- fact of his being master of hisopera- cil of Pondichery, when two months tions, while it left him the choice of before they had pressed iipoa him the ar-tion, did not relieve him of sub- necessity of a decision reg-ardin» ordination to the authority of the them. La Bourdonnais had then ix- representative of Lis Sovereign in fu-ed to act, unless tbe Council prt- territories subject to that Sovereign, scribed to hiia a positive course. It LA BOURDONNAIS ARRESTS THE DEPUTIES. 167 siderecl he ought not to go back from the promise he had chap. * IV. given to the English. Upon this the deputies retired.' La Bourdonnais having thus repulsed the demands, 1746. legally preferred, of the Pondichery deputies, proceeded without delay to deprive them of every chance of execut- ing them by force. Spreading a report that the Englisli fleet had been seen ofl" Pulikat, he issued a general order to send fifty men on board each vessel. He at the same time privately instructed his trusted subordinates to assign this duty to the troops of the Pondichery con- tingent. This was executed on the morning of October 4, and he found himself then, at the head of troops entirely devoted to him, absolute master of his move- ments. The members of the Provincial Council did not the less attempt to establish their lawful authority by legal means. Discovering during the day the ruse which La Bourdonnais had employed so well, apparently for his own interests, they resolved to place him under a moral restraint. For this purpose, General de Bury, accom- panied by MM. Latour and Largi, proceeded to his head- quarters, and delivered to him a written document, addressed to him as commandant of the French squadron, forbidding him to leave Madras with the French troops, without a written order from Dupleix. But the time had passed when it was necessary for La Bourdonnais to dissemble his resentment. He had rid himself of the Pondichery troops, and he was determined to use his usurped authority with the utmost rigour. He at once placed the three deputies under arrest, and when Paradis, hearing of this indignity, hastened to remonstrate with him, he charged him with being " a marplot who had brought them all within two fingers of destruction," and sent him to join his associates. He declared at the * There are two accounts of this count written three years afterwards interview — one a_/>.> oces i-e/-6rt/ drawn by La Bourdonnais. The latter up at the time by Despremesnil and abounds with personal imputations his colleagues ; the other the ac- which we have omitted. 168 LA BOUKDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, same time that he would leave them prisoners to the ^' , _. English on October 15 — the day on which he had cove- 1746. nanted to restore Madras to that nation. We -svill not attempt to describe the feelings of Dupleix on receiving a report of these proceedings. To carry througli the darling object of his policy, the destruction of the English power in the Karniitik, he had employed entreaty, advice, persuasion, menaces, and moral force — and all in vain. The determined pertinacity of his rival left him stranded. Not a single resource remained to him. His authority denied, his soldiers sent on board the admiral's ships, his deputies arrested and confined in Madras — his entreaties answered by cold refusals, his assertions of authority by a contemptuous denial of it — w^hat remained for him to do ^ It was vain to appeal to Paris. Thence no reply could arrive within fifteen months, and La Bourdonnais could not stay fifteen days longer, without extreme risk, upon the coast. He was irritated and annoyed, not only at the dissipation of the vast schemes wdiich he had formed, but at his powerless- ness to prevent any act wdiich it might please the infu- riated chief of the forces, naval and military, to carry out. The utmost that he could do was to protest. This he did, in a temperate and dignified letter,* so soon as intelligence of the proceedings at Madras reached him. * Dated Madras, October 6, 1746. feel the inutility of such a demand. From the Superior Council of Pon- We can now take no part with re- dichery to La Bourdonnais. "We ference to all that you may do, but learn by the letter of the Ctuncil of to wait tranquilly the issue of your Madras of the 4th current, that you proceedings. have caus'd to be arrested MM. " We confirm the order to the Bury, Paradis, Latour, Laigi, and Council of Madras, to the officers Changeac. Our former letters, and an 1 troops of Pondichery, not to that which M. Bury intimated to evacuate Madras, and not to embark you, would have informed you that on board the ships, at least, until you the Pondichery contingent not being forcibly comp4 them. But we tell under your orders, we had nominated tht-m, nevertheless, to obey all your a Commandant at Malras, and had orders for the performance of the established a Council there. Things garrison duties of the place. We being upon this footing, we might permit ourselves to hope that a ray have demanded of you by what right, of light will induce you to reflect and by what authority, you have very seriously." caused them to be arrested. But we DIFFICULT POSITION OF LA BOURDONXAIS. 169 Nor was La Bourdonnais himself at all at his ease. chap. The month of October — a month famous for the storms ^ , and hurricanes which it brings upon the open Koro- 1746. mandel coast — was now well upon him. He had felt and had always declared that it would be dangerous to stay in the Madras roadstead after October 15. Yet, so intent had he been on this quarrel with Dupleix, that he had done very little in the way of embarking the property of which he had made prize. Not even an inventory had been made out. To leave Madras, too, on the 15th, as he had intended, with a treaty unratified by the Superior Council of Pondichery, would be to make over his conquest to Dupleix without conditions, as to lose for himself and for France the ransom-money he had been promised. That defiance of the Pondi- chery authorities which had appai;ently succeeded so well, what would it profit him, if, after his departure, those authorities should choose to ignore all his pro- ceedings, and should deal with Madras as a conquest of which they alone had a right to dispose \ And yet what was more probable tlian that they would thus acf? Relying upon the physical force of wliich he disposed he had contemned their orders, refused to acknowledge their authority, arrested their generals, and put them to open scorn. It would have been contrary to all his experience of men to imagine, that the physical force being on their side, they would acknowledge any of the arrangements which, in open defiance of their instruc- tions, he might have made. At the moment then of his apparent triumph. La Bourdonnais felt all the hopelessness and helplessness of his position. Unless he could come to terms with Dupleix, all his plans would be subverted, the bills for public ransom and private gratitude would not be worth the paper on which they were written. Yet, how to come to terms with those whom he had slighted and scorned, seemed of all tasks the most impossible. To 170 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP, bend his hauglity spirit to sue for the amity which, when pressed upon him " as a brother, as a friend," he 1746. li'^^l rejected, was a course which La Bourdoniiais, of all men, would have scorned. Something, nevertheless, must be done. Dupleix could afford to wait for the future. It was from La Bourdonnais that the overtures must come. He made them. Not, indeed, in that open, straight- forward way, which would have acknowledged his error, and Avhich would have caused the immediate renewal of cordial relations with Dupleix, but in that tortuous, in- direct manner which those adopt, who, having com- mitted an error, and finding that the consequences of that error are recoiling on themselves, are yet too much the slaves of a false pride to make a candid confession. This was the pl^n he adopted. He commissioned Paradis, the Commandant of the Pondichery contingent, and whom, it will be remembered, he had placed in arrest, to sound Dupleix as to whether he would agree to the treaty of ransom, provided the restoration of Madras were deferred from October to January or February, with a view, ostensibly, to make a proper division of the spoils. If he could agree to that, Paradis added, La Bourdonnais would leave behind 150 of his own troops to reinforce those of Pondichery. This proposition came upon Dupleix just immediately after his authority had been insulted and defied, when he, the civil power, had had flaunted before him, by the chief military power, the irresistible argument of brute force. He had divined some, if not all, of the motives of La Bourdonnais, and he had made up his mind to keep no terms with him. Openly to break off all cor- respondence with one who wielded the physical force of the colony would be however, in his opinion, conductive neither to French interests in general, nor to the in- terests of Pondichery in particular. But on receiving this indirect overture from Paradis, he saw in it a means THE admiral's position DEFINED. 171 of srettinff rid of one who refused to carry out himself, chap. and who prevented others from carrying out, the views ' which he deemed essential to French interests. He 1746 resolved, therefore, to adopt that policy which the weak in all ages have deemed a legitimate weapon when battling against tlie strong, and to dissemble. He, accordingly wrote, on October 7, to La Bourdonnais, stating that he would entertain the project. But on the following day a circumstance occurred which im- mensely strengthened the hands of Dupleix. Three ships of war, long expected, the " Centaure " of 74 guns, the " Mars " of bQ, and the " Brillant " of 50, having on board 1,520 men,* anchored that morning in the Pondi- chery roadstead. They brought out startling intelli- gence. M. Orry had been, in December, 1745, replaced as Controller-General by M. Machault d'Arnonville — a member of the Council of State — of no experience in finance, but devoted to Madame de Pompadeur. The Company informed Dupleix of this, as well as of the fact that war between France and Holland was imminent, and that he would, therefore, have to arrange to meet a new enemy in his neighbourhood. They also forwarded to him, in anticipation of his being joined by La Bour- donnais, specific instructions as to the relations to him- self which the Commander of the French fleet would bear. As this was the very point upon which La Bourdon- nais had based his resistance to the orders of Dupleix, this document had naturally very great interest for the Pondichery Council. It was dated October 6, 1745, and was thus worded : " The Company considers it riglit and proper that the Commander of the squadron should be present at the meetings of the Superior Council ; that he be summoned to it when any military expedition, in which this Commander is to bear a principal part, is under consideration ; and that he have in it a deliberate * Grose's East Indies, vol. ii. chap. 29. 172 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP. IV. 1746. voice. But it requires also that the couclusion, which shall be arrived at after discussion, whatever be the nature of the affair, be carried out by hiin without opposition, even though it should concern the disposing of all the sliips of the Company which he may com- mand." These orders appeared to Dupleix to be too clear to be disputed ; he, therefore, sent a copy of them the same day to La Bourdonnais with the additional intimation, that they had been approved of by the new Minister.* * The date of tliis letter — Octo- ber <5, 1745, a date exactly two montlis antecedent to the appoint- ment of M. Machanlt as Controller- General— together with the state- ment made by Dupleix that its con- tents "had been approved by the new Minister," afforded an opportu- nity to La Bourdonnais, of which he took full advantage, to contest its validity. "How is it possible," he obs rves in substance in his memoirs, " that the new Minister should liave sent M. Dupleix orders, dated Octo- ber (J, when his appointment dates only from December (J, and I myi-elf received by the same opportunity letters from M. Orry, the old Minis- ter, dated November 25 ? " He pro- ceeds, on this, to speak of it as a " pretended letter." But this reason- ing, plausible as it is, h is no found i- t o:i. It is perfectly true that M. Machauh's appointment as Con- troller-General dates only from De- cember 6, 1745, but it is no less so, that for several months prior to that date he had been designated as the successor of Orry, wiio was in dis- grace, and tliat he liad been con- sulted on all the arrangements that were under discussion. Dupleix merely states in his letter, that the orders he had received from the Com- pany had been " approved of "by the new Minister. What was more na- tural than that such imp rtant orders had been submitted, before trans- mission to a distant settlement, to the man who was virtually, though not actually, Minister, and who ■would be intrusted with their execu- tion ? That such was the practice is certain, and the very word used by Dupleix implies that the practice was carried out on this occasion. The very ships which carried out the orders sailed fmm France before the actual nomination of Machault ; it would have been a transparent false- hood — for which there was neither necessity or excuse — ior Dupleix to have employed the expre:-sion which he dia use, if it had not been founded upon fact. Of the authenticity of the order there can be no doubt. But there is another point. La Bourdonnais adds that the letter of Orry to him was a confirm- ation of his independent authority in the Indian seas, and li^; quotes two garbled extracts from itto prove this. We give here, entire, the two first paragraphs from which those extracts are taken, believing thatthey strongly confirm the view we are supporting. It must be remembered that the letter is addressed to La Bourdonnais, as Govermu" of the Isles of France and Bourbon, and that at the time it was despatched Orry bad not the smallest idea that La Bourdonnais would have been able to succeed, before its re- ceipt, in fitting out a fleet for the Indies. He believed liim, in fact, to be still at the Isle of France. The letter runs thus: — "The Company will send you this year, sir, six of its vessels, of which five will sail at the beginning of next month, and the sixth in the course of February. It has d-termined to address them all to you, leaving you master, to dispose of them according to circum- stances, and the news you may re- ceive from the Indies. It ought, however, to be your chief duty to send to Pondichery, at a proper sea- LA BOURDONNAIS OFFERS CONDITIONS. 173 But the shifts to which a wilful nature, workinj? for a chap. IV definite end, is able to resort, were not yet exhausted. , . La ourdonnais, in his reply, thus referred to the instru- 1746. tions of the new Minister : " With respect to the extract you have sent me, you may depend that I shall always conform to the orders of the Minister after I shall have received them. But he no longer writes to me here, and the extract you have sent me concerns the Company's captains and not me."* He added that he had received but one letter from the Company, and begged Dupleix to have the others sought for. This despatch had scarcely been sent off, when the missing letters arrived. Whether or not they contained any reference to the orders sent to Dupleix, it is impossible to say,f but this is certain, that from the date of their receipt the tone of his letters changed. In that of the 10th he announced to Dupleix that he would wait the receipt of his views till the loth, and assured him that there was no condi- tion he would refuse, if it did not involve the forfeiture of his word. The same evening he received the reply of Dupleix to the overtures made through Paradis, and he at once transmitted to Dupleix the conditions on which he would make over Madras to the Pondichery authorities, and depart. son, the number of vessels which may send liim all the assistance he mav be nc'cessary to convey to it, in safety demand of you, and for whicli he will and with promptitude, tlie money look to you." — Dated November 25, and the troops, the ammunitions of 1745. war and the supplies, which are des- Now, this letter gives very large tined lor that settlement." powers to the Governor of the Isles " 1 do not dictate to you the man- of France and Bourbon, but it in no ner in which you ought to act, to way authorists that official to as- succeed in this expeditii«n, of which suuie authority in the country of the you will your-elf feel all the ini- Governor, for whom some of the as- poitance, per»u:ided as I am that you i>i^tance was intended. And yet that will do all for the best. Your chief was the strained interpretation La point of view ought to be the pre- Bourdonnais put upon it. servation of the town of Potidichery, * La Bourdonais to Dupleix, and of the other establishments dated Madras, October 10, 174t> ■which the Comp my possesses beyond t He writes in his letter of Octo- the Cape of Good Hope and in India. her K', to Dupleix thus: — '' I have This object ought to be preferred just received the letters of the Mi- to all other enterprises. You should nister ; they, in no way, atl'ect my come to an unoersianding on this previous orders." But the letters point with M. Dupleix, and should are not given. 174 LA BOURDONNAIS AXD DUPLEIX. CHAP. The principals of these conditions were, a promise that . the treaty he enclosed should be rigidly observed ; that 1746. the Governor should be taken from his officers, and not from Pondichery ; that Madras should be evacuated on January 1, 1747. The treaty contained articles very favourable to the English, especially when it is re- membered that Madras, with its weak garrison, was incapable of further defence when it surrendered. The second article provided that one-half of the munitions of war should be returned to the English ; the fourth, that the residue of the supplies, of which the quantity was large, after the re-victualling of the French squadron, should be restored to them ; the other articles related to the ransom and matters previously noticed. On the following day, the 12 th, he sent another letter, in which he stated that as M. Despremesnil had assured him that Dupleix would agree to the conditions, he was now im- patient to depart. He enclosed five articles, the two principal of which provided that Madras should be evacuated, at the latest, at the end of January, that it should not be attacked by either nation before that period, and that as long as it should remain in the hands of the French, the roadstead should be accessible to the ships of both nations. The Superior Council replied to these letters on the loth and 14th. With reference to the conditions insisted upon by La Bourdonnais, they agreed to keep the engagement entered into with the English, provided the English kept theirs ; but they required that La Bourdonnais should leave them 150 of his troops as he had promised Paradis, that Despremesnil should be Commandant, assisted by a Council of four, two of whom might be named by La Bourdonnais, subordinate to Pondichery ; and that the place should not be evacuated till a complete division of the prize property should have taken place. In their letter of the 14th,* the Council positively refused to agree to evacuate the * Iq reply to La Bourdonnais of the 12tli. HIS SHIPS DISPERSED BY A HURRICAXE. 175 place by the time proposed, and entered into reasons chap. which showed how dangerous it would be to French , ' interests to accede to the other conditions proposed.* i74(j But before this letter reached La Bourdonnais, an unforeseen event had cut the more than Gordian knot which neither party could agree to untie. In his letter of October 11 addressed to Dupleix, La Bourdonnais had remarked — " What we have most against us, is the monsoon ; I can stay here very well till the 20th, per- haps even to the 25 th, if the weather continues favour- able." On the following day he wrote — " Already the northerly wind has set in, then follows, as you know, the decided necessity of quitting the place. ... I am writing to-day to each captain, giving them such orders, that in case the new moon and bad weather should compel them to put to sea, they may regain the coast afterwards." The next day, the loth, was a lovely day, one of the finest of the season. During the night, however, there came on one of those hurricanes which periodically cause ruin and devastation along the Koro- mandel coast. The French vessels, with the exception of three — the "St. Louis," the " Lys," and the " Re- nommee " — which had been sent to Pondichery with a portion of the spoils of Madras, were in the roadstead loading. In addition to their crews, they had on board * We extract the most salient tliem, on the understandiag, that this passages from this letter of the acceptance on our part does not p iss Superior Council, dated Pondichery, for an acquiescence iu the articles October 14, 174(5: " M. Dupleix has which relate to them The communicated to us your letter of the roadstead of Madras cannot be open 12th, with some articles which we to the English during the division have examined very attentively. of the prize property ; the English Many reasons prevent us from being squadron lias only to come there with able to accede to them- Ttie time live or six ships from E iroi)3, as well to which you limit the evacuati — ^ of the Nawwab of the Karnatik to the prosecution of 1746. his plans against Madras has been already related. Witli one great end in view — that of wresting Madras from the English — he had, during a crisis which might otherwise have been fatal, sacrificed the less important portion of the scheme, and, renouncing extension of territory for his own countrymen, had promised the Nawwab to resign to him the conquests he should achieve. We have given our reasons why we believe Dupleix to have been sincere when he made this en- gagement. In his letter on the subject to La Bour- donnais — a letter intended for no other eye — he had ex- pressed his intention to resign the town to the Nawwab after demolishing its fortifications, and he had used this as a reason why it would be impossible for him to agree to any terms regarding ransom with the English. We have seen how the obstinacy of La Bourdonnais had for a long time prevented the accomplishment of these de- signs — how, from the date of the capitulation, the 21st of September, to his departure from Madras on the 23rd of October, that impetuous and self-willed officer had kept Madras in his own hands, and how, therefore, during that time, and for a week subsequently, the entire attention of Dupleix had been devoted to obtaining pos- session of the place, which had been conquered only to be kept from him. We have seen too how fatal the delay had been to him in one respect — in the destruction of the fleet which had been at once his mainstay for defence THE NAWWAB ASSERTS HIS POWER. 189 and the power upon which he counted for future blows chap. agahist the English. Yet, damaging as had been the .^ ' result in that respect, it sank into apparent insignifi- j7.1t). cance when contrasted with the eftect it had upon the suspicious mind of the Asiatic who had trusted him, only, it would seem, to be deceived. The fact indeed that upwards of five weeks had elapsed since the French flag had first floated over the ramparts of Fort St. George, and that there were no indications of lowering it to make way for the flag of the Mughal, was in itself a circumstance more than sufficient to justify the doubt which Anwaru-din was beginning to display. The quarrel between Dupleix and La Bourdonnais would naturally appear but a shallow and transparent artifice, invented for the pur- pose of cheating liim out of his promised gains. It was enough for him that Madras continued French ; to the name of the Frenchman who commanded there he was indifferent. His engagement had been made with the governor of the French possessions in India, and to that governor he looked for its absolute and literal fulfilment. When, however, day succeeded day, and week fol- lowed week, and he received, instead of Madras, ex- cuses founded upon the alleged insubordinate behaviour of the French official in command at Madras, the patience of the Nawwab began to give way. Who were these French, he asked, these foreigners who had been so submissive and compliant, that they should thus not only beard him to his face, but should use him as a tool wherewith to effect their purposes 1 Upon what force did they rely to enable them to carry out their daring resolves ^ If they had a few hundred European and two or three thousand native soldiers, he could bring into the field twenty men to their one, and, against the means which the possession of a few places on the coast might make available for them, he 190 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, could wield the resources of the entire Karnatik. J , He would teach these faithless Europeans to know 174(j. their place and to respect his power, and if they should hesitate longer to carry out their engagement, he would compel its fulfilment by force of arms. At this determination Anwaru-dm had arrived long be- fore La Bourdonnais had made over his conquest to Despremesnil. He had even sent a detachment of his troops to the vicinity of Madras, there to remain until it should be joined by the main body. This main body, in number about 10,000, and commanded by Mafauz* Khan, eldest son of the Nawwab, followed very shortly after, and encamped under the walls of Madras about the same date as that on which La Bourdonnais bade a final farewell to the roadstead of Pondichery. This then was the first great difficulty which it fell to the lot of Dupleix to encounter after the departure of his rival. Let us consider for a moment what was actually his position. He had promised to make over Madras to the Nawwab, but he had resolved, at the time he made tliat promise, first to demolish its fortifi- cations: The insubordination of La Bourdonnais had prevented the possibility of doing one or the other be- fore the 2ord October, and on that date his lieutenant, Despremesnil, found himself threatened by the troops of the Nawwab. He was on the other hand embarrassed by the engagements into which La Bourdonnais had entered with the English, and with which, although he had not ratified them, it would now be incumbent on him to deal in a decided manner. There was thus presented to liim a complication of difficulties such as might well appal a mere ordinary mortal. Yet Dupleix set himself to meet them in the clear and logical manner natural to his well-ordered intellect. Of the difficulties we have enumerated, that caused by the threatening attitude of tlic Nawwab was the most * Derived from tlio Arabic words, J/a, spleudour, Fauz^ victorj-. THE REASONING OP DUPLEIX. 191 pressing. This, therefore, he set himself in the first chap. instance to encounter. No man was more sensible , '^ than he of the very delicate nature of the task which 17^6. thus lay before him. He had, indeed, promised to make over Madras to the Nawwab, intending as we know, to make it over in a dismantled state. But being now for the first time in a position to perform the promise, he was prevented from accompanying that performance by the dismantling which, in his opinion, was a most necessary adjunct to it, and the more so, because Madras was at that moment invested by the Nawwab. To dismantle Madras in the presence of the army of Mafauz Khan, would have roused in the breast of the Nawwab an indignation equal to that which had been already kindled by abstaining from surrendering it. To make over Madras, on the other hand, with its fortifications still standing, would, he considered, be an act of treachery to French interests. It would be in that case, he felt, in the power of the Nawwab to make his terms with the English, and to re-sell them a place which the French had conquered with the view to the permanent expulsion of that nation from the Koro- mandel coast. To such a line of conduct Dupleix could never reconcile himself. In the temper of the Nawwab, however, any other course was fraught with danger. That danger and the possible disaster con- sequent upon it were, however, in the eyes of Dupleix, less formidable than the certain danger and certain disaster attendant upon an abject submission to the threats of the Nawwab. He resolved, therefore, to risk the fury of his wrath rather than surrender French interests to his mercy, and to retain Madras for himself, rather than make it over with its fortifications un- destroyed. But while he came to this fixed resolution, he determined to employ every art, to exhaust every device, to induce the Nawwab to forego his claim, and to avert those hostilities with the satrap of the Mughal, 192 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, which now, for the first time, seemed to threaten the ■ French colony. As to his promise, he considered him- 1746. self absolved from its performance by the fact, that the Nawwab was now endeavouring to obtain by force of arms that which Dupleix, if left to himself, would have been willing, on the earliest possible occasion com- 23atible with his own security, to concede. Having resolved on this course, Uupleix sent instruc- tions to Despremesnil to keep Madras at all hazards, but to refrain from any act of hostility towards the troops of Mafauz Khan, beyond those which would necessarily result from the defence of the place. The French troops who garrisoned Madras amounted to be- tween five and six hundred Europeans, and about the same number of natives, disciplined in the European fashion. In obedience to the orders received from Dupleix, the Governor, Despremesnil, withdrew the whole of these troops within the walls on the approach of the enemy, with the intention of confining himself strictly to the defence of the town. But as Mafauz Khan showed himself very earnest in his attack, and in the course of a few days reduced the garrison to some difficulties, by cutting off from them the only spring which supplied them with good water, Despremesnil found it necessary to abandon this cautious policy, and to try the effect of a sortie. On the 2nd November, therefore, early in the morning, he detached a body of 400 men, accompanied by two field-pieces, to attack that portion of the enemy's army which had gained possession of the spring. As this handful of men advanced, the guns following close in the rear, to encounter, as it seemed, certain destruction from the overwhelming force of the Mughal, the enemy's cavalry hastily col- lected and galloped towards them with the intention of riding them down. Still steadily, undaunted by the imposing array of the squadrons charging towards them, the French advanced. When, however, they judged THE NAWWAB'S troops ARE DEFEATED, 193 the enemy to have arrived within point-blank range, chap. they opened out from the centre, uncovering the field- . pieces, and halted. The first discharge from the two 1746. guns went straight into the mass of the hostile cavalry, killing some of the foremost horses. This caused a temporary confusion and halt, which gave the French time to load again. The enemy, unaccustomed to such rapid firing, knowing so little of the European practice of artillery as to consider one shot in a quarter of an hour excellent practice, were confounded at this second discharge. Instead, then, of taking advantage of it to charge home, they halted to look on in mingled doubt, wonder, and fear. But when a third discharge suc- ceeded a second, and a fourth a third, all carrying de- struction into their ranks, they hesitated no longer. Terrified at this novel mode of warfare, they fled pre- cipitately, leaving their tents and baggage a prey to the conqueror. They lost from this cannonade about seventy men, whilst amongst the French not a man was even wounded.* Meanwhile Dupleix had not been less indefatigable at Pondichery. The accounts he received as to the reality and earnestness of the attack on Madras, had convinced him that persistence in a purely defensive line of action would be highly impolitic, and he had de- termined to effect a diversion by threatening the enemy's camp from the side of Pondichery, with the view of com- pelling him to raise the siege. The command of the de- tachment which was to effect this end, and which num- bered about 230 Europeans and 700 sipahis, he intrusted to Paradis, the most capable officer under his orders. The news of the march of this detachment reached Mafauz Khan immediately after the defeat of his cavalry by the Madras garrison. He appears to have instantly taken a resolution worthy of a greater com- * Orme, Dupleix, 194 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, mander. This was to march with the bulk of his force y . to intercept and destroy that small detachment, before 1746. an opportunity should be afforded it of opening com- munications with the garrison of Madras. With this view he marched to St. Thom^, and took up a position on the northern bank of the little river Adyar, which runs into the sea on its southern side, and which it would be necessary for Paradis to cross in order to com- municate with Madras. On the morning of November 4, Paradis came in sight of the host of the Nawwab, numbering nearly 10,000 men, posted on the north bank of the river, their position covered by guns. He had no guns, but he was a man of a stern and a resolute nature, prompt in his decisions, and losing no time in carrying them into effect. He was little startled by the sight before him. His orders were to open communication with Madras, and these he could not carry out by either halting or retreating. He therefore resolved to cut his way through the enemy. Without waiting to reconnoitre, he dashed into the river, which he knew to be fordable, scrambled up the bank in face of the enemy's guns, then halting to deliver one volley, ordered a charge. The effect was electric. The enemy at once gave way, and retreated in terrible confusion into the town, from behind the defences of which they attempted to offer a new resistance. But Paradis was not the man to leave half his work undone. He followed the enemy with vigour, and halted in front of the town, poured in volley after volley on the masses jumbled together in the crowded streets. These had but one thought — to escape. Their very numbers, however, impeded their movement in any direction, and it was not until after many of them had fallen, that they succeeded in extri- cating themselves from their position. Hardly had they accomplished this, however, when they found themselves assailed by another enemy. The garrison of THE DECISIVE VICTORY OF TARADIS. 195 Madras had hastened on the tirst intimation of the chap. approach of Paradis to march to his aid. They arrived . in time to intercept the retreating masses of the 1746. Nawvvab's army, and to convert theu' defeat into an utter and demoralising rout. Their general, Mafauz Khan, had fled on the first charge of the French ; the body of men who formed his army, without a leader, and terror-stricken by their crushing overthrow, at once gave up all thoughts of gaining Madras, and did not halt till they had traversed many miles from that place in the direction of Arkat.* It may be well asserted that of all the decisive actions that have been fought in India, there is not one more memorable than this. Not, indeed, that there has not since been displayed a daring equal to that of Paradis, or that numbers as disproportionate have not within the memory of the living achieved as great a victory. The circumstance which stamps this action as so memorable is that it was the very first of its kind, that it proved, to the surprise of both parties, the absolute and overwhelm- ing superiority of the disciplined European soldier to his Asiatic rival. Up to that time the native princes of India had, by virtue of their position as lords of the soil or as satraps of the Mughal, of their numerous follow- ing, their acknowledged power, arrogated to themselves a superiority which none of the European settlers on the eastern coast had ever thought of disputing. With the French, as we have seen, it had been a maxim of settled policy to avoid even the semblance of hostility towards them. We have noticed how Martin and Dumas and Du- pleix had toiled to effect this end. When at last Dupleix, to avoid a more dangerous contingency, accepted this dreaded alternative, he did so more in the hope that he might find some means of pacifying the Nawwab whilst the siege was in progress, than in any expectation of * Orme, Dupleix. 2 196 THN FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, routing him in the field. And now suddenly, unex- . pectedly, this result had been achieved. From being 1746. the suppliants of the Nawwab of the Karnatik, — the vassals whose very movements depended upon his license, — they in a moment found themselves in reality, his superiors. This action at St. Thom^ in fact, com- pletely reversed tlie positions of the Nawwab and the French Governor. Not only that, but it inaugurated a new era, it introduced a fresh order of things, it was the first decided step to the conquest of Hindustan by an European power. Whether that power were French or English would depend upon the relative strength of either nation, and even more on the character of the men by whom that strength should be put in action. The battle which introduced this change was one then that well deserves to be remembered ; and, in remem- bering it, let not us, who are English, forget to record that the merit of it is due, solely and entirely, to that great nation which fought with us the battle of empire on Indian soil, and did not win it.* To Dupleix this victory presented the means of extri- cating himself from all his difficulties. He now found himself able to carry out the plans which he had con- ceived at the time of the capture of Madras by La Bourdonnais. The conduct of the Nawwab in declaring war against him, in besieging Madras, and in endeavour- ing to intercept and destroy his little army, had quite cancelled the obligation under which he had placed himself to make over to him his conquest. That diffi- culty had been happily surmounted. Nor did the other bequeathed to him by La Bourdonnais, that of restoring * Mr. Orme wrote on this subject: prevailed in all the colonies, from a "It was now more than a century long disuse of arms, had persuaded since any of the European nations them that the Moors were a brave had gained a decisive advantage in and formidable enemy ; when the war against the officers of the Great French at once broke thi'ough the Mughal. The experience of former charm of this timorous opinion, by unsuccessful enterprises, and the defeating a whole army with a single Bcaixtiness of military abilities which battalion. DUPLEIX RETAINS MADRAS BY RIGHT OF CONQUEST. 197 Madras to the English, present any longer an obstacle, chap. He had never ratified the unauthorised engagements into which La Bourdonnais had entered. To him they 1746. were as though they had never been made. Madras, he knew well, would have surrendered at the same time, or at the utmost a day later, had no reference been made to a ransom. The place was not at the time capable of further defence. He regarded it therefore as his conquest, as a lawful prize to French valour, and he determined, now that he possessed the power, to use it for the interests of France, regardless of those en- gagements into which La Bourdonnais had been lured, and which he had never sanctioned. No sooner, then, had he received intimation of the utter defeat of theNawwab's army, and of the triumphant relief of Madras, than he appointed Paradis military governor of that place, instead of Despremesnil, who, as a civilian, would not, he considered, exercise sufficient authority over the troops, and instructed him to issue a declaration proclaiming Madras to be French by right of conquest, and disavowing all engagements entered into by La Bourdonnais as null and void. Paradis was not slow to act upon his orders. He had beaten the Nawwab's army on November 4, and had entered Madras the same day. On the 9th he received his instructions, and on the 10th he issued his proclama- tion. In this, he annulled La Bourdonnais' ransom- treaty ; declared all the merchandise, provisions, warlike stores, and horses to be French property, and ordered all the English residents who would not take the oath of allegiance to the French, to quit the town within four days. On the other hand, the English were permitted to dispose of their moveables, clothes, and jewels, and they were simply required not to serve against the French till they should be exchanged. Governor Morse and the other officials were conveyed as prisoners to Pondichery, where, however, they were treated with the greatest 198 THE FIKST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, courtesy and consideration.* The entire English com- ' , . munity, indeed, protested against the high-handed pro- 1746. ceeding of Paradis, and some of its members even made their escape to Fort St. David. Amongst those who adopted this course was a young writer named Robert Clive. Fort St. David, about twelve miles south of Pondi- chery, and about two north of Gudalur, had been pur- chased by the English in the year 1691, and had been, by degrees, fairly fortified. Its strength for purposes of resistance was increased by its proximity to Gudalur, which was fortified on three sides, the side facing the sea being alone undefended. It had now become, by the capture of Madras, the English seat of government, and those who occupied the chief places of authority were animated by a fixed determination to defend it to the last extremity, — even to invoke, for that purpose, the aid of the native chieftains. It was indeed high time that they should do something, for Dupleix had resolved that their last place of refuge should be his next conquest. This great statesman, in fact, believed that now, after all the vicissitudes of his career, after all the trials he had been subjected to, he had at last found his opportunity. Madras was in his possession ; he was free from all fear of effectual inter- ference on the part of the Nawwab, what was then to hinder him from carrying out his darling plan of expell- ing the English from that coast ? To bring matters to their present point, he had risked the contest with La Bourdonnais, the fury of the ruler of the Karnatik, and now, having attained that end, he felt his hands free to * Mr. Orme declares that the Eng- was invented by La Bourdonnais, lish prisoners were marched in osten- who had left Pondichery long before tatioxisprocession through the streets the prisoners arrived. In vol. xv. of Pondichery, but he gives no au- of the now extinct National Review, thority for his statement. The fact art. " Dupleix," the true version is is that the English prisoners were given on the authority, apparently, of treated with the greatest considera- the Arid Papers. tion. The story of the procession ACTION OF THE NAWWAB OP THE KAKNATIK. 199 push his advantage to its utmost limit, and to strike at chap. Fort St. David. With his accustomed promptitude, he . determined to carry out this plan without any loss of 1746. time, — a determination the more necessary, as he fully expected that a few months would deprive him of the advantage which he then possessed of the mastery at sea. The command of this expedition Dupleix intended to intrust to the officer whom of all under his orders he considered the most capable. This was Paradis. To him, therefore, he sent instructions to return to Poudi- chery with all the troops he could spare, as soon as he should have settled the affairs of Madras, It was not before the first week of December, however, that Paradis was able to move. Leaving then the bulk of the gan'ison behind him, he marched at the head of 300 men, escort- ing the plunder of Madras, in the direction of Pondichery. These proceedings on the part of the French did not escape the attention of the Nawwab. The month that had elapsed since the defeat at St. Thome had very much effaced the sharper stings of the lesson the Mughal had then received. Mafauz Khan, especially, burned with impatience to eftace the galling recollection of that day's defeat. No better opportunity, he thought, would present itself than that which seemed now about to offer, when a body of three hundred men should be embarrassed by the numerous coolies laden with the plunder which they were escorting. Impressed with these ideas, he assembled a body of 3,000 foot and 2,000 horse, the flower of his army, and took up a position at the little village of Kuntur, thirty-two miles south of Madras, through which he knew that the French detachment must pass. Paradis was marching in a careless style, unsuspicious of the vicinity of an enemy. He had divided his force into two bodies, an advanced party and a rear guard, and between these were the coolies. Suddenly the cavalry of Mafauz Khan appeared upon the plain, 200 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, and made as though they would attack the rear-guard. . ' , The attitude of the French, however, shook their resolu- 1746, tion, and they contented themselves with hovering about in the vicinity, dashing at stragglers, and forcing the troops who composed the rear-guard to constant forma- tions. Uneasy at this, and fearing to be overtaken by night before he should reach the Dutch settlement of Sadras, ten miles further on, Paradis at once altered his order of marching. Sending the coolies in front of the troops he covered them with the body that had formed his advanced-guard, and with it hastened on to that place. The rear-guard, meanwhile, had the task assigned it of proceeding at a more leisurely pace, so as to engage the attention of the enemy. This manoeuvre answered all his expectations. The first detachment with the coolies reached Sadras without the loss of a man, whilst of the second, only twelve men were cap- tured, and these more from a disposition to loiter than from the fault of the commander. Arriving at Sadras, Paradis halted until he should receive further rein- forcements. On the arrival of these he marched with- out molestation to join the main encampment of the French army at Ariakupum, a mile and a half south- west of Pondichery. Here he arrived on December 17. Mafauz Khan having found it impossible to gain any material advantage over the French troops, had de- sisted from his attempts after the arrival of the French at Sadras. The junction of Paradis completed all the prepara- tions of Dupleix. With a force of about 900 Euro- peans, 600 natives, 100 Africans, six field-pieces and six mortars, he was, it appeared, absolutely master of the coast. The English garrison of Fort St. David numbered but 200 Europeans and half the number of natives. The French, too, had all the inspiration of recent victory. The success of the intended expedition seemed certain, far more certain in fact than the success FIRST EXPEDITION AGAINST FORT ST. DAVID. 201 of La Bourdonnais had appeared at the period of his chap. attack upon Madras. No one knew better, however, . than Dupleix that, in spite of all favourable appear- i74,e, ances, one necessary element of success was yet want- ing. He had the soldiers, the guns, the munitions of war, but had he the general ^ This was the one want without which the success which seemed to be his would yet slip from his grasp. He knew this well, and with his accustomed energy he set himself to supply it. The Commander-in-chief of the French troops in Pondichery at this time was General de Bury, an officer not only old, but possessing the worst characteristics of age. To intrust the command of the expedition to such a man was, Dupleix felt, to insure its failure. Yet, as the senior, he had the right to command. On the other hand, there was Paradis, the hero of St. Thome, an engineer by profession, and a man whose courage and capacity were established. In his hands the expedition would have the best chance of success. To give the command to Paradis, therefore, all the efforts of Dupleix were directed. Unfortunately for France, and for himself, he did not succeed. There were other officers between Paradis and de Bury, and these protested against such a super- session. His Swiss birth, his inferior rank, the jealousy which his recent success had caused amongst the small- minded, all contributed to hinder the elevation of Paradis, and in the presence of the great discontent which the proposal excited, Dupleix was, at last, forced to abandon the idea. Under the command of de Bury, therefore, the force marched on the night of December 19, crossed the river Panar the following morning with but little oppo- sition, and took possession of a walled garden, about a mile and a half to the north-west of Fort St. David. Here, deeming themselves secure, and being fatigued 202 THE FIEST STRUGGLE IN THE KARXATIK. CHAP, and hungry from their march, the troops lodged their ^' arms, and prepared to cook their dinners. 3^746. It is time now that we should turn to the movements of the English. Instated by the high-handed proceed- ings of Dupleix at Madras, by the abrogation of the treaty, these had resolved to undergo any extremity rather than surrender. In addition to the gan-ison of 300 men, to which we have adverted, they had taken into their service 1,000 irregular native troops, known then by the name of peons, and, what was of more importance, they had entered into an intimate alliance with the Nawwab. In concert with him, it had been agreed that, whilst the French should be engaged in the attack on Fort St. David and Gudalur, both of which they were determined to defend to the utmost, he should suddenly seize that opportunity to assail them, and place them between two fires. It is probable that had the French been led by a general of even ordinary capacity this attack would have failed, but de Bury was wanting in all the quali- ties that go to form a general. In taking possession of the garden, and allowing his troops to disperse to cook their morning meal, he considered he had quite suffi- ciently acted his part. He took no care that pickets should be told off, or sentries posted. Not a single man was, therefore, on the look out. Carelessly giving himself to the repose which his age required, de Bury acted, and allowed his soldiers to act, as though he and they had just completed an ordinary march, in a time of peace, through a friendly country. Eightly was he punished for this neglect. His men were dispersed, their arms grounded, he himself taking his repose, when suddenly the alarm was given that the enemy were upon them. A panic seized them. Grasp- ing at the first weapon that was at hand, some indeed half-dressed, they rushed disorderly to quit a place which they might have defended against the Nawwab's THE FRENCH SURPRISED AND REPULSED. 203 whole army. Their one thought was to reach and cross chap. the river, and towards it they ran without order or _ ' . array. But the enemy, who were 6,000 horse and 1746, 3,000 foot of the Nawwab's army, commanded by his two sons, were there before them. Notwithstanding this, the French rushed recklessly into the river, im- patient only to gain the opposite bank. Fortunately for them, their artillery, which was admirably handled, and to the troops composing which the panic had not extended, kept the enemy at a distance. More than that, its commander, not content with covering the disordered retreat of the infantry, deliberately trans- ported his own guns, one by one across the river, in face of the enemy, and, when on the other bank, served them so as to keep the Mughals at bay. It was not until the French had retreated for upwards of two hours, that the natives could be prevailed upon to pursue them, and then only after they had been urged thereto by the English garrison of Fort St. David, which had arrived too late to take any part in the skirmish at the river Panar. The pursuit was fruitless in results. The French had long before recovered from their panic, and the attitude they presented on the approach of the enemy, made the Mughal princes think rather of their own safety than of an attack on their position. M. de Bury on his part was equally indis- posed to expose his army to further risks. As soon, therefore, as the allied force of the English and Mii- ghals commenced a retrograde movement towards Gu- dalur, he continued his retreat to xlriakupum, where he arrived the same evening, after having sustained a loss in this ill-conducted expedition of twelve men killed and a hundred and twenty wounded. A small quantity of muskets and stores, which had been left behind in the garden at Gudalur, fell likewise into the hands of the enemy. On their side the French could congratu- late themselves only on the facts that they had saved Ii04 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, all their guns, and that they had killed and wounded of the Nawwab's army upwards of two thousand men.* 1746. For three weeks after this fruitless expedition, the French army continued in its encampment. Dupleix, however, had not been idle. On the fresh outbreak of hostilities, he had despatched instructions to M. Dor- delin, who, it will be remembered, commanded the squadron which had gone to winter at Achin, to hasten with his four shipsf to the coast. In the expectation of the early arrival of these, he resolved to re-open negotiations with the Nawwab, to point out to him the folly of extending further protection to a people, re- duced, as were the English, to the last extremity, and the expediency of maintaining amicable relations with the European power, which, in Europe as in Asia, occupied the first position among nations. That self- interest might aid in inducing the Nawwab to lend a willing ear to these proposals, he directed the comman- dant of Madras to undertake without delay measures to threaten Arkat with an attack from a French army. The messengers of Dupleix found the Nawwab tired of fruitless hostilities, and not altogether indisposed to enter into an accommodation with the French, though still demanding the execution of the original agree- ment. To induce him either to decide at once, or to render his decision of less importance, Dupleix deter- mined to endeavour to surprise Gudalur. On the night 1747. of January 10, he embarked five hundred men from the camp at Ariakupum in boats for the purpose. The night was dark but fine, Gudalur was open on the seaside, and everything promised success. But the boats had hardly got through the surf, when a storm arose which forced them to return. Ten days later, M. Dordelin's squadron arrived. It now seemed to lie in the power of Dupleix to make • Orme, Dupleix. , ^ t ■ .. The "Centaure," the "Biillant," the "Mars, and the " &t. Louis. THE FRENCH AGAm MOVE ON GUDALUR. 205 upon the English settlement a combined attack by sea chap. and land such as must be fatal. It is difficult to say why the attempt was not made. The importance of it 1747, was undoubtedly obvious to Dupleix. It is probable, however, that he was hampered by the character of his naval and military commanders. Dordelin was feeble and unenterprising; de Bury, as we have seen, worn out and incapable. But though he did not use the squadron for the pur- pose to which he might, under better auspices, have directed it, its presence on the coast was not abso- lutely resultless. The Nawwab, struck by this accession of force, and learning at the same time that the country around Arkat had been ravaged by the French troops, could no longer resist the conclusion that he had en- gaged in a struggle which could but end in loss and dishonour to himself; that the English had evidently been abandoned even by their own countrymen, and that every consideration of policy prompted him to ac- cept the offers of the French Governor. He no longer therefore continued to insist upon the fulfilment of the agreement regarding Madras, but signed at once a treaty, by which the French were confirmed in posses- sion of all the territories which they then held, and the Nawwab agreed to leave the English to their fate. This treaty was ratified by Mafauz Khan in person during a visit of ceremony which he paid to Dupleix at Pondichery, at the end of the following February. Now, at last, the English were apparently in his power. Abandoned by everyone, numbering but three hundred, occupying a position little capable of pro- longed defence, what could possibly save them ? If, at this conjuncture, Dupleix had put into action that great principle of warfare, — a principle appliable alike to all transactions in which men ordinarily engage, — to bring the greatest force to bear on the decisive point of the scene of contest, he must have gained his great end. 1747. 206 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP. Between the time of Dordeliu's Mirival, January 20, and ^- the visit of Mafauz Khan at the end of February, there had been ample time to carry out an expedition, which must under ordinary circumstances have succeeded. In allowing his fleet and army to remain inactive during this period, we fail to trace the practical ability and fertile genius which so often guided the operations of the French governor. The inactivity is the more inex- plicable as Dupleix well knew that Commodore Peyton's squadron in the Hugli was waiting only the arrival of reinforcements, then daily expected, to re-assert the predominance of the English power in the Bay of Bengal. It is possible, indeed, that this very knowledge may have contributed to his inaction. We have seen how in his correspondence with La Bourdonnais, he clung to the idea of keeping a reserve of French ships within call of Pondichery. Dordelin's squadron was all that remained to him, and it can be conceived that he hesi- tated to engage those four ships, under a commander so wanting in energy and steadfastness, against the batteries of Fort St. David, knowing, as he did, that the northerly breezes which at that season blew down the Bay might at any moment bring upon them the squadron of Peyton, reinforced by fresh ships from England. It is probable, likewise, that the same consideration urged him, as soon as his negotiations with the Nawwab had been brought to a successful close, to despatch that squadron to the safe and neutral anchorage of Goa. This he did on February 19. But whatever were his motives, whether he was in- fluenced by the considerations we have suggested, or by others of which we have no knowledge,* it is certain * In his memoir, Dupleix does rot the superiority at sea was about allude to the possibility of usin^ his to pass almost immediately to the ships for the purpose of attackim? English, he could not better employ Gudalur and Fort St. David, al- his time than to endeavour to detach thoug-h Gudalur, at least, was open the uative powers from their alli- towards the sea. He seems to have ance. been impressed by the idea that, as PARADIS IS APPOINTED TO COMMAND. 20' that he lost a golden opportunity. He too was fated chap. soon to experience the truth that such opportunities, , ] ' once granted, are seldom vouchsafed a second time ; 1747 that, when offered, therefore, they ought to be seized with a promptitude and used with a determination before which all other considerations should be made to give way. He did not, however, at all resign the great object of all his political manoeuvres. On the contrary, he was more than ever bent on the expulsion of the English from Fort St. David. No sooner then had the accom- modation with the Nawwab been completed, and the Mughal troops withdrawn, then he summoned a council of war, placed before it the situation in which he was, the daily expected approach of an English squadron, and the expediency of attempting once more the capture of Eort St. David. He urged at the same time the fit- ness of Paradis for the command, and pressed upon the assembled officers the necessity of suppressing all con- siderations of self-interest in the presence of a crisis, calling so much for self-denial and earnest co-operation for a great end, as that which then existed. This appeal to their patriotism was at once heartily responded to, and the French officers consented to acknowledge and obey Paradis as their general. Before, however, all these preliminaries had been carried out, the garrison of Fort St. David had received a small reinforcement of twenty men, and a considerable supply of money. An English ship decoyed into the Madras roads at the end of November by the sight of the English colours flying over the fort, and then sud- denly attacked, had managed nevertheless* to escape and make its way to Trinkamali. There the captain received information of the actual state of affairs on tlie * Other ships were not so fortu- stores of all sorts, was entrapped into nate. One especially, having on the roadstead in the same manner hoard £60,000 in biiUion, besides and there boarded. — Orme. 208 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN TPIE KARNATIK. CHAP. Koromandel coast, and thinking he might be able to . serve his countrymen, he gallantly resolved to bear up 1747. for Fort St. David. He succeeded in this, in spite of the four ships of war under the unenterprising Dordelin and conveyed to the English garrison a reinforcement of twenty men and £60,000 in silver. This was the more acceptable, as, shortly before, another English ship, carrying soldiers and bullion, and consigned to Madras, had touched at Fort St. David, where deeming the state of the garrison irretrievable, her captain had refused to land either soldiers or money, but had pro- ceeded in all haste to Bengal. The small reinforcement we have referred to reached Fort St. David on March 2. On the 13th, Paradis put his troops in motion, and marching along the coast, took up a position the same day on the north of the Panar, about a quarter of a mile from the river. The Panar, though in some parts fordable, was in others of a sufficient depth to make crossing in the face of an enemy a difficult operation. Knowing this, the Eng- lish garrison wisely resolved not to wait for the French within the walls of the fort, but to oppose the passage of the river. They accordingly moved out, took up a position on the southern bank of the Panar, and com- menced a brisk cannonade on the French with three field-pieces they had brought with them. Paradis, for the time, contented himself with replying, but in the evening he moved with the bulk of his force higher up the river, and crossed it without opposition, — the Eng- lish volunteers, who had been sent to observe him, retiring on the loss of two of their number, and retreat- ing with the main body within the fort. Paradis im- mediately took possession of the walled garden from which De Bury in the former expedition had fled so precipitately, and made his preparations for the attack on the fort on the following day. Then was seen, with a clearness incapable of being t'ORTlJNE REFUSES A SECOND CHANCE. 209 aiisunderstoofl, the terrible, the fatal effect of throwing chap. away an opportunity. From December 10 to February ^__,_^ 13, the French army had been idle at Ariakupum. 1717. Dordelin's squadron had arrived on January 20, and within ten days of its arrival, the Nawwab had signified his intention of withdrawing his support from the English. Had Paradis been allow^ed to march even a month earlier, on February 13 instead of March 13, he must have been able, within those twenty-eight days, to force his way into Fort St. David. Even one week earlier, and his chances would have been considerable. Whilst Dordelin's squadron might have attacked the open face of Gudalur with a certainty of mastering it, he might have moved, with an equal confidence of victory, upon Fort St. David. That it would have fallen may be considered certain when we recollect how quickly it surrendered, after its defences had been greatly strengthened, some years later, to the attack of Lally. Had that been accomplished, the fleets of Eng- land would have found no resting-place for the soldiers they carried with them on the soil of the Karnatik, and the foundations of a French Empire might have been laid. But it was not to be. The inaction of one month, unexplained, and to our minds inexplicable, threw away that great chance, lost that splendid opportunity. In this one instance, Dupleix acted as though he believed he could count for ever on the favours of Fortune. The fickle goddess showed him in return that she will never continue to help those who decline to help themselves. She aids the daring and skilful warrior, but she leaves him the exercise of his free will. Should he evince carelessness, indecision, or blindness, she leaves him then, and rightly leaves him, to the consequences of his own acts. On March 14, Paradis was in the position, in which, had Dupleix willed it, he might have been early in P 210 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP. February. In February he would have had the Eng- . lish garrison, then having received no reinforcement 1747. and destitute of supplies, to deal with. But, on the morning of March 14, as, before making his advance against the fort, he cast his eyes over the sea, the sight of several vessels, evidently vessels of war, sailing from the north, met his anxious gaze. Who could these strangers be 1 Not Dordelin and his ships, for Dordelin, he knew, was well on his way to Goa. They could scarcely even be French, for the French had but one vessel in the Madras roads. Who could they be, he felt, but the reinforced squadron of Peyton? His un- certainty, if he felt any, did not last long. The hoisting of the Union Jack soon told him that the third ex- pedition against Fort St. David had failed. It was, indeed, the long expected, long dreaded squad- ron, reinforced by two ships, one of sixty, one of forty guns, and what was of equal consequence, strengthened by the arrival of a new commander. This officer. Ad- miral Griffin, learning at Calcutta the danger which threatened Fort St. David, had sailed without delay to its succour, and thus arrived in time to save it and the English garrison from the fate by which both were threatened. He brought with him as a permanent re- inforcement a hundred Europeans from Bengal, but the sailors on board the squadron were capable of affording still more efficient aid. Under such circumstances but one course remained to Paradis. The arrival of this fleet endangered the safety of Pondichery. His little army constituted the main strength of that place, as well for defence as for attack. Thither, accordingly, he must return. He made up his mind at once, and before the English had recovered from the reaction of joy which the arrival of their ships produced amongst them, he had re-crossed the Panar, and was well on his way to Ariakupum. There he arrived the same evening. A few days after, THE ENGLISH THREATEN PONDICHERY. 211 on the appearance of Admiral Griffin's fleet before Pon- chap, dichery, he was recalled within the town. It was now the turn of Dupleix to be cut off from I7i7. the sea, to be left entirely to his own resources. Not only was a powerful English fleet in the Pondichery roadstead, but ships from England, from Bombay, Telli- cheri, and other places, continued to bring reinforce- ments to the garrison of Fort St. David. The three hundred Europeans and natives of which it was com- posed in January, had increased in July to 2,000, in- cluding upwards of 600 sailors borrowed from the fleet. The friendship of the Nawwab, he knew, would always go with the stronger power. Madras had but a small garrison, and any movement of the Nawwab's troops would cut off the only possible communication, — that by land, — with Pondichery, whilst that city itself lay exposed to the bombardment, as well as to the blockade, of a powerful squadron. Yet Dupleix was born to shine in adversity. Never did his great quali- ties appear so great as when he was surrounded by dangers. Though cut off from all communication with the sea, he yet managed to send instructions to Dor- delin to proceed, as soon as the monsoon should be over, to the islands, to join his squadron to any French ships that should be there, and to represent to the governor the necessity under which he was of speedy and efficient aid. He held himself, meanwhile, ready not only to defend Pondichery against all attacks, but even, should occasion ofter, to retaliate on the enemy. The possession of the Isles of France and Bourbon, midway between the mother country and India, gave the French a very great advantage over their English rivals in this early stage of the battle for empire. These islands formed, in fact, the base of the operations, naval and military, which the French undertook in India. They were believed to be secure against hostile attacks, and a French squadron could wait its opportunitv in p 2 212 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, the commodious harbour of Port Louis ; could re-fit v . and re-Mctual there ; and could reckon, almost to a cer- 1747. tainty, the chances of meeting or avoiding a hostile fleet. There single ships could be detained, as they had been in the time of La Bourdon nais, until a sufficient number should be collected ; and even should that number prove insufficient for the purpose required, that man, full of energy and resources, had proved the possibility of pro- viding ships from materials which were to be found in the islands. The English possessed no such position. It was only when allied, as they were on the occasion of which we are writing, with the republic of Holland, that they were able to make use of the Cape of Good Hope, and even to augment their armament from its resources. This uncertain and temporary advantage, however, liable at times to be rendered nugatory, was not to be compared with the permanent benefit result- ing to the inhabitants of Pondichery from the posses- sion of a solid point (Vappui in the Indian Ocean. It was to derive from these islands the advantages they were so well capable of aftbrding that Dupleix despatched Dordelin on his mission. His arrival at the islands in December, 1747, was opportune. He found the Governor of Bourbon, M. Bouvet, well inclined to respond to the call, and possessing or expecting the means which would enable him to do so wdth efiect. In fact one ship of fifty guns, and another of forty, had arrived some short time since from France, conveying reinforcements and treasure for Pondichery. They had subsequently proceeded on a cruise in search of prizes, but their return was shortly expected. Two smaller vessels were in Port Louis ready to sail. Accidental causes deferred the departure of this squadron, consisting, by the return of the cruising ves- sels, of seven large ships* and two small ones, from * There was oue oi 74 guns, oue of 5tj, two of 50, two of 40, aud one of 26 guns. FRENCH REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVE. 213 the islands, till the begiiiiiiiig of May. M. Bouvet then t;HAP. set sail, having a fair wind, arrived off Karikal about '^, the middle of June. There he learned the superiority 1748. in numbers of the English squadron,* and he resolved, instead of hazarding an engagement, the result of which might jeopardise and even ruin French interests in India, to manoeuvre so as to delude the English admiral with the expectation of a contest, and to take advantage of the darkness of the night to run on to Madras. He carried out his plan with exceeding skill. Arriving off Fort St. David on the afternoon of the 21st, and descry- ing and being descried by the English squadron, with which, he being to windward, it was optional to him to engage, he altered his course to the south-west, as though he intended to wait for the morning to attack. The English admiral was so impressed with the idea that either this or a desire to gain Pondichery was his inten- tion, that he took no more advantage of the land wind which blew from off the coast in the evening, than to maintain out at sea the latitude of Fort St. David. But night had no sooner fallen than the French admiral again altered his course, and stood up for Madras. Having reached it the following morning, he waited only to land 300 soldiers, including several that were invalids, and £200,000, in silver; this successfully achieved, he hastened back to the Isle of France, havino- completely deceived the English Admiral, and accom- plished at least one great part of his purpose. But the indirect effects of this expedition were greater even than those which were apparent. Ignorant of the course taken by the French fleet, Admiral GriflSn left his position off Fort St. David to go in search of it. This intelligence had no sooner reached Dupleix than he determined to profit by it, and by a bold effort to surprise Gudalur. To this end he despatched on the * This consisted of three ships ot 00 guns, three of 50, three of 40, and one of 20 guns. 214 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNA'TIK. CHAP. 27th June a force of 1,800 men, of whom 800 were ^' Europeans, to make such a detour as would bring them 1748. without being observed into the vicinity of that town, upon which they were to fall in the darkness of mid- night. But Major Lawrence, who had arrived shortly before from England to command the English forces in India, was too well served by his subordinates. He was informed, not only of the approach of the French, but of their intentions. Not only did he make no secret of the knowledge, he openly used it to increase the confi- dence of the enemy. He ostentatiously removed the garrison and the guns from Gudalur, and gave out that he intended to confine himself to the defence of Fort St. David. No sooner, however, had night fallen than he threw a strong garrison into the place, and mounted all the guns he could spare upon the ramparts. The French, completely deceived by his movements during the day, made sure of their conquest, and neglected every precaution. At midnight they advanced care- lessly towards the place, believing they would meet with only a nominal resistance. But they had scarcely planted their scaling ladders than they were received with such a fire of grapeshot and small arms as sent destruction and disorder into their ranks. Utterly con- founded and panic-stricken they retreated in the utmost confusion, scarcely stopping for a halt till, baffled and humiliated, they reached Pondichery.* Thus, for the fourth time, was Dupleix forced to re- nounce his designs upon the last refuge of the English. The fault on this occasion was certainly not his own. An experienced and resolute general at the head of such a force as that of which the French detachment was composed, would have made Major Lawrence bitterly regret his finesse. Had the French advanced against Gudalur as soon as they observed its walls dismantled * We have been unable to aseer- manded the French troops on this tain the name of the officer who com- occasion. DANGERS THREATENING PONDICHERY. 215 and its garrison retreating the chances in their favour chai*. would have been very great. Major Lawrence, and not . the French, would then have been surprised ; the tables 1748. would have been turned on the author of the stratagem. But to do this required a head to devise, a resolution to execute promptly and at the moment. These were want- ing in the leader of the French force. A foolish confi- dence reigned where energy and watchfulness ought to have held sway, and the movement which might have been made fatal to the English was, without thought, without examination, tacitly and complacently permitted by the French leader to become the means of inflicting upon his army a terrible defeat — upon the French colony a danger that appeared to forebode almost inevitable destruction. For, in ordering this last attack, Dupleix had a far different purpose than that by which he was prompted in sanctioning those that preceded it. Then he was fighting for empire — he was struggling to expel the English from the coast. But since the last attack for that object, made on March 14th of the previous year, had been foiled by the arrival of ihe English fleet, the aspect of affairs had changed. It was not only that Admiral Griffin still remained on the coast preventing French traffic, obstructing all communication with France it was not alone that M. Bouvet had appeared off Madras only to land a few soldiers and to return to the islands; but since that attack, intelligence had reached Dupleix that the English had fitted out a most formidable fleet and army, larger than any that had yet appeared in the Indian seas, with the express object of laying siege to Pondichery, and of retorting upon that city the disaster which had befallen Madras. He knew, from letters re- ceived from the French Ministry, that that fleet and army had left England during the preceding November, and might be expected to appear at any moment in the Bay of Bengal. It was, then, in an entirely defensive point of 216 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, view that he had designed his fourth attack upon ^' Gudalur. Securing that place, and by its means Fort 1748, St. David, during the absence of Admiral Griffin, he would have deprived the English force of any base of operations on the shore, and would have compelled them to attempt, in the face of an enemy, a landing upon a coast which presented natural difficulties of a most formidable character. The carelessness of his officers defeated, however, this well-considered pro- ject. Forced then, once again, to depend upon his own resources, to resign himself to defence, he began, with characteristic energy, to strengthen as much as possible, before the enemy should appear, the places which he yet held. Of these, next to Pondichery, the principal was Ariakupum, a small post a mile and a half from Pondichery, and the same distance from the sea. To this place Paradis was sent, in his capacity of chief engineer, with instructions to make it as capable as possible of defence. He executed his instructions in a most effective manner. The fort itself Avas a triangle, with but few defences exterior or interior. Paradis set to work to construct three cavaliers within the body of the place, a deep ditch, and a covered way. The care of the works thus fortified was consigned to a young captain, named Law, a nephew of the famous Scotch financier, whose influence on the affairs of the French India Company has been before referred to. We have already recorded the noble manner in which Dupleix, in the early days of his administration, had devoted himself to the completion of the defences of Pondichery.* The fortifications facing the sea, on which he had laboured, with so much earnestness, consisted of two demi-bastions, one at each extremity of the face. On the three other sides the city was defended by a wall and a rampart, flanked by eleven * Chapter III. THE DEFENCES OF rONDICIIERY. 217 bastions. The entire works were surrounded by a chap ditch and an imperfect glacis.* The side opposite to '^ . the sea, facing tlie interior, was also defended by several vX^. low batteries, ca])able of nioiuiting upwards of a hun- dred pieces of cannon, and commanding the approaches from that side. Besides these artificial defences was a formidable natural protection, consisting of a hedge of prickly pear, which, beginning on the north side at the sea, a mile from the town, continued a semicircle all round it, until it joined the river Ariakupum, close to the fort of the same name ; from that point the river continued the line of defence to the sea. Within this enclosure were cocoa-nut and palm trees so thickly studded as to render the ground very difficult for the advance of an enemy. Of these fortifications, Paradis, after the completion of the defences of Ariakupum, was constituted chief engineer, and charged with the defence. It will be recollected that, on the occasion of the attack upon the French at St. Thome by the Dutch, in 1674, that enterprise owed its success principally to the fact that the Dutch admiral had succeeded in induciutj the King of Golkonda to operate by a land attack at the same time ; and that similarly, during the siege of Pondichery, in 1693, the Dutch had enlisted in their service a large body of native troops. Dupleix was now warned by the French Minister that these tactics would again be pursued, that immense efforts would be made to gain over the native princes to English interests, and that the English commandant was well provided with presents for that especial purpose. Leaving, for a moment, the French governor devoting himself to the defence of the territories which ho held • The account of the fortifications lish officer present at the siege, of Pondichery, and of the siege reprinted in the Asiatic A nnuaX generally, so far as relates to the liegister for 1802, and which Mr, operations of the English, has been Orme copied almost verbatim. taken from the journal of an Eug- 218 THE STRUGGLE IN THE KARNXtIK. CHAP, for his sovereign, and endeavouring, by all the means . in his power, to counteract beforehand the effects which 1748. the presents of the English were, he well knew, only too likely to produce on the mind of the Nawwab, Anwaru-din, we must turn to the proceedings of that fleet, the departure of which from England had caused so much perturbation and excitement in the French settlement. It was true, indeed, that the English East India Company, indignant at the loss of Madras, had determined to spare no efforts for its recovery, and that the English Ministry, sharing the sentiments prevalent at the India House, had promised to aid it with a fleet and army. Of these, when all the other arrangements for their departure had been determined, the double command was bestowed upon Rear-Admiral the Hon. E. Boscawen, this constituting the second and final occasion, subsequently to the Revolution of 1688, in which two such commands were united in the same person. Admiral Boscawen was a man of birth and character. A grand-nephew of the famous Marlborough, he had entered the navy at the age of twelve years, and, pass- ing with credit through all the subordinate grades, had found himself, when only twenty-six years old, captain of a man-of-war. Two years later, the ship which he commanded formed a part of that fleet at the head of which Admiral Vernon took Porto Bello and failed at Carthagena. In these expeditions, only partially suc- cessful as they were. Captain Boscawen lost no oppor- tunity of distinguishing himself, and he soon acquired a reputation for skill and enterprise such as, combined with his high birth, marked him out for future com- mand. This was not long in coming to him. When it was decided in England to make a great effort to deliver a counter-stroke for the capture of Madras, Boscawen, then only in his thirty-sixth year, was selected to com- VOYAGE OF TIIK EXGLISIT FLEET. 219 mand the expedition. The instructions he received chap. were to endeavour to deprive the French of the base of ^— .^!^^ their operations against India, by the capture of the 1748 Isles of France and Bourbon, and, succeeding or not in that, to deliv^er his main blow against Pondichery itself. On this expedition, with eight ships of war,* and a convoy of eleven ships, having on board 1,400 regular troops, Boscawen left England on November 15, 1747. The greater number of his ships reached the Cape of Good Hope on April 9 of the following year. The remainder arrived sixteen days later, but it was not tiU May 19 that the admiral left Table Bay for the islands. He had recived here, however, a considerable accession of force in six ships and 400 soldiers belong- ing to the Dutch East India Company. The united force, with the exception of three vessels, sighted the French islands on the morning of July 4. Had the Isle of France been in the same position with respect to its defences in which it was in 1735, the English admiral would have found little difficulty in gaining possession of it. But by the efforts of La Bourdonnais, during the first five years of his adminis- tration, fortifications had been erected all along the coast, such as rendered an attack upon it, especially at a season of the year when the wind blew strongly from the land, a matter of great uncertainty. Thus, although the garrison was small, consisting of only 500 regular troops and 1,000 sailors lent from the ships at anchor in the harbour, the defences had been so skilfully thrown up, and there appeared to be such a firm resolu- tion to defend them with pertinacity, that the admiral, after three days spent in examination of the coast, and in futile efibrts to obtain some information as to the strength of the garrison, felt constrained to call a * The fleet was composed of one 14 guns, a bomb-ketch, M-ith her ship of 74 giins, one of 64, two of tender, and a hospital-ship. — Orme. 60, two of 50, one of 20, a sloop of 220 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, council of war to deliberate on the expediency of an . attack. At this council it was resolved, with the con- 1748. currence of the admiral, to avoid un encounter which might perhaps disable the fleet from attempting its greater undertaking, and to push on with all speed to Pondichery. It set sail for Fort St. David accordingly on the following day, and, parting company with the Dutch ships, arrived there on August 11, effecting a junction with Admiral Griffin's squadron. This union constituted a force at the disposal of the English Commander the most powerful that had ever arrived in the Indian seas — far more so than that with which the Dutch had conquered Pondichery in 1693, and infinitely more effective than that which La Bourdonnais had led to the capture of Madras. In this case, more- over, the English admiral was at ease regarding his communications. There was no hostile fleet threaten- ing to interfere with his plans, or to contest with him the supremacy at sea. He was in possession of such strength* that he was able to divest his mind of all fears of naval attack, and to flatter himself with a cer- tainty of the conquest of Pondichery. To attempt this last he landed an army which, by its junction with the troops already at Fort St. David, and with 120 Dutch sent from Nagapatan, amounted to 6,000 men, of whom 3,720 were Europeans. Of this force he detached 700 Europeans, on the morning of August 19, to attack Ariakupum. We have noticed the preparations which Dupleix had made at this place — the outwork of Pon- dichery — to resist the enemy. So secretly had the plans of Paradis been carried out, that the English were entirely unacquainted with the additions that had been just made to its strength, and, like the French before Gudalur, they marched to its attack with a careless con- * His fleet after the junction with 30 ships, of which 13 were ships of the fleet of Admiral GrifEn, who the line. — Or me. himself left for England, consisted of SIEGE OF PONDICHERY. 221 fidence, that seemed to betoken a certainty on their part chap. of easy victory. Law, who commanded the garrison, allowed them to approach within forty yards of the works um. without firing a shot. Then, however, he opened upon them with grapeshot and musketry, making great havoc in their ranks. The Enghsh, completely surprised, without scaling ladders, unable to advance and unwilling to retreat, for a short time kept their ground. But as the fire of the enemy continued they became sensible of the folly of a further persistence in attack. They accordingly moved off, but not until they had lost 150 of their number killed and wounded. This success greatly inspirited the French garrison, and restored to its soldiers the confidence which their several repulses at Gudalur had taken from them. They had reason now to hope that a persistent defence at Ariakupum would contribute to save Pondichery. Impressed with this view, they proceeded at once to throw up a battery of heavy guns on the opposite side of the little river, to the north of the fort, by means of which an advancing enemy would be taken in flank and enfiladed. Upon this the English, after one or two failures, erected a battery covered by an intrenchment, to reply to and silence the enemy's fiie, and manned it partly by sailors from the fleet. Law, however, resolved to take advantage of the enthusiasm which his recent success had excited amongst his garrison, and moved out of the fort with 60 cavalry and about 150 infantry, under cover of fire from the ramparts. Charging them at the head of his horse, he threw, first the sailors, and immediately afterwards, the regular troops, into disorder, drove them from the intrenchment, and took some prisoners, conspicuous amongst whom was Major Lawrence, whose defence of Fort St. David and Grudalur had given him a reputation which he was soon to raise to a far greater height. Up to this point the French had great reason to con- 222 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, gratulate themselves on the success which had attended V " . their defensive operations. They began even to entertain 1748. the hope of keeping Ariakupum secure from the enemy. But, at this crisis, one of those accidents from which no army is absolutely secure occurred to dash their hopes. A large store of gunpowder within the fort was suddenly ignited and exploded. The effect was most disastrous. Nearly a hundred men of the garrison were killed and wounded, and, what was of greater importance, a convic- tion was produced in the mind of their leader, that the place could no longer be successfully defended. They accordingly blew up the walls and the cavaliers, and retreated at once within Pondichery. Still, however, their success against the English had produced a great effect upon the garrison of that city. Their confidence too was increased by observing the caution of the English commander. Admiral Boscawen, indeed, occupied Ariakupum on its evacuation by the French, but, instead of moving at once upon Pondichery, he remained five days to repair the fortifications of a place which was useless to him, and which, in its dis- mantled state, could not be used to any purpose by the enemy. On the 6th September, however, Boscawen moved on Pondichery, taking possession of a redoubt in the north- west angle of the prickly pear hedge. But it was not until the 10th that he opened ground, and then only at a distance of 1,500 yards from the covered way. The next day 150 men having been detached to make a lodge- ment about a hundred yards nearer, 1,200 men of the crarrison* under the command of Paradis, made a sortie, attacking both trenches at once. But the fall of Paradis, who was mortally wounded early in the sally, threw the party into disorder, and it was repulsed with the loss of seven officers and a hundred men. The death of Para- * The French gaFrison consisted of 1,800 Europeans and 3,000 sipahis. — Ditpleix. SIEGE OF PONDICHERY. 223 dis, which occurred within a few days of his wound, was chap. the greatest misfortune that could have occurred to Dupleix at this conjuncture. He was his most capable 1748. officer — the only man upon whose combined prudence, knowledge and daring he could absolutely rely. In his memoirs he describes him as " a man of intelligence, well acquainted with his profession, thoroughly familiar with the locality, and with all the defects of the place. He had prepared all manner of devices to offer opposi- tion to the enemy, especially in the weak points of the defences." The loss of such a man was the greater, as there was no one within the walls to supply his place. That is, rather, there would have been no one, had not Dupleix himself showed that great genius is capable of universal application, and that the arts of the warrior are not beyond its attainment. Another, though a lesser, misfortune befell him at the same time. True to the instructions he had received in England, Admiral Boscawen had not delayed to urge the Nawwab of the Karnatik to pronounce decidedly against those Erench, whose destruction he announced to be cer- tain. The admiral supported his requisition by presents of considerable value. Dupleix had little to offer on his part. Yet so great was the respect in which the French name was held, so high the opinion entertained of the great qualities of Dupleix, that, notwithstanding his apparently forlorn and helpless condition, the Nawwab hesitated long before he gave way to the entreaties of Boscawen. It was only after the fall of Ariakupum, and when the French were shut up within the walls of Pondichery, that he agreed to the alliance pressed upon him, and promised to assist the English with 2,000 horse. He actually sent, however, only 300 men, and those towards the conclusion of the siege. One consequence of the death of Paridis was that the management of all the details of the defence devolved upon Dupleix. To use his own modest expression. 224 TUE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, "the study of mathematics, and especially of fortifica . , ' ^ , tioii, which his father had impressed upon him, became 1748. noAV of great assistance to him ; ho was sufficiently fortunate to be able to recollect the knowledge of this nature which he had acquired, so that all his operations succeeded even beyond his hopes."* Fortunately for him, his efforts were seconded by the inexperience of the English admiral in military operations, and the con- sequent neglect by him of some of the first principles affecting the conduct of a siege. But even this incapa- city would not have interfered with the ultimate success of the English, had the garrison been permitted to give way to the despondency which reigned among them, in consequence of the death of the chief engineer. It was Dupleix who prevented this. It was Dupleix who, calm in danger, maintained an outward serenity and confidence that became contagious ; who, by the atten- tion he paid to all points of the defence, by the skill with which he strengthened the Aveak places and re- paired those damaged by the enemy's fire, speedily transferred to his own person a belief in his capacity that savoured almost of enthusiasm. It was, in a word, this civilian governor who became the life of the defence, the hope of the defenders, the one principal cause of the ill success of the besiegers. From the 6th of September, the day on which Bos- caweu moved on Pondichery, to the 17th October, forty- two days of open trenches, the siege was pushed with all the vigour of which the English leader was capable. But his efforts were thwarted by the skill and gallantry of Dupleix. Constant sorties, more or less successful, always retarded and often eftectually destroyed the approaches of the besiegers. The English having, after much labour, advanced to the trenches within eight hundred yards of the walls, found that owing to the existence of a morass, it was impossible to carry them * Memoire pour Dupleix. BOSCAWEN RAISES THE SIEGE. 225 further on that side, and that it had become necessary chap. to raze the batteries that had been erected. When at last a heavy fire was opened on another part of the uis. town, they discovered that owing to the skill and energy of Dupleix, the fire of the besieged at that point was double that of the besiegers. The ships of the fleet which were brought up, as a last resource, to bombard the town, were compelled to sheer off after receiving much more damage than they had been able to inflict.* So energetic, so determined, so successful was the de- fence, that the English admiral found, at the end of five weeks, that he had actually gained no ground at all ; that he had lost some of his best ofiicers and very many men ; that the enemy had been able to concen- trate on his several attacks a fire far more destructive than that which he had been able to bring to bear on their defences. Added to this, the periodical rains which began to fall at the end of September had brought sickness into his camp, and had warned him that the real difficulties of his position were only about to begin. Under these circumstances, acting under the advice of a council of war, he commenced on the 14th October the destruction of the batteries, and the re- embarkation of the sailors and heavy stores. On the 17th, this vast army, the largest European force that had till then appeared on Indian soil, and which counted Clivef amongst its ranks, broke up and retreated to Fort St. David, leaving behind it 1,065 men, who had perished either from the fire of the enemy, or from sickness contracted during the siege. J * The author of the joxirDal before trenches on this occasion, and hy his referred to, naively remarks that gallant conduct gave the first prog- " owing to the distance of the ships j ostic of that high military spirit, from the town, and the heavy swell which was the spring of his luture of the sea, shots never successively actions, and the principal source_ of struck the same object." the decisive intrepidity and elevation t The author of the journal writes of mind, which were his character- as follows : " The celebrated Lord istic endowments." Clive, then an ensign, served in the + The loss of the French durinf? Q 226 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARN^TIK. CHAP. Thus had Dupleix, by his firmness, his skill, the , wonderful activity of his genius, baffled that great 1748. enterprise which was to bring destruction upon French India, to root out the French establishments from the soil of Hindustan. If we take a retrospective glance at all that had been accomplished during this first struggle in the Karnatik, we shall be utterly unable to refrain our tribute of admiration to the man who possessed the brain to conceive, the steadfastness to carry out, that long list of daring achievements. The capture of Madras, its preservation to the French, the determina- tion to bear the brunt of the contest with the Mughal, the momentous political result that followed that determination, together with this crowning defence of Pondichery, were works of his conception ; to him too is mainly due the merit of their execution. Even at the greatest crisis of his fortunes he found means to send efficient aid and support to the other settlements dependent on Pondichery — a wonderful feat, gratefully acknowledged as such by his masters.* the corresponding period amounted for you, that the Company could to 200 Europeans and 50 natives. declare that the capture of Madras On their way to Fort St. David, the was due to the succours which you Engrlish wi-eaked a last vengeance on had furnished to M. de la Bourdon- the fort of Ariakupum, hy utterly nais ; that it was your tirmness, the destroying what remained of its de- wisdom of your measures, and the fences. — Orme, Dupleix. choice of the hrave officers you had *"A11 that you have done up to employed, which compelled the Mu- that time ought, in truth, to have ghals to sue to you for peaee ; that made us tranquil regarding the fate you would even have taken Fort St. of Pondichery, and your la«t letters JDavid from the English but for the of the 28th August, written at the unexpected arrival of Admiral Grif- time that the English had commenced fin; and that finally, despite the their attack upon your advanced difiiculty of communications during posts, left us nothing to desire, either the entire war, you had found means with reference to the precautions you to provide for the subsistence and had taken, or to the courageous dis- security of the settlements of Chan- positions which you had inspired dranagar, Karikal, and Mahe ; what in the garrison and in everybody. praises do you not deserve now, when Ought then our demonstrations of by the glorious use of the succours joy to be less, when, on the 20th sent you by M. David " (alluding to of last month, a courier despatched M. Bouvet's fleet) "you have repulsed by Monsieur Durand, our agent in the most powerful efforts of your London, announced to the Court enemies, and have preserved to the this new triumph of the national Company all their establishments." — arms ? Lettre de la Compagnie des Indes, 11 " If it has been already satisfactory Avril, 1749. HOW DUPLEIX USED HIS SUCCESS. 227 If, on one occasion, owinff to circumstances of which chap. we have no knowledge, he failed to take advantage of a great opportunity that offered for the destruction of the 1743^ last establishment of the English on the Koromandel coast, few will deny that he made up for that one mis- take by the wonderful skill and energy, with which, as civil governor, as commandant, as engineer, he conducted the defence of Pondichery against a force that might well have been regarded as irresistible. Truly may we echo the language used on the occasion by the Directors of the Company of the Indies, and declare that if all his other achievements merited the thanks of that France whose interests he served so well, this crowning success placed him on a pinnacle far beyond the reach of ordi- nary applause. We can well imagine — we who have traced Dupleix up to this point of his career, who have noticed the manner in which he seized every occasion of exalting the power of France in the eyes of the natives of India — how eagerly and effectively he used the opportunity offered by the retreat of the English army to increase and magnify its effects. Messengers were instantly despatched to Arkat, to Haidarabad, even to Delhi, to acquaint the native potentates how the most formid- able foreign army that had ever landed in India had been shattered against the walls of Pondichery. The answers to these communications showed how thor- oughly he had mastered the characters of those whom he addressed. Letters of congratulation poured upon him from all sides. He received the greatest compliments on his success. The English were regarded as an in- ferior, almost an annihilated, pow^er ; and the one result of this long-threatened attack was to invest Dupleix with an influence and an authority, such as had up to that time devolved upon no European leader on Indian soil. The siege of Pondichery had been raised, as we Q 2 228 THE FIRST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP, stated, on the 17th October. The English had retired . in a state of deep dejection to Fort St. David, where for 1748. ^ time they occupied themselves more with thinking of their own safety than of attacking the possessions of France. Dupleix, on his side, made earnest prepara- tions for the renewal of offensive operations. He 1749. received early in the following year (1749) further supplies of men* and money from M. Bouvet, who, despite the presence at Fort St. David of the still numerous English fleet, gained the Madras roadstead and landed the soldiers and specie without molestation. It was at this time, when Dupleix was planning new enterprises against the English, that orders from Europe reached both parties for a suspension of arms, pending the result of negotiations which had been entered into at Aix-la-Chapelle. These were shortly afterwards fol- lowed by an intimation of the conclusion of the treaty which bears the name of that ancient city. By one of the articles of this treaty a mutual restitu- tion of conquests was agreed upon between France and England, — a condition which necessitated the abandon- ment by Dupleix of that Madras, gained by so much daring, and guarded with so much jealousy and vigilance. Bitter must have been the pang with which the French Governor received the order to make a restitution which he knew well would be the first step towards providing his hated rivals with a new foundation of greatly increased power ; deeply must he have lamented the blindness of the Ministers, who, not possessing his vast coup d'odly could look upon Cape Breton as a sufficient compensation for a place which, if retained in 1749, would, as we shall see hereafter, most certainly have given the French an overwhelming superiority, leading to empire, in Southern India. But Dupleix was there, not to remonstrate, but to obey. The orders he had re- ceived were without appeal, and in obedience to them * 200 in number. — Or me. MADRAS IS RESTORED TO THE ENGLISH. 229 he, towards the close of the month of August, made chap. over Madras to Admiral Boscawen.* ' Thus, after a contest of five years, the two nations 1749. found themselves, in outward appearance, in the posi- tion in which they were at the outbreak of hostilities. Yet, if apparently the same, in reality how different ! The vindictive rivalry between both, exemplified in the capture of Madras, the attempts upon Fort St. David and Pondichery, had laid the foundation of an eternal enmity, — an enmity which could only be extin- guished by the destruction of one or other of the adver- saries. Then, again, the superiority evinced by the Europeans over the natives, in the decisive battle at St. Thome, had given birth, especially in the mind of the French leader, to an ambition for empire which, if at first vague and indistinct, assumed every day a more and more practical shape. Added to this, the expense of keeping up the greatly increased number of soldiers sent out from Europe pressed heavily on the resources of both settlements, and almost forced upon them the necessity of hiring out their troops to tlie rival candidates for power in Southern India. Thus, during five years which elapsed between 1745 and 1749 their position had become revolutionised. No longer simple traders, regarded as such only by the rulers of the Karnatik, they were then feared, especially the French, by all the potentates in the neighbourhood, their alliance was eagerly sought for, their assistance an object of anxious entreaty. From vassals they had jumped almost to the position of liege lords. A new era, resulting from this war, dates thus from the moment when the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle restored the rival European powers to the positions w^hich they had nominally occupied in 1745. By the East India * In the tirst edition it was stated dition. But the recent investijra- on the authority of the writers of lions of M. Forrest have showa that that period that Madras, when re- this was not the case, stored, was in a very improved con- 230 THE PIEST STRUGGLE IN THE KARNATIK. CHAP. Companies in Paris and London this change was not even suspected. They fondly believed that the new 1749. treaty would enable their agents to recommence their mercantile operations. They hoped that the reaction after five years' hostilities would lead to a feeling of mutual confidence and trust. Vain dream ! The peace that reigned in Europe, was it not then to extend to both nations in India ? Alas ! with ambition aroused, mutual jealousy excited, the temptation of increased dominion knocking at their doors, what had they to do with peace i 2S1 CHAPTER VI. FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. The peace between the Powers of Europe which had ^^^^* been signed at Aix-la-Chapelle afforded, as we have / — already stated, an opportunity for the introduction into 1741). India of a system, afterwards carried to a very consider- able extent, whereby the European Powers, moved by promises of material advantage, lent out their soldiers to the native rulers. It is but right to add, that in almost every case the temptation came from the natives, and it should also be remembered that the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had been concluded at a time when an unusual number of the troops of both nations had been thrown on the Indian soil, and when therefore the em- ployment of, and provision for, these soldiers, caused no little anxiety to the governors of the settlements. Dupleix, indeed, in a letter* which he wrote to the Company of the Indies at the time, expressly justified his recourse to such a line of conduct by the necessity under which he was to practise the strictest economy. In this custom, however, the English set the example. The account of the expulsion of Eaja Sahuji from Tanjur has been given in a previous chapter. f The duplicity of that monarch, his double overthrow by his own people, and his final expulsion in 1749, in favour of Partab Singh, will doubtless be recollected. It is necessary to refer to it here, because it was this same Sahuji, twice expelled from his kingdom, who, by his promises and entreaties, induced the English to lend * Dated March 31, 1749. All the t&ehed to the 3Iemoire pour Dupleix. letters quoted are to he found at f Chapter III. length in the jpieces justificatices at- 232 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, thern selves to the principle of supporting expelled and . wandering royalty — a principle which nearly ruined 1749. them on this occasion, and which, more than ninety years after, brought their army to destruction in the snows of Afghanistan. Eleven years had elapsed since Sahuji had been expelled, and during that time Tanjur had enjoyed a quiet and a prosperity to which, under his rule, it had been a stranger ; yet the desire of governing, so strongly planted in the Asiatic breast, would not allow the dethroned monarch to be tranquil. Although his experience of the attraction of a crown had been such as would have been sufficient to deter a man of ordinary sense from again striving for the dangerous prize, although on one occasion he had barely escaped from his enemies' hands, and on the other had been seized by them in the midst of his own guards, to the imminent danger of his life, he never ceased to sigh for his departed grandeur. To attain that state of sensual existence which had once been his, he was ready not only to stake his life, but to consent to the dismemberment of his country. When, therefore, the news of the meeting of the European plenipotentiaries at Aix-la-Chapelle caused a suspension of Arms in India, Sahuji, who had been struck with the great superiority evinced in the field by the European over the Asiatic soldiers, resolved to en- deavour to enlist on his behalf the aid of some of those redoubtable warriors. It was, however, he well knew, useless for him to appeal to the French. Not only had he deceived them in 1738, but they had since lived upon good terms with his successor, Partab Singh. His only chance was with the English, and to them, therefore, he made his demand. He was extremely liberal in his offers. The payment of all the expenses of the war, and the cession of Devi- kota, a town at the mouth of the Kolrun, a hundred and twenty-two miles south of Madras, with the terri- THE ENGLISH RENEW HOSTILITIES. 233 tory attaching to it, formed a tempting bait to a people chap. possessing a surplus of soldiers, and just resting after a ' . war which had severely tried their resources. At any 1749. rate it was eagerly grasped at, and in the beginning of April, 1749, a force of 430 Europeans and 1,000 sipahis, under the command of Captain Cope, was de- spatched to re-establish ex-Raja Sahuji on his ancestral throne. In a history relating mainly to the transactions of the French in India, it will be necessary to follow the move- ments of the English only in those instances in wliich an effect was thereby produced on the policy of their rivals. We do not propose, therefore, to enter into the details of this expedition against Tanjur. The results will be found chronicled hereafter. It is essential, how- ever, that we should allude prominently to the fact of the enterprise, in order to make it clear that in the course which Dupleix adopted at this period, he but followed an example which the English had set him. The main difference between his proceedings and theirs was this, — that whereas in all his undertakings he had a settled purpose and design, — his smallest actions tending to one mighty end, — the English had, for long, no great principle of action, and it was only after a time that they instinctively adopted the policy of offer- ing, on all occasions, a steady opposition to French aggression. In a previous chapter* we have recorded the fate which befell Chanda Sahib in his endeavours to defend Trichinapalli against the army of Raghuji Bhonsla. Taken prisoner by that general, he had been sent off (1741) under a guard to Satara, and there kept for seven years in confinement. Vainly had he exerted his utmost endeavours to effect his release. Although dur- ing that period the Mughals had re-occupied Trichina- palli, although the office of ISawwab of the Karnatik had * Chapter III. 234 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. ^^^' passed from the family of Dost Ali, to which he was >— ^,— ^ related, to a stranger, he was kept rigorously a prisoner. 1749. Not indeed that the Marathas had any state object in view in thus keeping him from his native province ; it was simply a question of ransom. Chanda Sahib was comparatively poor. Allied only by marriage with the house of Dost Ali, he had not exercised independent authority for a sufficiently long time to amass any very considerable wealth. The jewels which constituted the greater part of it were with his wife and family in Pondichery. The remainder had been taken when he lost Trichinapalli. For a long time, however, the Marathas insisted upon the payment of a kingly ran- som, as an essential condition of his release, and all this time Chanda Sahib, unable to pay it, saw opportu- nities vanish, kingdoms pass into other hands, and he felt too that every year added to that forgetfulness of himself, which is the unvarying consequence of the absence of a leader from the scene of action. At last, however, fortune seemed to unbend. In the month of April, 1748, Muhammad Shah, King of Delhi, died.* His only son, Ahmad Shah, succeeded him, but the first months of his accession were too much engaged in preparations to maintain himself against his namesake, the Abdali, and other enemies, to allow him to turn his attention to the events that were occurring in the remote Dakhan. It was, however, just at this moment that the attention of the feudal lord of the empire was particularly required in those parts. A few months after the death of Muhammad Shah (June, 1748) Nizam-ul-Mulk, Viceroy of the Dakhan, followed him to the grave at the ripe age of seventy-seven years. f The succession had become, through the weakness of the central authority, by custom rather than by consent, * His death occurred on April the t So says Elphinstone: but other 15. He had reigned thirty years and writers indicate 104 years as his age twenty-seven days. See Elliott's at the period of his death. History of India,\o\.\m., pp. 111-12. NASIR JANG SEIZES THE DAKHAN. 235 hereditary in the family. Now Nizam-ul-Mulk had left chap. five sons. The eldest, Ghazi-ud-din Khan, was, how- . ever, high in the imperial service, and preferred pushing 1749. his fortunes at Delhi to striking for an inheritance which he felt could only be gained by the sword. The second son, Ahmad Khan, called also Nasir Jang, had been engaged in constant rebellion against his father, but he was with him, having been recently released from captivity, when he died. The other three sons were looked upon as men of little mark, content to live a life of ease and pleasure at the court of Aurangabad. Besides these sons, there was a grandson, Muzaffar Jang, the son of a daughter, who had been always indicated by his grandfather as his successor. The consent of Muhammad Shah to this arrangement had been previously obtained, and on the death of Nizam-ul- Mulk, a firman, it is said, was issued by the court of Delhi nominating Muzaffar Jang viceroy in his place. When that event occurred, however, Muzaffar Jang was at his government at Bijapur, whilst the lately rebellious son, Nasir Jang, w^as on the spot. This latter at once acted in accordance with the customs which had obtained from time immemorial under the Muhammadan sway in Hindustan. He seized his father's treasures, bought over the leading men and the army, and proclaimed himself Subadar of the Dakhan. The claims of Muzaffar Jang he derided, and set his person at open defiance, Muzaffar Jang, however, was not inclined to give up his pretensions without a struggle, though for the moment he did not possess the means to support them. In this crisis he bethought him of the Marathas, the hereditary enemies of Muhammadan authority, and he decided to go in person to Satara to demand their assistance. At Satara he met Chanda Sahib, of whose reputation he was fully cognisant. The two men felt at once that they could be mutually serviceable to one 236 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, another. They therefore soon came to an imderstand- ^^' ing. They agreed to endeavour to obtain material aid I74y from the Marathas, insisting also on the unconditional release of Chanda Sahib. A negotiation was accordingly opened. But whilst it was in progress, and seemed to promise well, Chanda Sahib, who had little real wish to conquer the Karnatik by the aid of his old enemies, communicated full details of their plans to Dupleix, with whom he had maintained, through his wife, a constant correspondence. Threatened at the time by the English, Dupleix had no desire to add to the existing complications by bringing on the province a Maratha invasion. The prospect, however, of placing on the viceregal throne of the Dakhan one who would thus be a protege of his own, and over the pro- vince of the Karnatik a man so devoted to French interests as he knew Chanda Sahib to be, was too alluring to be resisted. Pondering in his mind how this could be effected, the thought struck him that it needed only a daring and decided policy of his own to bring about such a result. He at once embraced the project with all the ardour of his impassioned nature ; wrote to Chanda Sahib to negotiate only for his release, and not for troops ; engaged to the court of Puna to guarantee the ransom that might be agreed upon ; and promised to both Muzaffar Jang and Chanda Sahib all the influence and power which he, as ruler of French India, was capable of exerting. His despatch had the desired effect. On receiving a guarantee from Dupleix for the payment of 700,000 rupees, Chanda Sahib was released and furnished with a bodyguard of 3,000 men to escort him to his own country. One of the first acts of Chanda Sahib after his release was to enter into an engagement with Dupleix, whereby he took upon himself the payment of about 2,000 natives, drilled in the European fashion, belonging to the Pon- dichery garrison. In consideration likewise of being THE FRENCH ASSIST CHAXDA SAHIB. 237 assisted by 400 Europeans, he agreed to make to the chap. French the cession of a small tract of land in the imme- ' , diate neighbourhood of Pondichery. Whilst arrange- 1749, ments were in progress for these troops to join him, he had succeeded in making his way, after some changes of fortune, to the frontiers of the Karnatik, and in augmenting his force to 6,000 men. Here he was joined by Muzaffar Jang at the head of 30,000. Chanda Sahib, who was by far the abler character of the two, resolved, so soon as he should be joined by his French auxiliaries, to march upon xlrkat. A victory here would place the resources of the Karnatik at his disposal, and bring him into close association with the French. He could then make it, with every prospect of success, the basis from which to operate against Nasir Jang. Towards the end of July the French force already in- dicated, under the command of M. d'Auteuil, and accom- panied by the son of Chanda Sahib, joined the latter at the Damalcheri Pass, which he had taken care to secure. Here they received information that Anwaru-din and his two sons, at the head of 20,000 picked troops, in- cluding among them 60 European adventurers, had taken post at Ambur, about thirty miles to the south, prepared to give them battle. Thither accordingly they marched. The position taken up at Ambur was ex- tremely strong, being defended on one flank by a mountain surmounted by a castle, and on the other by a large lake. The ground between these, constituting naturally a very strong pass into the Karnatik, had been further fortified by intrenchments. These were defended by guns served by the Europeans to whom we have alluded. Behind these was the main army of the Nawwab. It was on the morning of August 3 that the com- bined armies of Chanda Sahib and M. d'Auteuil came in sight of this position. It was at once resolved to storm it, and dMuteuil off'ered to lead the attack with 238 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, his French. Such an offer was gladly accepted, and, at ^^' , the head of his gallant countrymen, d'Auteuil advanced 1749. boldly to the assault. The Nawwab's guns, however, were so well served by the Europeans in his service, that the assailants fell back with some loss. Indignant at this, d'Auteuil rallied his men, and led them himself, notwithstanding a heavy fire, up to the foot of the in- trenchment. The breastwork was even mounted by some of them, but in the crisis of the attack, d'Auteuil was wounded in the thigh, and, in the confusion that followed, his men lost order and retreated. The com- mand then devolved upon M. de Bussy,* and the troops, encouraged by him and the other officers, eagerly called to be led on for the third time. This determination on their part disheartened the defenders, many of whom had already fallen. Even had they stood more firm, however, they could scarcely have resisted the im- petuosity of the charge. Led on by the gallant Bussy, the French reserved their fire till close to the intrench- ments ; then delivering a volley, they dashed over the breastwork, and the day was their own. Having lost this defence, the native portion of Anwaru-din's army made but little resistance. Followed by the troops of Chanda Sahib and by that leader in person, the French pushed on. It was in vain that Anwaru-din, himself a very old man,f made the most gallant efi"orts to restore the fight. In the very act of singling out Chanda Sahib for a hand to hand encounter, he was shot through the heart by an African soldier. A general disorder fol- lowed ; the defeat became a rout ; Mafauz Khan sur- rendered himself a prisoner, and the second son, Muham- mad Ali, saved himself by an early flight. The camp, the baggage, sixty elephants, many horses, and all the artillery fell into the hands of the victors. But their * Cliarles-Joseph Patissier, Marquis f The native chronicles assign him de Bussy-Castehiau, who will occupy 107 years, but they probably exag- a very prominent place in this his- erate. torv. He -was bom in 1718. TRIUMrH OF THE ALLIES. 239 greatest prize was the province of the Karnatik secured chap. to them by this victory. Of this they obtained an im- . mediate gage in Arkat, the capital, which they occupied 1749. the next day. In this battle the French lost 12 men killed and 63 wounded. About 300 of their sipahis were killed and wounded. -^^ The earliest act of MuzafFar Jang on his arrival at Arkat was to proclaim himself Subadar of the Dakhan, and to nominate Chanda Sahib Nawwab of the Karna- tik. f Having secured the surrounding country by means of flying parties, the two governors proceeded to Pondichery, Muzafflir Jang to acknowledge the aid he had received, Chanda Sahib to pour out his thanks for the protection, which, for so many years, and under such trying circumstances, the French governor had aff"orded to his family. They were received with the greatest pomp and ceremony. No one knew better than Dupleix the eflect of display upon the Oriental mind. He took care, however, that accompanying the glitter of outward show there should be a simultaneous exhibition of that material power which, more than any other, is in Asia capable of insuring respect. The defences which had defied the English were dressed out for the occasion ; the European troops, whose superiority had been proved at St. Thome and Ambur, were conspicuously drawn up, the ships in the harbour displayed their brightest flags. No artifice was omitted to impress upon the minds of his guests, that the pomp and ceremony of their reception were but the natural consequence of a wealth and influence based upon a power that nothing in the South of India could resist. The effect was all that he could wish. Muzaft'ar Jang was captivated by * Chanda Sahib presented the Chanda Sahib on his elevation, and French Troops after the battle with to acknowledge him as Nawwab, was 75,000 rupees, and M. d'Auteuil with the Governor of Fort St. Da^•id, land worth 4,000 rupees per annum. Mr. Floyer. — Memoire pour Ihtpliix, — Dnplcix, p. 46. t One of the first to congratulate 240 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, the display ; the gratitude of Chanda Sahib was un- , '^ . bounded. In the first moments of his delight he con- 1749. ferred upon Dupleix the sovereignty of eighty-one villages, adjoining the ground of which Pondichery was the representative capital. Muzaffar Jang stayed eight days at Pondichery. His army, amounting to from 45,000 to 50,000 men, remained encamped meanwhile within twenty miles of the city.* But amid all the festivities that followed the arrival of these two chieftains, Dupleix did not lose sight of the main object which had brought them into the field. We have already stated that though Muzaffar Jang held the higher rank, Chanda Sahib was of the two by far the abler man. When then Muzaffar Jang, at the expiration of eight days, rejoined his camp, twenty miles from Pondichery, Dupleix retained Chanda Sahib to settle the plan of the campaign. It was true that the possession of the Karnat'k seemed to have been decided by the battle of Ambur. Anwaru-din had been killed, his eldest son taken prisoner, and the younger, Muhammad Ali, had sought refuge in flight. Yet, so long as there remained a pretender to the dignity, Chanda Sahib could not consider himself firm in his seat. It is beyond question that he had, both by here- ditary descent and by imperial nomination, a greater right to the office than any of the family of Anwaru- din. He was, in the first place, the representative of the family of Dost Ali, and, in the second, he had been nominated by Muzaffar Jang, whose title to succeed Nizam-ul-Mulk as Subadar of the Dakhan had been confirmed by a firman from the Court of Delhi.f But, in the distracted state of the Miighal empire, no right * Extrait de la Lettre de M. Dii- It is upon these works and upon the pleix a la Compas-nie, le 28 Juillet correspondence and official documents l'^49 ; Copie d'un Extrait du Regi- contained in them that the state- stre des Deliberations du Conseil Su- ments in this chapter are based, perieur de Pondichery, 13 Juillet t Dupleix, p. 42. Seir Mutak- 1^49; Memoire pour Dupleix; Orme, harin. Cambridge, Raymond, and others. DESIGNS Oi' CHANDA SAIIIB. 24l could be considered secure that was not based upon a chap. possession that could be maintained. Nor, at the same . time, could any possession be regarded as perfectly ITI'J. tenable to which a pretender was in the field waiting for an opportunity to assert his claims. Dupleix, well aware of this, did not cease to press upon Chanda Sahib the absolute necessity of insuring the submission of Muhammad Ali, before he resigned himself to the more peaceful cares of his government. Rapidity in his movements was, he pointed out, the more requisite as Muhammad Ali had taken refuge in Trichinapalli, the fortifications of which had been greatly strengthened since Chanda Sahib had been compelled to surrender it to Raghuji Bhonsla. He added the information that Nasir Jang, the pretender to the Subadari of the Dak- han, was engaged in levying an army wherewith to crush his nephew and rival, and that it was, therefore, more especially necessary to clear the Karnatik and its dependencies of all foes, before this greater enemy should be ready to march upon it. The exhortations of Dupleix to Chanda Sahib to march without any delay upon Trichinapalli were earnest and repeated. One cucumstance, however, served to hinder the native chieftains from moving. The battle of Ambur had been fought on August 3 ; Madras, in pursuance of the articles of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, had been made over to the English at the end of the same month, but still Admiral Boscawen remained on the coast. More than that, he had taken advantage of the disordered state of affairs to possess himself of the little settlement of St. Thome, upon which he had hoisted the English flag. It was known, too, that he was himself strongly impressed with the necessity of remaining to support English interests, and that he had declared he would remain, if he were publicly requested to do so.* It appeared then to Chanda Sahib, that for him to move * Orme. 242 FKENCll INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. ^^^^- on Trichinapalli, whilst Admiral Boscawen was still on , ^^^ . the coast, would act as a final inducement to that officer 1749. to remain, and would impel the English to cast in their lot, whilst their forces were yet considerable, with his rival, Muhammad Ali. He, therefore, hesitated as to his action, preferring to wait at all events in the hope that the October gales might compel the departure of so dangerous an enemy. Whilst he and his allies are thus watching their opportunity, it may be convenient for us to turn to the movements of the English, and to relate as briefly as may be the result of their expedition against Tanjur. This expedition had been undertaken, as we have already stated, with the avowed object of re-seating upon the throne of that kingdom the twice expelled Kaja Sahuji, with the real purpose of gaining for them- selves the possession of Devikota. Consisting of 430 Europeans and 1,000 sipahis, under the command of Captain Cope, this force had left Fort St. David in the early part of April, and, on the 24th, arrived on the bank of the river Vellaur, near Portonovo. On the following morning a terrific storm ensued, which caused great damage to the land forces, and greater to the fleet. Of the former, many of the carriage-cattle, and a large proportion of the military stores were destroyed ; of the latter, the Admiral's flagship^ the " Namur," of 74 guns, the " Pembroke," of 60 guns, and the " Apollo," hospital ship, with the greater part of their crews, were totally lost.* It thus became necessary to suspend for a time the progress of the undertaking. When, however, after having made good his losses, Captain Cope renewed his march and arrived on the borders of the Tanjur territory, he found the actual state of things to differ very much from the representa- tions that had been made him. Not only was there no * Journal of an ollicer pivseut at the siege of Pondiclu ry. THE ENGLISH MOVE ON DEVIKOTA. Us disposition evinced by the Tanjurians to strike a blow chap. for Sahuji, but their army was found posted on the , ^__ southern bank of the Kolriin, ready apparently to m'j. oppose tlie passage of tlie English They had enter- tained, liowever, no intention of fighting; they hoped, rather, to entice Captain Cope into the difficult country to the south, where his destruction would be certain. But the direction taken by the English after the passage of the river showed very plainly the real object they had in view in espousing the cause of Sahuji. Their army marched in the direction, not of Tanjur, but of Devikota, where they expected to find support from the fleet. But on their arrival that same evening within a mile of Devikota not a ship was to be seen. Having with them no supplies, and finding the place too strong to be escaladed, they resolved, after cannonading it fruitlessly during the night, to retreat. This they effected without serious molestation, and on the second day reached Fort St. David. Had the real object of the English been that which they pro- fessed — the restoration of the ex-Raja Sahuji — they had seen enough to be convinced that to effect this they must be prepared to employ all the resources of their Presidency in a war with a native power. They no longer, however, even pretended to have this in view. But Sahuji had promised them Devikota,* and tlie advantages presented by that place were too great to be lightly given up. Whether they received it from Sahuji or Partab Singh was to them immaterial. They were resolved to possess it at any price, and with this avowed object, throwing over Sahuji, they despatched by sea a second expedition, consisting of 800 Europeans and 1,500 sipahis, nnder the command of Major Lawrence. ♦The river Kolrnn, which runs difticulty was presented by the sands, into the sea near DeA-ikota, was be- but it was thought that "these, with lieved to be capable of receiving ships a little labour aiul expense, might be of the largest tonnage. The only removed. - 0///a'. K 2 244 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZKNITH. CHAP. Without entering into the details of this expedition, , it will suffice to state that it was successful. Devikota, 1749. after a gallant resistance, was stormed, and Partab Singh, to avert further hostilities, and anxious now to secure the alliance of the English against Chanda Sahib, whom he regarded as the most dangerous enemy of the Tanjur kingdom, agreed to cede that fortress, together with so much of the surrounding territory as should produce an annual revenue of 36,000 rupees. The English, on their part, promised to abandon the cause of Sahuji, and even to keep him under surveil- lance at Madras, on condition of his receiving a life- pension of 4,000 rupees. Such was the result to him of his alliance with an European power. The English were occupied with theu' new conquest, when they learned the success of Chanda Sahib at Ambur. They hastened to acknowledge him at Arkat. Nevertheless, noticing his subsequent visit to Pondi- chery, his protracted stay there, and the intimacy which he vaunted with Dupleix, they were not deaf to the solicitations — poor as they considered his chances of success — of Muhammad Ali. They waited, however, the further proceedings of Chanda Sahib before com- mitting themselves to any definite action. When, moreover, they saw that that chieftain remained idle at Pondichery, making no movement against his rival, they hestitated still more as to the course they should follow. Admiral Boscawen, on his part, was eager to support Muhammad Ali, and even offered to stay on the coast, if he were officially requested to do so. But the Governor, Mr. Floyer, shrank from a line of policy which seemed to commit the Presidency to the support of a pretender i/i extremis. He therefore suffered the Admiral to depart on November 1, taking from him only 300 men as an addition to his garrison. The departure of Admiral Boscawen constituted the opportunity for which Chanda Sahib had been so long THE VIEWS OF DUPLEIX. 245 watching. All his preparations had been made. Uupleix, chap. with that rare disinterestedness and care for the re- . sources of the colony which so eminently character- 174'J. ised him, had advanced to this chief 100,000 rupees from his own funds, and had induced other individuals to contribute 200,000 rupees in addition.* He also supplied him with 800 European troops, 300 Africans, and a train of artillery, from the support of which Pondichery was thus freed, whilst the troops remained at the disposal of Dupleix. They were now with Chanda Sahib, under the immediate command of M. Duquesne. On the very day after the departure of the English fleet, this united army marched upon Trichina- palli. There, as Dupleix pointed out to the leaders, they would find the end of all opposition. The only man who had the shadow of a claim to oppose to the pretensions of Chanda Sahib was in that fortress. To take it, therefore, was to destroy the last stronghold of the enemy, and with it the only chieftain capable of offering any opposition. It is indeed clear to us now, as it was clear to Dupleix at the time, that upon the capture of this place depended the permanent preponderance of French influence in Southern India. Had that been accom- plished, there could have been no possible rival to Chanda Sahib, the English would have had no excuse to refuse to acknowledge his supremacy. In fact that supremacy would have been so firmly rooted, so strongly established, that they would not have dared to dispute it; they would, in a word, have been forced to recognise the sway on the Koromandel coast of a governor who, by inclination, gratitude, interest, was bound irrevocably to the French. Such, indeed, was the aim of the policy of Dupleix. * These advances were secured on lands which were temporarily made oyer to the French. —Dupleix, 246 FREXCH INDIA AT ITS ZKXITH. CHAP. I'o carry it out he had brought ovcrv resource to hear VI. . • . . . ^ . on his native allies. He had given them money, men, 1749, guns, and officers, and they, on their part, had left Pondi- chery, under an engagement to pursue the course of action he had pressed upon them, as alike best suited to his interests and theus, viz., to march direct upon Trichinapalli. Yet this occasion afforded another instance of the uselessness even of great genius, when the tools which genius is compelled to employ are weak and vacillating. Surely Dupleix had a right to believe that his native allies, having been equipped and supplied by him, and having started on an expedition they had promised to carry out, would at least march to their destination. Once there, he relied on his own commander, Duquesne, to do the rest. His mortification then can be imagined when he learnt that, after crossing the Kolrun, they had diverged from the road to Trichinapalli, and had taken that to Tanjur. The fact was that, during their stay at Pondichery, Chanda Sahib and Muzaffar Jang had exhausted on their own pleasures the money Dupleix had intended for the expenses of the army, and they found them- selves, after crossing the Kolrun, in an enemy's country with an empty treasure chest. In this emergency Chanda Sahib bethought him of the Raja of Tanjur — a prince whose riches were proverbial, and whose arrears of tribute to the Mughal, Muzaffar Jang, as Subadar of the Dakhan, considered himself entitled to receive. In the hope of compelling this monarch to pay such a sum as would place them at ease regarding their expendi- ture, and in the belief that with the aid of their French allies the task would be easy of execution and short in its time of duration, they, without even consulting Dupleix, turned aside from the road leading to Trichina- palli, and took that to Tanjur. This city, situated in the delta of the Kolrun and the THE TANJURIAN OUTAVITS CHAXD A SAHIB. 247 Kavari, was defended by two forts, the greater and the chap. lesser. The former was surrounded by a high wall and . ' a ditch, but the fortifications were too inconsiderable to m'j. resist the attack of a vigorous enemy. The lesser fort, a mile in circumference, was far stronger, being sur- rounded by a lofty stone wall, a ditch excavated from the solid rock, and a glacis. Within this was a pagoda surpassing in magnificence all the buildings of vSouthern India, and believed to contain countless riches. The allied army arrived before this place on November 7, and at once summoned it to surrender. The Raja, Partab Singh, with a view to gain time, expressed at once his willingness to negotiate, whilst he sent pressing messages to the English and to Nasir Jang, demanding assistance. The English, who had already despatched 120 men to aid Muhammad All at Trichinapalli, ordered twenty of these to proceed to Tanjur. How Nasir Jang responded to the summons we shall see further on. On receiving the reply of the Tanjurian, Duquesne, the commandant of the French contingent, urged upon Chanda Sahib not to waste his time in vain negotiations, but to compel compliance with his requisitions by force. This was undoubtedly the direct and proper course to pursue. But Chanda Sahib, who wanted only the money, and who believed the raja was in earnest about paying it, begged Duquesne to abstain from all appearance of hostilities so long as negotiations should be going on. In Partab Singh, however, he met a man more wily and cunning than himself For six weeks he suffered himself to be duped by protestations and pro- mises, fruitless though they were of any result. In vain did Dupleix press upon him the superior advantage of Trichinapalli ; to no purpose did he point out to him that he was giving time to Muhammad Ali to strengthen his position, and to Nasir Jang to march upon his com- munications. Chanda Sahib was infatuated with liis negotiation. To such an extent did he carry this 248 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, feeling, that Dupleix, seeing the gathering storm, and ' , apprehending not only the failure of his hopes, but 1749. danger to French interests, sent positive orders to Duquesne to break off the negotiation, and to attack Tanjur. Duquesne obeyed; and his vigorous measures had a decisive effect. On December 26, he captured three redoubts about 600 yards from the walls ; three days later, after some fruitless negotiations, he assaulted and carried one of the gates of the town. This so intimidated the raja, that he at once gave in, and on the 31st signed a treaty whereby, amongst other stipula- tions, he agreed to pay to Muzaffar Jang and Chanda Sahib 7,000,000 rupees ; to remit from the French East India Company the annual ground rent of 7,000 rupees, which it paid him ; to add to the French possessions at Karikal territory comprising eighty-one villages ; and to pay down to the French troops 200,000 rupees. But, meanwhile, Nasir Jang had succeeded in collecting an enormous army, and was on his march to crush his nephew and rival. Intelligence of this had already been conveyed by the English to the Raja of Tanjur, and this monarch had recourse to all the arts of which he was master to lengthen out the term of payment. By send- ing out, in satisfaction of the sum he had agreed to pay, sometimes plate, sometimes obsolete coin, sometimes jewels and precious stones, he detained Chanda Sahib for some weeks longer under his walls, and it was not until a pressing message from Dupleix informed him that Nasir Jang had entered the Karnatik, that this chieftain renounced the hope of obtaining, even by those instalments, the promised ransom. Even then Dupleix recommended vigorous measures. He urged him to seize Tanjur at once, both as a means of punish- ing the faithless raja, and of providing himself with a place of refuge. Chanda Sahib was willing enough to act upon this advice, but his troops refused to follow him. They too had heard the rumours of the approach THE ALLIES BAFFLED. 249 of the vast army under Nasir Jang, and, panic-striken chap. at the report of its numbers, they broke up without orders, and fell back rapidly on Pondichery. \ioO. Thus, by the weakness of the instruments he was compelled to use, were the great plans of Dupleix tem- porarily shattered. Nay more, the very men who had caused the defeat, and who by their want of energy had plunged themselves as well as him into misfortune, now came to beg him to extricate them from their difficulties. He made the attempt, not indeed with any great confidence in his allies — for the past three months had shown him their weakness — but yet with a steadfastness, an energy, an adaptation of means to the end, such as even at this distant day must challenge and command our admiration. He did not, as we shall see, succeed in the outset, but his patience, his perseverance, his energy, could not be long working without produc- ing some advantageous result. Before however noticing the manner in which he acted, we propose to take a comprehensive glance at the situation. The army of Muzaffar Jang and Chanda Sahib, 40,000 strong, panic-stricken from the rumours of the vast force of Nasir Jang, and mutinous from want of pay, was under the walls of Pondichery, With it had come the French detachment of 800 men, now commanded by M. Goupil, its former leader, Duquesne, having died of fever at Tanjur. On the other sid(^, the enormous army of Nasir Jang, said to consist of 300,000 men,* of whom one-half were cavah-y, together with 800 pieces of cannon and 1,300 elephants, was marching on them from Arkat. On its way it was joined by Murari Rao at the head of 10,000 Maratha horse, fresh from a skirmish with the allied army at Chelambram ; whilst on reaching Valdavur, fifteen miles from Pondichery, Muhammad Ali, the pseudo-Nawwab of the Karnatik, brought G,000 * The number of trained soldiers did not probably exceed 40,000. 250 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, hovsc into the camp of Nasir Jang, and, wliat was of . ■ far greater consequence, he was strengthened a few 1750. days later — April 2 — by the junction of 600 Europeans under Major Lawrence. The English, in fact, had resolved to take advantage of the check received by the proteges of the French at Tanjur, by using all their influence to support the rivals and opponents of those chieftains. Against such a force what was Uupleix to do? There was but one course, which even to conceive, it was necessary that a man should have been born with a profound and daring intellect. Successfully to encounter this force it was absolutely necessary that the opposing array, however disproportionate in numbers and deticient in material, should oppose to it a bold and resolute front. Yet how to infuse the necessary courage into the panic-stricken and mutinous soldiers of his two allies ? This w^as a problem which seemed hard to solve. Dupleix nevertheless attempted it. First of all he stopped their mutinous spirit. This he effected by advancing from his o^vn funds a suflicient sum to pay up their arrears. Their courage he endeavoured to reanimate by showing that he was not afraid to support them by the entire available garrison of Pondichery. Goupil, who had succeeded to Duquesne, having him- self fallen ill, Dupleix placed at the head of the con- tingent M. d'Auteuil, who had recovered from the wounds he had received at iVmbur, and increased its strength to 2,000 men. The total force, encouraged and strengthened by these means, moved in a north- westerly direction from Pondichery, and took up at the end of March a strong position opposite the enemy's camp at Valdavur. At the same time Uupleix did not neglect those means which he had often used so success- fully, of endeavouring by intrigues and secret communi- cations to work upon the mind of Nasir Jang in favour of French interests. He was on the point of succeed- MUTINY OF THE FRENCH OFFICERS. 251 ing wlien unexpected events, impossible to have been chap. guarded against, neutralised the effect of these nego- tiations, and brought down the fabric of his vast plans. 1750. It happened, unfortunately for Dupleix, that a very bad feeling prevailed at this moment amongst the officers of his army. The sum of money received at Tanjur had been divided amongst those troops only who had participated in that service. Many of these had received leave of absence, and those who took their places, as well as those who joined with the fresh troops, grumbled most unreasonably at having been assigned a duty wliicli would expose them to great risks without the chance of prize-money. For the moment Dupleix was powerless to punish the malcontents, so few were the officers at his disposal. He trusted, however, to their military honour to behave as soldiers and French- men in the presence of an enemy. But in this hope he was disappointed. On the very evening of the day on which the two armies had for the first time exchanged a cannonade from their respective positions — .Vpril o — thirteen officers of the French army went in a body to M. d'Auteuil, resigned their commissions, and refused to serve. This was not the least of the evil. Not con- tent with refusing to fight themselves, these officers had done their best to induce the soldiers they commanded to follow their example. By a baseness happily un- paralleled they had succeeded in sowing amongst the soldiers the seeds of disaffection and distrust. Even the sipahis in the pay of France could not see unmoved the sudden withdrawal of those they had been accus- tomed to regard as their leaders. Doubt and hesitation pervaded their ranks, and d'Auteuil suddenly found, on the eve of a battle which, if it were unfavourable to him, would be ruinous to French interests, that he commanded an army which was utterly demoralised, which could not be relied upon to face the enemy. Few men have ever found themselves in circumstances 252 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, more difficult, more requiring- quick and prompt deci- , sion. To stay where he was, to meet with his demoral- 1750. ised force, and the native levies of his two allies, the vastly superior numbers of Nasir Jang, the Marathas, and the English, was to court destruction for all. His men would not fight, and their retreat would draw with it the disorderly flight of the followers of Muzaffar Jang and Chanda Sahib. It seemed, too, more than probable that such a rout would encourage the enemy to make another attempt upon Pondichery. On the other hand, the withdrawal of his troops during the night would save the French army for future operations, and would assure the safety of the French capital. But before taking any steps in the matter, d'Auteuil made one great eflFort to induce his army to sustain the part which best befitted them as soldiers. But his entreaties, his remonstrances, even his threats, were all in vain. The poison of mistrust had entered their ranks ; the mutinous officers had persuaded the men that they were being deliberately sacrificed to superior numbers, and so firmly had they imbibed this idea, that all the reason- ing of their commander was ineffective. They would not fight. Convinced now that his only course was to retreat, d'Auteuil sought an interview with his two allies, and laid before them the circumstances of the case. He showed them that he was forced to retreat, and he put it to them whether they would prefer to follow his fortunes, or to endeavour to make their own terms with the enemy. Then came out the difference in the character of the two men. Chanda Sahib, whose long acquaintance and constant intercourse with the French had given him a high appreciation of their character and a confidence in their fortunes, declared unhesitatingly that he would cast in his lot with his European allies. Muzaffar Jang, naturally weaker, pos- sessing little relf-reliance, and unable to believe that d'Auteuil had not some other motive for his conduct, THE FRENCH RETREAT ON PONDICHRRY. 263 VI. 1750. determined, on the other hand, to trust to the tender chap. mercies of his uncle. In accordance with these resolutions the French con- tingent commenced its retreat at midnight, followed by Chanda Sahib, who, with his cavalry, insisted upon taking the post of honour in the rear. So great, how- ever, was the disorder in the French camp, so complete the demoralisation of officers and men, that no one com- municated the intelligence of the intended movement to the gunners, who, to the number of forty, manned the batteries in front of the camp ; these, therefore, with their eleven guns, were left behind. Day dawned before the retreat of the French was discovered. But no sooner was it known than Murari Rao, at the head of 10,000 Maratha horse, started in pursuit of them. He came up with them just before they reached the prickly pear hedge, which formed the outer defence of Pondichery. Noting his approach, d'Auteuil formed his men up in a hollow square, whilst Chanda Sahib held his cavalry in readiness to attack him after his repulse. Murari Rao, however, a splendid horseman, little acquainted with squares or European tactics at all, boldly charged and broke into the French formation. But at the same time Chanda Sahib charged his cavalry, who were thus, with the exception of fifteen, prevented from following their leader. In this manner Murari Rao was, with but fifteen men inside the French square, apparently lost. But the sullenness of the Europeans and his own daring saved him. He dashed at the other face of the square, and succeeded, with the loss of nine men, in cutting his way out. He then joined his cavalry, who were engaged with Chanda Sahib. With him and with the French he kept up a running fight till they reached the hedge, when he thought proper to retire. In this retreat the French lost nineteen men, in addition to the forty left behind; many of them were 254 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, sabred by the natives, the remainder rescued from their VI . clutches, and taken prisoners, by the English. It was, 1750. however, less the loss of men and of guns that afflicted Dupleix, than the destruction, by this misfortune, of his vast plans. We have said tliat he was on the point of succeeding in inducing Nasir Jang to enter into engagements with himself. He had even persisted in this attempt after he had become aware of the existence of the mutinous feeling amongst the French officers, and it is probable that had the army only maintained its position in the field during the next day, Nasir Jang would have signed the treaty which was being pressed upon him. But this mutiny spoiled all. " It is easy to imagine," he says, writing in the third person in his memoirs, " what was the mortification of Dupleix, when he was informed of all the details of the conduct of our cowardly officers, and further, to com- plete his misfortunes, that Muzaffar Jang had been taken prisoner and placed in irons by Nash' Jang." This last information was but too true. Though Nasir Jang had sworn upon the Kuran to restore his nephew to the governments he had held, yet, in accordance with the customs not uncommon in Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth and in India in the eighteenth cen- turies, he at once loaded him with irons. He thus became undisputed Subadar of the Dakhan, and one of his first acts was to appoint Muhammad Ali Nawvvab of the Karnatik. This was the destruction to which we have alluded of those great schemes, whereby Dupleix hoped to bring Southern India in entire subordination to French interests. No doubt his mortification was extreme, yet great as it was, it neither caused him to give himself to despair, nor even to abandon his plans. On the contrary, it impelled liim to try new and bolder expedients to bring them to maturity. He himself and the other inhabitants of Pondichery had received the first intelligence of the disgrace of THE SKILL AND ENERGY OF DUPLEIX. 255 tlie French army from the runaway officers themselves, chap. These had hurried into the town on the morning of the , ' retreat, and alarmed the inhabitants with the cry that 1750. the French army was beaten, and that the Marathas were upon them. The first act of Dupleix, on receiving intelligence of a nature so different to that he had ex- pected, was to arrest these cowards. He then hastened to meet the army, to endeavour, if possible, to weed it of the disaffected, and to revive the spirit of the re- mainder. To this end he had recourse to the most stringent measures. All the disaffected officers were placed under arrest ; d'Auteuil even was brought to trial for retreating without orders. The soldiers were reminded that their retreat was in no w^ay due to the enemy, but to the recreant behaviour of their own officers. This confidence in difficult circumstances did not fail to beget its like. The French soldiers felt in his inspiring presence that they had been indeed guilty, and to insubordination succeeded an irrepressible desire to be allowed an opportunity of recovering their name. But whilst thus engaged in restoring the discipline of the army, Duplei?v was equally prompt in dealing with the enemy. This couid only be in the first instance by negotiation, and we shall see that here he exerted the skill of which he was so great a master. Instead of showing, in this hour of his extremity, by any abate- ment of his pretensions, how fallen were the fortunes of Pondichery, he directed his envoys to make demands little inferior to those which would have resulted from a French victory. They insisted, therefore, in his name, that no one of the family of Anwaru-din should be appointed Nawwab of the Karnatik, and that the children of Muzaffar Jang should be established in the estates and governments of their father. But they did not stop there. To favour their negotiations, they had recoiu'se to those wiles which they liad learned from the Asiatic princes, and which tlic} now showed they could 1^56 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, use more skilfully than their masters. Thus they took ^'' credit for the defeat of d'Auteuil, and exaggerated the 175Q loss experienced by Murtiri Rao in his attempts to cut them off from Pondichery. All this time these same agents intrigued with the chiefs of the Subadar's army, especially with the Patau Nawwabs of Kadapah, Karnul, and Savanur, and succeeded in establishing with these and others relations of a confidential nature. Nasir Jang himself refused to agree to the terms pro- posed by MM. du Bausset and de Larche, the envoys of Dupleix, and on the seventh day these two gentlemen returned to Pondichery. By this time a good feeling had been restored in the army ; the officers who had disgraced themselves had been severely punished ; others, less guilty, were only anxious by some brilliant achievement to wipe out the stain on their honour ; d'Auteuil, who had shown very clearly that he had acted in the only manner possible for him to act under the circumstances, had been restored to the command. Now was the time to strike a blow ; this the oppor- tunity to show the ruler who had rejected his proposals that the French were yet, as an enemy, to be feared. No sooner then had the envoys returned than Dupleix sent instructions to d'Auteuil to beat up the camp of Murari Rao, situated between Pondichery and the main body of Nasir Jang's army. On the night of April 12, only eight days after the retreat from Valdavur, d'Auteuil detached 300 men under the command of M. de la Touche to surprise the enemy. They marched about midnight, reached and penetrated the camp without being discovered, killed about 1,200 of the surprised and terror-stricken enemy, and returned to Pondichery at daybreak, having lost but three men of their party. This bold stroke had such an effect upon Nasir Jang, that trembling now for his own safety, he broke up his camp, and retired in all haste to Arkat, abandoning the English, who returned to Fort St. David. HE STRIKES TWO BLOWS AT NASIR JAXG. 257 Having thus caused the prestige of success to return chap. to his colours, Dupleix resolved to follow up his blow. Nasir Jang, on reaching Arkat, had resolved on a move- 1750, ment, by means of which, whilst he himself should re- main safely shut up in that capital, he might avenge himself of his enemies. He accordingly took forcible possession of the lodges and factories which the French had established at the town of Machlipatan, and at Yanaon, situated at the junction of the Koringa river and the Godavari. But he did not hold them long. It had happened shortly before these occurrences that two ships, the "Fleury" and the " d'Argenson," bound for Bengal, had touched at Pondichery for the purpose of discharging a portion of their cargoes, and re-loading at that place. On hearing of the proceedings of Nasir Jang, Dupleix, without confiding in anyone, made the necessary pre- parations, and the night before these ships were to sail he embarked on board of them 200 Europeans and 200 native soldiers, with a battering train, and directed the commander to sail direct for Machlipatan, and take pos- session of the place. They arrived there on the evening of the third day. The commander at once landed his troops, surprised the town, and took possession of it without the smallest resistance, and without spilling a drop of human blood. The French colours were at once hoisted on the place, and preparations were made for its retention. But it was in the neighbourhood of Pondichery that Dupleix resolved to strike his most effective blow. Very soon then after Nasir Jang had left for Arkat, and the English for Fort St. David, he ordered d'Auteuil to march with 500 men, cross the river Panar, and take possession of the fortified pagoda of Tiruvadi, only thir- teen miles from Gudalur, and almost in sight of the army of Muhammad Ali. The object of this was to obtain a 'point d'aj>j>ui on the Panar, which would S 258 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, give him command of the neighbouring country and ' , its revenues. The expedition completely succeeded. 1750. D'Auteuil captured the place without resistance, and having garrisoned it with 20 Europeans, 20 Eurasians, and 50 sipahis, began to make arrangements for push- ing his conquests further. But Nasir Jang, alarmed at the loss of Tiruvadi, yielded now to the pressing solici- tations of Muhammad Ali, and reinforced him with 20,000 men. At the same time the English, to whom the possession of Tiruvadi by the French was a stand- ing menace, sent a force of 400 Europeans and 1,500 sipahis under Captain Cope to join Muhammad Ali. This combined army took up a position on July 30, near the French force, which they found encamped on the river Panar, about seven miles from Gudalur. Notwithstanding the overwhelming superiority of the enemy, d'Auteuil resolved to maintain his position. This was not only strong by nature, but it had been strongly fortified. To hazard an attack upon French- men in a position defended by intrenchments did not suit the feeble nature of Muhammad Ali. Acting on Captain Cope's advice, therefore, he moved against Tiruvadi in the hope of drawing out d'Auteuil to its assistance. But d'Auteuil was too wary to be caught by so transparent a device, and Muhammad Ali, when he wished to change the feigned assault into a real one, found that his soldiers had the same objection to stone walls as to intrenchments, when both were manned by Europeans. He accordingly marched back to his position in front of the French camp, and, encouraged by Captain Cope, opened upon it a violent cannonade. The fire of the French was, however, so brisk, and their guns were served so efficiently, that at the end of six hours the allies had had enough of it, and retreated with a considerable loss in killed and wounded. The French loss was slight ; but they were too few in numbers to venture in pursuit. They contented them- THE FEENCH DEFEAT MUHAMMAD ALT. 259 selves with miiintaiiiing their position, ready to jn'ofit chap. by the disagreement which, they felt sure, would be produced by this repulse between Muhammad Ali and 1750. his English allies. So indeed it happened. As prone to be unduly depressed in adversity as to be inflated in prosperity, Muhammad Ali did not consider himself safe from the attacks of the French so long as he remained in the open country. He therefore proposed to retreat upon Arkat. The English, who wished to cut off the French from Pondichery, finding that Muhammad Ali would neither listen to their advice nor advance any more money, returned to Fort St. David. No sooner was Dupleix acquainted with this movement than he directed d'Auteuil to break up from his encampment, and march on Tiruvadi ; there to join a corps of 1,300 Europeans and 2,500 sipahis led by de la Touche, and 1,000 horse commanded by Chanda Sahib. With this force he was to surprise the camp of Muhammad Ali. This Nawwab, with an army of upwards of 20,000 men, of whom the greater part were cavalry, had taken up a position between Tiruvadi and Fort St. David, with the river Panar in his rear, and awaited there the instruc- tions for which he had applied to Nasir Jang. But on the afternoon of September 1, the day after the de- parture of the English, he was attacked by d'Auteuil. The French army advanced in good order, the artillery in front, the cavalry on either wing. In this formation, in full view of the army of Muhammad Ali, the handful of men moved forward, halting occasionally to fire their guns. So long as they were at a distance, the gunners of the Nawwab's army replied by an ineffective fire. But when, within two hundred yards of the intrench- ments, d'Auteuil brought up his infantry, and ordered a general charge, the courage of the Asiatics gave way. Not an effort was made to defend the entrance into the camp ; the intrenchments were abandoned s 2 260 FRE^X'II INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, as the enemy reached them ; and the French, quickly ^^' bringing up their guns, opened out from one end of "jT^Q the camp a tremendous fire on the masses now huddled between them and the river. Muhammad Ali showed neither courage nor presence of mind. Here, as at Ambur, he thought only of his own safety. His men, left to themselves, behaved, as might have been expected, like sheep without a shepherd. The 15,000 cavalry who were in the camp did not strike one blow for their master. How to cross the Panar in safety was the problem each man sought to solve for his own advantage. Victory they never had dreamt of; now even orderly retreat was out of the question. Fortunately for them the river was fordable. Yet, before it could be crossed by the fugitives, they had left nearly a thousand of their number on the field of carnage. They left besides, to fall into the hands of the French, a great quantity of munitions of war, immense supplies of grain and fodder, thirty pieces of cannon, and two English mortars. The French did not lose a single man in the engagement; a few sipahis only were wounded by the explosion of a tumbril. If battles are to be judged by their consequences, this action may truly be termed a great victory. By it the French more than regained the ascendancy they had lost by the disastrous retreat from Valdavur ; Chanda Sahib, their ally, resumed, in consequence of it, a position in which he could lay a well-founded claim to the possession of the Karnatik ; whilst his rival, Muhammad Ali, who had but two months before been master of the whole of that province — the territories ceded to the French and English alone excepted — was forced by this defeat into the position of a beaten and baffled fugitive, fleeing with two attendants for refuge to Arkat. The English, on their part, sulky with Muhammad Ali, on the point of losing their com- mandant. Major Lawrence, who was about to embark BUSST ATTACKS JINGf. 261 for England, were likewise by the same means reduced ^^Jf^' to an almost compulsory inaction, for they were not at ■ war with France, and the dispersion of Muhammad 1750. Ali's army had left them almost without a native ally whom indirectly to assist. It was true indeed that Nasir Jang was yet exercising the functions of the office of Subadar of the Dakhan, and Nasir Jang was their ally. Sunk in debauchery and the pleasures of the chase, Nasir Jang, however, left the direction of affairs to his ministers and nobility, and the chief of these had already — thanks to the intrigues of Dupleix — been won over to the interests of France. Whilst the army he had given to his protege, Muhammad Ali, was being destroyed in the field, he remained inactive at Arkat, not yet thinking himself in danger, not yet believing that the army which fled before him at Valdavur would dare to compete with him in the field. Of this inaction, which he had used all his efforts to secure, and of the consternation caused amongst the partisans of Muhammad Ali by the victory of d'Auteuil, Dupleix resolved to take the fullest ad- vantage. He therefore sent instant orders to d'Auteuil to detach a sufficient force under M. de Bussy to attack Jinji, a fortress, fifty miles inland, and the possession of which would, he thought, decide the fate of the Karnatik. The town of Jingi, surrounded by a thick wall and flanked by towers, is situated at the base of three lofty ranges, forming the three sides of an equilateral triangle. Each of these mountains was defended by a strong cita- del built on its summit, and by the sides, in many places naturally steep and in others artificially scarped, by which alone access was possible. A cordon of advanced works contributed likewise to make all approach a matter of extreme difficulty. It was no wonder then that in the eyes of the natives Jinji was deemed quite imin'egnable. Even Sivaji, the founder of the Mara- 262 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. ^yf^- tha power, had been forced, in 1677, to come to an • . •y^.^ understanding with its commander to effect its reduc- 1750. tion, and Zulfikar Khan, the general of Aurangzeb, had brought about the same result by means of a blockade of the strictest nature. The belief in its impregnability made it always the refuge of defeated armies, and the scattered parties of Muhammad All's force, to the number of 10,000 or 12,000 men, had fled to it after the battle on the Panar for the protection which it was deemed so well able to offer. Against this — the strongest of all the fortresses of the Karnatik — Dupleix directed d'Auteuil to send a detachment with all pos- sible speed, indicating at the same time Bussy as the commandant of whom he would approve for such a service. This is not the first time that we have met with this officer. He it was, it will be recollected, who, when the French troops had twice recoiled before the intrenchments thrown up by Anwaru-din at Ambur, when their commandant, d'Auteuil, had been struck down, rallied the repulsed infantry, and led them, the third time, victoriously to the charge. But little is known of his early childhood — a strange circumstance when it is recollected that he occupies a principal figure, in the estimation of some the foremost figure, in the history of the French in India. This much, however, is ascertained, that he was born in 1718, at Buyy, near Soissons : that he had lost his father at an early age, and inlieriting little beyond his pedigree,* he had come out to the Isle of France at the time that La Bourdon- nais was governor, and had formed one of the expedition led by that famous admiral to India in 1746. When La Bourdonnais returned to Europe at the end of that year, de Bussy remained behind as an officer of the Pon- dichery army. Here he found himself constantly in contact with Dupleix, and, in their frequent meetings, he had not been less struck by the large views and * He was uamid Charks-Jusepli Patissier, Marcxuis de Bussy-Castelnau, CAPTURES It. 263 brilliant genius of the Governor-General tlian had been chap. VT Uupleix by the frank nature, the striking talents, the desire to acquire knowledge, especially knowledge of 1750, India and its people, displayed by the young officer. He had given many proofs of adding to these qualities a courage, a daring, and a presence of mind whicli, when united in a soldier, inevitably lead him to fortune ; and it was on this account that he had now been selected to lead a detachment of the French army on the most daring expedition on which European troops had yet been engaged in India. The force placed at the disposal of Bussy consisted of 250 Europeans and 1,200 sipahis, and four field pieces. They left the scene of the action with Muhammad Ali on September 3rd, and came in sight of Jinji on the 11th. Here at the distance of three miles Bussy en- camped, and here intelligence reached him that the remnants of Muhammad All's army, 10,000 or 12,000 strong, together with 1,000 sipahis trained by the English, and some European gunners with eight field- pieces, were encamped on the glacis, and were about to take advantage of their overwhelming superiority of numbers to attack him. Immediately afterwards the enemy was seen advancing. Bussy waited for him till his men came within pistol-shot, when he ordered a general advance, the four guns opening at the same time on the hostile cavalry. This, as was usual, not only prevented the advance but threw the enemy into con- fusion. They had already broken when the main body of the French army under d'Auteuil was seen approach- ing the field. A general panic instantly ensued amongst all branches of the enemy's forces, and Bussy, taking advantage of it, advanced and secured their guns, killing or taking prisoners the Europeans who served them. He then pushed forward and drove the fugitives under the walls of Jingi, the cannon of which opened fire on the pursuers. 264 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZKNITH. CHAP. But it did not stop Bussy. Following the fugitives ^' . - to the entrance of the town, he applied a petard to the 1750. principal gate and blew it in. He at once rushed for- ward, sword in hand, followed by his men, and engaged in a desperate hand to hand contest with the defenders. Nothing, however, could resist French gallantry. Be- fore nightfall the place was their own, and it was occupied during the night by the remainder of the force under d'Auteuil. The situation of the victors Avas, nevertheless, still one of great danger. We have already stated that the town of Jinji lies at the base of three high ranges, the summits of which were strongly fortified. From these summits there poured in now an incessant fire on the French in Jinji. Small arms, grape, round shot, and rockets were used with all the vigour of w^hich the garrison were capable. For some time Bussy replied by a fire from his mortars, keeping his men under cover. But no sooner had the moon gone down than he moved out three detachments of picked troops, all Frenchmen, to escalade the ascents to the three citadels at the same time. The way w^as steep; redoubt after redoubt hindered the progress of the assailants ; a terrific fire rained upon them from all sides ; but no obstacle was too great to be overcome by Bussy and his comrades. The storming of one redoubt filled them Avith the greater determination to attempt the conquest of another ; their onward progress gave them fresh animating power, whilst the defenders after each loss became more and more discouraged. At last, mounting higher and higher, they came to the citadels. These too, just as day broke on the horizon, fell into their hands, and the victors could gaze and wonder at the almost insuperable difficulties which they nevertheless had surmounted. It was indeed a wonderful achievement, great in itself, and calculated by its effect upon the people of kSouthern India to be much greater. They were no DUPLEIX OFFERS PEACE. 265 second-rate warriors who could, within twenty-four chap. hours, defeat an army vastly superior in numbers, and , storm a fortress reputed impregnable, and which for 1750 three years had defied the best army and the best general of the renowned Aurangzeb. Not lightly would such a feat be esteemed in the cities of the south. The fame of it would extend even to imperial Delhi on the one side, and to the palaces of Puna on the other. It was a blow which, by the intrinsic advantages resulting from it and by the renown it would acquire for those who had delivered it, would strike not only Muhammad Ali but Nasir Jang, would seat the nominees of Dupleix at Golkonda and Arkat, might eventually bring Delhi itself almost within the grasp of the French Governor. Well might Dupleix hope that, by following it up, by using carefully yet vigorously every opportunity, this capture of Jinji might indeed be made the first stone of a French empire in India. The immediate results of the capture on the minds of the natives were all that could have been expected. Nasir Jang, till then devoted to pleasure, now roused himself to action. Yet even he, the Subadar of the Dakhan, the disposer of an army of 300,000 men, was thunderstruck at the feat. These French, he felt, must be beaten or conciliated. It appeared to rest with him whether he should attempt the first, or accomplish the second, for almost simultaneously with the news of the fall of Jinji intelligence reached him that d'Auteuil was marching on Arkat whilst he at the same time received peaceful overtures from Dupleix. The principal of these suggested the release of Muzafiar Jang and his restora- tion to the governments he had held in his grand- father's lifetime, the appointment of Chauda Sahib to be Nawwab of Arkat, and the absolute cession of Machli- patan to the French. It is probable that Nasir Jang would have made no difficulty regarding the second and third of these conditions, but the release of Muzafiar 266 FRENCH INDIA At ITS ZENITH. CHAP. Jane: was tantamount to a renewal of the civil contest, vr J , and rather than assent to that, he preferred to try the 1750. fortune of war. Summoning then his chiefs to Arkat, he set out at the head of an army consisting of 60,000 foot, 45,000 horse, 700 elephants, and 360 cannon, in the direction of Jinji. When, however, he had arrived within twelve miles of the French force — which, after making one or two marches in the direction of Arkat, had returned, on the news of the approach of the enemy, to Jinji — the periodical rains set in with such violence that any movements in the face of an enemy became impossible. An inaction of two months' dura- tion, from September to the beginning of December, succeeded, the French army remaining encamped about three miles from Jinji, whence, for some weeks, it drew its supplies. When these had been exhausted it received others, thanks to the excellent arrangements of Dupleix, and despite the unsettled state of the country, direct from Pondichery. Nasir Jang, on his side, was forced to remain in a most inconvenient position, hemmed in by watercourses swollen by the rains, and able to obtain supplies only with the greatest difficulty. But these two months of military inaction constituted a busy period to Dupleix. Corresponding secretly with the chiefs of Nasir Jang's army, he had succeeded in persuading many of them, especially the Patans and the Marathas, that it would be more to their interest to regard the French as friends than as enemies. Both these sections had several causes of dislike to Nasir Jang. His manifold debaucheries, the treatment, after his solemn promise to grant him liberty, of MuzafFar Jang, his constant refusal to entertain the propositions for peace, and the knowledge that, with Muzaifar Jang upon the viceregal seat, they would enjoy not only peace and alliance with the French, but an accession of honours and dignities, all conspired to whet their desire to be rid of him. On the other hand, their admiration, LA TOUCHE ATTACKS NASlR JANG. 267 mingled with fear, of the French nation, and especially chap. of the statesman who was so daringly guiding its , ^^ fortunes in India, gave to the proposals of Dupleix a 1750. weight which they found it difficult to resist. A secret agreement was accordingly arrived at between the two parties, which stipulated that if Nasir Jang should refuse any longer to agree to the terms offered by Dupleix, but should decide upon marching against tho French, the malcontent nobles should withdraw their forces from those of their feudal superior, and should range themselves, a short distance from them, under the flag of France. To such an extent were the details of this arrangement earned out that a French standard was secretly conveyed to tlie malcontents, to be by them on the proper occasion hoisted on the back of an ele- phant in the most conspicuous part of the field. Other secret arrangements were at the same time entered into between Muzaffar Jang and the conspirators, with which Dupleix had no concern. There can be little doubt but that the death of the Subadar and the distri- bution of his treasures equally between Muzaffar Jang on one side and the conspu'ators on the other were resolved upon. But meanwhile better thoughts had come over Nasir Jang. The difficulties of his army, the fear of finding himself engaged in a long and doubtful campaign with an enemy whom he dreaded, and, above all, the depri- vation of much loved pleasures which this campaign would necessitate, induced him to reconsider the terms repeatedly pressed upon him by Dupleix. To these he had given no reply. But when the fine days of the early December showed him that the time had arrived when action could not be avoided, he determined to give up everything, to set free Muzaffiir Jang, to yield Machlipatan, to appoint Chanda Sahib — to make any concession, in fact, so that he might be free to drain the cup of pleasure. Tie accordingly wrote to Dupleix, 268 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP. ofFerinir to agree to his terms. With this letter he sent VI. 'b ^^ "O three of his officers, provided with full powers to nego- 1750. tiate, for the purpose of signing the treaty. Dupleix, caring little with whom the treaty was made, provided only that his own propositions were agreed to, deter- mined to accede to the offers of Nasir Jang, and wrote at once to the commander of the French forces to sus- pend all hostilities until he should receive further in- structions. But his orders arrived too late. M. de la Touche, upon whom the command had devolved, in the absence of d'Auteuil, laid up with the gout, had, before this letter reached him, received from the conspirators the signal he had preconcerted with them to advance. They were, in fact, acquainted Avith the contents of the letter sent to Dupleix, and justly feared that, if time were allowed, it would interfere with their long-medi- tated plans. Hence the sudden resolution to bring matters to a crisis and their call upon the French general to perform his part. Ignorant of the negotia- tions going on at the time with Pondichery, de la Touche had no option. In compliance, therefore, with instructions which had been given him as to his action in the event of his receiving such a summons from the conspirators, he set out on the night of December 15 from Jinji, at the head of 800 Europeans, 3,000 sipahis, and ten guns, in the direction of the Subadar's camp, under the guidance of a native who had been sent for that purpose by the conspirators. After a march of sixteen miles, de la Touche, at four o'clock in the morning, came in sight of the enemy. Their advanced posts, which gave the alarm, were soon dispersed, and de la Touche found himself with his 3,800 men in front of an army of more than 25,000. By the skilful management of his guns, however, he succeeded in keeping at bay, and eventually throwing into confu- sion, the vast masses of cavalry which were constantly threatening to charge him. No sooner were these TBIUMni OF THE FRENCH ARMS. 269 dispersed than he advanced on the infantry, and after a chap. very severe contest succeeded in breaking them. But ^^' this had hardly been accomplished when he perceived a ^^^(j^ body of at least 20,000 men advancing on his left flank. At the sight of this new enemy the French began almost to despair of success, but as they advanced nearer de la Touche discovered to his joy the French Svdndard displayed on the back of the foremost ele- phant : almost immediately afterwards a messenger from Muzaffar Jang conveyed to de la Touche the intelligence of the success of all the plans of the conspirators. Nasir Jang, in fact, relying on the full powers with which he had accredited the envoys he had sent to Pondichery, would not believe that they were French who were attacking him. When it would no longer admit of a doubt, he sent orders to his generals to repulse " this mad attempt of a parcel of drunken Europeans,"* whilst, seated on his elephant, he took his station amongst his guns. Near him, on another elephant, was seated Muzaffar Jang, under the guard- dianship of an officer who had received instructions to behead him on the first appearance of treason. In the midst of the action, seeing some of his men retiring from the field, the Subadar inquired and learned that the Patau Nawwabs, the Dalwai of Maisur, and the Marathas, had ordered their troops to abstain from any participation in the action. Enraged at this, he started on his elephant to threaten them, first giving orders for the beheadal of Muzaffar Jang. The Nawwab of Kada- pah, whom he first met and upbraided, replied by a defiant answer, and directed his attendant to fire at the Subadar. As the piece, however, missed, he unslung his own carbine, and shot Nasir Jang through the heart. The Subadar's head was instantly cut off and * Orme. 270 FKENCII INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, laid at the feet of Muzalfar Jang, whose own had just escaped a similar ceremony.* 1750. This was the intelligence conveyed to M. de la Touche by the messenger of Muzaffar Jang, just after the French, to their delight, had beheld their national standard displayed on the foremost elephant of the advancing party. The first act of the French leader was to despatch his second in command, de Bussy — although lie had been wounded in the fight — to con- gratulate the new Subadar on his elevation. Bussy found the newly-made potentate seated on the splen- didly-caparisoned elephant of his late rival, acknow- ledged as Subadar, not only by the conspiring nobles, but by all but a very small minority of the army which but a few hours before had obeyed the orders of Nasir Jang. The same evening M. de la Touche himself, accompanied by his principal officers, paid a congratu- latory visit to Muzaffar Jang, and received from him the commission to inform Dupleix that nothing would be undertaken without his advice, to obtain which he, Muzaffar Jang, proposed instantly to proceed to Pondi- chery. Whilst matters had thus progressed in the field, Dupleix had been awaiting in Pondichery the return of the messenger he had sent to the army to direct the suspension of hostilities. But before that messenger could return, the intelligence of the great victory and its results reached the town.f The excitement, the joy, the enthusiasm may be imagined. That the French might have entered into a satisfactory arrangement with Nasir Jang had been hoped; but every bound of reason- able expectation was exceeded when it was ascertained chat, owing to the exertions of 800 Frenchmen and 3,000 sipahis trained by them, the protege of France • He simply owed his escape to tb.e t Mr. Orme states that it was eon- fact that the officer iu whose charge veyed in person by Chanda Sahib to he had been placed was one of the Dupleix. tonspirators. — D apleix. SUMMARY OF THE FRENCH SUCCESSES. 271 had become the ruler of Southern India, the lord over chap. VI thirty-five millions of people. Still greater was the . national exultation when it became known, through a 1750. brief despatch from M. de la Touche, how modestly MuzafFar Jang bore his triumph ; how deferentially he acknowledged his obligations to the French people , and how submissively he had announced his intention to do nothing until he should have communicated personally with the great ruler of French India. The fire of artillery, the chanting of Te Deiima, illumina- tions, processions and durbars, announced all the joy which these occurrences inspired. Well, indeed, might the French in India feel a pride in their success. Not seventy-six years had elapsed since Francis Martin, at the head of sixty Frenchmen, had bought the plot of ground on which had since risen the city of Pondichery, and we find his successor in a position to give laws to thirty-five millions of people! Though besieged and taken by the Dutch, though besieged but two years before by an immensely superior force of English, Pondichery had risen to see the decadence of one nation as a rival on Indian soil, and the compulsory inaction and loss of reputation — both indeed destined only to be temporary — of the other. The genius of the people had suited itself so well to the natural temperament of the children of the soil, that the French were regarded everywhere as friends ; the increase of their territory excited no jealousy. Their policy had been a policy of fidelity and trust. The intimacy of Francis Martin with Sher Khan Lodi had been continued by his successors to the family of Dost Ali. Neither the overthrow of that Nawwab, nor the captivity of his successor, had been able to shake it. To support that traditional alliance, M. Dumas had bade defiance to the threats of Raghuji Bhonsla, and his, till then, irresistible INlarathas ; Dupleix had, for seven years, fed the hopes of the im- 272 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, prisoned Clianda Sahib with the prospect of a throne. ^^' And now this policy had blossomed and borne fruit. I'jQQ^ Chanda Sahib, released from captivity by the efforts of Dupleix, had made common cause with Muzaffar Jang, the claimant of the viceregal dignity in the south of India, and, after many reverses, the two friends — thanks to French generalship and French valour — seemed to have attained the summit of their very highest wishes. The glory which M. Uupleix had acquired by this successful policy attained its most dazzling elevation when, on December 26, Muzaffar Jang and his fol- lowers arrived at Pondichery. Entering the town in a state palanquin, this ruler of thirty-five millions paid to the French Governor the homage and respect due to a feudal super or. He at once made over to him all the treasure, the jewels, the gold and silver orna- ments found in the camp of his late rival, and re- quested him to assume the office of arbitrator be- tween himself and his confederates, the Patau Nawwabs, with whom already misunderstandings had broken out. Dupleix in this trying position was true to the traditional policy of the French in India. It was a main portion of that policy to respect native customs, to conciliate native opinion, to rule by means of that rather than by force, to be liberal, generous, trustful, confiding. His position as the secret ruler of the Dakhan, directing all its resources, surely yet unosten- sibly, by means of its native ruler, keeping his own power, of the superior might of which he was assured, necessarily in the background, was in his opinion more strong and more really powerful than if he had claimed for himself the ostensible dignity, and with it a terri- torial extension such as would provoke the jealousy of those even who granted it. His first act, therefore, was to disclaim for his own part any share in the booty taken after the victory. This, he decided, in his quality of arbitrator, should be divided equally between DUPLEIX RECEIVES THE CHIEFS AT PONDICHERY. 273 Muzaffar Jansr on one side and the confederate Naw- chap. ' • ' VI wabs on the other, reserving the jewels only without . division to Muzaffar Jang. Any claim which the French 1750. might have upon the latter for the part they had played in helping him to his dignities, he left entirely to his own generous impulses. Having thus, and by some other arrangements, which it is unnecessary to detail, eftected an amicable settle- ment of all misunderstandings, Dupleix prepared for the solemn investiture of Muzaftar Jang as Subadar of the Dakhan, in the presence of his tributaries and vassals. This imposing ceremony — a ceremony notice- able as indicating the period when French power in India had almost attained its zenith — took place in a magnificent tent pitched in the great square of Pondichery. The splendours of that day, the honours granted to Dupleix, the high position he assumed, have scarcely yet been obliterated from the traditions of Southern India. Let us imagine, as we well can, either side of the gorgeously draped tent lined by the armed nobles of the Dakhan. Muzaffar Jang enters and takes his seat at the head of the assembly. Quickly behind follows the Governor of French India, and presents to the Subadar, as he salutes him, the offering due to his rank. Muzaffar Jang advances to meet the French Governor and places him on a seat designedly placed there, and betokening a rank equal to his own. To them thus seated, though nominally only to the Subadar, the assembled nobles offer their gifts. On the conclusion of this ceremony, the Subadar rises, and proclaims the honours he proposes to confer on his French ally. He declares him Nawwab or Governor of the country south of the river Krishna up to Cape Kumari (Comorin), including Maisur and the entire Karnatik ; he bestows upon him as a personal gift the fort of Valdavur, about nine miles to the north-west of Poudichery, with the villages and lands dependent upon T 274 FEENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITU. CHAP, it, as well as a separate jaghir of 100,000 rupees a , year. He confers upon him the title of Man^abdar 1750. of 7,000 horse, with permission to bear the ensign of the fish, one of the highest honours in the Mughal empire. He directs that the Pondichery currency shall be the sole currency of Southern India ; he confirms the sovereignty of the French Company over the newly-acquired districts of Machlipatan and Yanaon, and an extension of the territories about Karikal. Then, turning to Hupleix with the air of a vassal to his liege lord, he promises never even to grant a favour without his previous approval, and to be guided in all things by his advice. Dupleix, on his side, is true to himself, to his policy, on this tempting and trying occasion. With a generosity which, if assumed, shows his political fitness in a still stronger light, he calls up Chanda Sahib to his side, presents to the Subadar his old and tried companion, and urges that if he himself is to hold the nominal dignity of Naw- wab over the country south of the Krishna, the real sovereignty and emoluments of that part of it known as the Karnatik may be bestowed upon one who had shown so much steadfastness and fidelity. We can well imagine the impression that would be conveyed to the minds of an Oriental assembly by an act so generous and graceful. He who could thus give away provinces, who, in the height of his prosperity, could recollect and reward those who under all circumstances had been true to him, showed the possession of qualities which, in that rude day, the princes of Asia could admire though they could not imitate. From such an one, practising such lofty sentiments, there was nought, they would believe, for them to fear. That one act of abnegation was sufficient to make them acquiesce without envy, without the least hesitation or doubt, in the substantial acquisitions that had been made that day to Dupleix. He indeed was the hero of SPLENDID POSITION OF DUPLEIX. 275 the day's ceremony. He emerged from that tent the chap. virtual superior of the lord of Southern India. . We have not yet enumerated all the advantages UoO. which accrued to the French on the occasion of this visit. In addition to those promulgated by Muzaffar Jang at the time of his installation, one sum of 500,000 rupees was made over to Dupleix for the soldiers who had fought at the late battle ; another of the same amount was repaid to the Company, on account of moneys that had been advanced, and security given for the amount remaining due. The increase of revenue likely to accrue to the French Company by the territorial cessions we have adverted to, was computed at little short of 400,000 rupees annually. To com- memorate these great results thus obtained, Dupleix ordered the creation of a town on the site of the battle which had caused them, to be entitled Dupleix-Fath- abad.* This design, founded on sound policy, being in strict conformity with those native usages by which alone the mass of the people were likely to be im- pressed, and not, as has been ignorantly charged against him, on ridiculous vanity, was not, it is true, destined to be realised. Events were too strong even for this strong man. He, the pioneer of European conquest and European civilisation, whose vast plans were not, as so many of his contemporaries believed, too vast to be accomplished, was destined to see them appropriated to a great extent by his rivals. It will be for us very soon to point to the single weak point in that strongly welded armour — the solitary defect in that almost con- summate genius, by means of which one great adversary possessing the quality wanting to Dupleix, shattered the vast fabric of his plans ere yet they had been made proof against attack. Not only the urgent and pressing instructions from the Company of the Indies, but his own conviction of * Indicating " The place of the victory of Dupleix." T 2 276 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, the necessity of the case, disposed Dupleix at this ' . period to consolidate his conquests by a definite peace. 1750. Peace, however, was utterly impossible so long as the rival candidate for the governorship of the Karnatik, Muhammad Ali, was at large maintaining his preten- sions. This chieftain, seeing that by the death of Nasir Jang, his chances of dominion had been reduced almost to zero, abandoned by the English, and without following, had fled, on the news of the defeat, to Trichinapalli, behind whose walls he had once before found refuge. Dupleix, who had on that previous occasion experienced the delays and difficulties attend- ing the attack by a native army on a fortified town, was particularly anxious to induce the fugitive nobleman to enter into some arrangement, by which, in virtue of some concessions made to him, he would engage to recognise the new order of things. He was the more hopeful that negotiations to this effect might succeed, as Muhammad Ali was now literally abandoned by all the world. To his gratification and surprise the first over- tures for this object came from Muhammad Ali himself. Raja Januji, one of the Maratha leaders who had been with Nasir Jang, and had subsequently transferred his temporary services to his successor, was charged by Muhammad Ali with a proposal to recognise Chanda Scihib as Nawwab of the Karnatik^ and to make over to him the city of Trichinapalli and its dependencies on condition (1) that he should be put in possession of the treasures left by his father, no inquiry beiug made into his administration, (2) that the Subadar should engage to give him another government in the Dakhan, Dupleix eagerly embraced these terms, and requested Januji to inform Muhammad Ali of his acceptance of them. This led to the opening of a correspondence between the French Governor and Muhammad Ali, throughout which the latter ardently expressed his desire to be reconciled to the Subadar. DUrLEIX VIRTrALLY RULEK OF THE DATvIIAN. 277 This important matter being regarded as settled, chap. Muzaffar Jang, not doubting that peace would thence- , . forth reign in the Karnatik, informed Dupleix of his 1750. intention to proceed to the northern part of his govern- ment, as well to consolidate his power as to settle divers matters which in consequence of the war had fallen into great confusion. But he represented at the same time to Dupleix that, in order to undertake, with safety and success, a journey across provinces which had been so recently hostile, it would be very desirable that a body of French troops, upon whom he knew he could rely, should accompany him. He expressed himself willing to defray all the charges connected with these troops, and, he added, he would not send them back before he had given to them, as well as to the Company they served, real marks of his gratitude. This proposal chimed in exactly with the policy of Dupleix. It assured him against any change of policy in the councils of the Subadar. It made him virtually master of the Dakhan, ruling Southern India through the representative of the Mughal. He consented there- fore to the proposal. Perhaps if he had known the secret intentions which Muhammad Ali still cherished, he might have delayed the departure of his troops until the affairs of the Karnatik and its dependencies had been quite settled. But he had excellent reasons for believing that Muhammad Ali had entered into his schemes ; that he would resign Trichinapalli in favour of a government elsewhere. Had he not been satisfied with the assurances he had received on this head, it is certain he would not have detached so far from Pondi- chery a considerable contingent of his little army, and — what was of far greater importance — his best officer to command it. But believing peace re-established, anxious to have French interests powerfully represented at the court of the Subadar, and not indifferent to the financial considerations resulting from the transfer to 278 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZEXTTTI. CHAP, another exchequer of all the charges connected with the . troops thus detached, he agreed to send with the Suba- 1750. dar to Aurangabad, his capital, a force of 300 Europeans and 2,000 sipahis, the whole under the command of Bussy. For such a purpose, or indeed for any office, political or military, a better selection than that of Bussy could not have been made ; but in sending him, d'Auteuil being still incapacitated by sickness, and de la Touche having returned to France, Dupleix deprived himself of the one man upon whom he could depend, in the event of any unforeseen military disaster. 1751. On January 7, 1751, Muzaffar Jang left Pondichery to join his army, and on the 15th, in pursuance of the agreement he had entered into with Dupleix, he was joined by Bussy and the French contingent. At the end of about three weeks they entered the territories of the Nawwab of Kadapah, who was himself with the army. Here a tumult, apparently accidental, but really preconcerted, occurred between some troops belonging to the army of the Subadar and some villagers. The Nawwab of Kadapah hastened to support his tenants, and attacked the rear-guard of the main body of the Subadar's army, that being the part of the force with which the ladies of his harem travelled. Muzaffar Jang, enraged at this insolence, determined to avenge it, but wished, in the first instance, to assure himself of the countenance and support of Bussy. The orders given to this officer had been to avoid, as much as possible, all appearance of hostility, and in accordance with these, he addressed himself to the task of bringing about an accommodation between the two angry chieftains. But it soon appeared that the Nawwab of Kadapah had allied himself with the Nawwabs of Karnul and Savanur against their former confederate, Muzaffar Jang, and that, although anxious, if possible, to avoid hostilities with the French, they were resolved to seize the opportunity to effect the destruction of the Subadar. MUZAFFAR JANG IS SLAIN. 279 MuzafFar Jang had no sooner satisfied himself regarding chap. their plans than he ordered out his troops to attack ^^' them, calling upon Bussy to support him. This, Bussy, ^"pJi"^ who considered himself bound to side with the Suba- dar against traitors, promised to do. But MuzafFar Jang, without waiting for the slower march of the in- fantry, at once attacked the confederates with his cavalry. An obstinate contest ensued, many being killed on both sides. The confederates, however, maintained the position they had taken up, until Bussy and the French contingent arrived on the ground. A few rounds from their artillery and a general advance of their infantry decided the day. The rebel army broke, fled, and dispersed, leaving the Nawwab of Savanur dead on the field, and taking with it the Nawwab of Kadapah, grievously wounded. MuzafFar Jang, indignant at the idea that he, the principal conspirator, should escape, outstripped his French allies to pursue him on his elephant. In his headlong course he came upon the third confederate, the Nawwc4b of Karnul. A desperate hand to hand contest ensued, in the course of which the newly made Subadar, Muzaffar Jang, was thrust through the brain by a spear, whilst his antagonist, the Nawwab of Karnul, was instantly afterwards hacked to pieces. The death of MuzafFar Jang, Subadar of the Dakhan, was in itself a severe, and might have been fatal, blow to the policy of Dupleix. In his person was struck down the main defender of the French alliance, the man who had personally experienced advantages to be derived from French wisdom and French valour, the personal friend and protege of Dupleix. No successor could occupy the position he had occupied mth reference to French India. It was indeed possible that the government of the vast possessions he had inherited only to lose might devolve upon a minor, or a declared antagonist, who might repu- diate all the engagements and cancel all the advant- ages to which Muzaffar Jang had agreed. Under these 280 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, circumstances, Bussy displayed the greatest wisdom. ^^' . Feeling that to secure French interests it was necessary 1751. for him to act, and act on the moment ; that it was essential that the chiefs and the army should not be left in doubt as to their ruler, but that a man should be appointed equally agreeable to them and to the French, Bussy, with the concurrence of the principal officers of the army, set aside the infant son of Muzaffar Jang, and at once proclaimed the next brother, of the previous Subadar, Nasir Jang, Salabat Jang by name,* as Subadar of the Dakhan. From a throne to a prison, from a prison to a throne, constituted in those days a condition of affiiirs which might almost be termed noimal. Salabat Jang was no exception to the rule. He was taken from confinement to rule over thirty-five millions of his fellow-creatures ! The first act of the new Subadar was to confirm all the concessions that his predecessor had granted to the French ; his next was to add to them. In gratitude, we may suppose for his elevation, he joined to the French possession Machlipatan the towns of Nizam- patan, a town and port in the Krishna district ; of Kondavir in the same district ; of Almanava, and of Narsapur in the Godavari district, with the lands thereto attacliing. He ordered the rebuilding of all the factories at Yanaon which his brother, Nasir Jang, had destroyed; and finally he presented to Dupleix the territory of Mafuzbandar in the district of Krikakolam (Chicakol). A few days later the army resumed its route, stormed on March 18 the fortress of Karnul, the residence of the deceased rebel Nawwab of that title ; bought ofi" the threatened hostilities of the Maratha, Balaji Baji Rao, by a present of two lacs of rupees ; reached Haidarabad on April 12 ; remained there a month, and finally made * Vide EWioiVs Ilisto)- J/ of India His full name was " Arairu-1-Mam- bj/ its Own Historians, vol. viii., p. alik Salabat Jang," or, ''the lord of 392. Salabat Jang was the third kingdoms, Salabat Jang." son of Asaf Jah (Nizamu-1-Mulk). SAL^BAT JANG BECOMES SUBADAR. 281 a triumphant entry into Aurangabad on June 29. Here chap. Salabat Jang, in the presence of Bussy and all the ^^^' nobles of the province, was solemnly invested as Subadar 1751 of the Dakhan, on the authority of a firman stated to have been received from the imperial court of Delhi, but regarding the authenticity of which there are very grave doubts. Here we must leave him, and with him for a time the indefatigable Bussy, revolving great schemes, which, had all gone well in the Karnatik, would undoubtedly have produced abundant fruit in their season. We can leave them indeed with the greater satisfac- tion at this conjuncture, because, regard being had to the influence exercised by Dupleix, it constitutes the period at which French domination in India may be said to have attained its zenith. A glance at the map of India will show the enormous extent of country, which, in the spring of 1751, recognised the moral supremacy of Pondichery. The entire country between the Vindhya range and the river Krishna, exceeding the limits of the territory now known as that of the Nizam, was virtually ruled by a French general ; for a French army occupied the capital, and French influence pre- dominated in the councils, of the Subadar. South of the Krishna again, the Governor of French India had been constituted by the Muhammadan Subadar of the Dakhan Nawwab of the entire country, a country comprehending, be it remembered, the Karnatik ; and, theoretically, Maisur, the kingdoms of Tanjur, Trichina- palli, Kochin, and the provinces of Madura and Tini- velli. If indeed the French Governor did not hold these places under his own sway, it was mainly because it was a part of his settled policy to keep his authority in the background, and to govern through the Princes of the country. It was for this reason that he had made over the Karnatik to Chanda Sahib, and contented himself with exercising a moral influence, amounting, in 282 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. CHAP, fact, to a real supremacy, over the others. But in the '^ , beginning of 1751, his power was so far established 1751 that there was nowhere a sign of opposition. Muham- mad Ali, the rival of Chanda Sahib, had promised sub- mission and obedience, and had consented to retire from the stronghold of Trichinapalli. The English, thus deprived of all pretext for interference, were sulking at Madras and Fort St. David. Their presence, it is true, constituted a thorn in the side of the French ruler, but his hands were withheld from attacking them, and the utmost he could aim at was to bring about such a state of things in Southern India, a condition of such univer- sal acquiescence in French arbitration, as would leave his rivals without consideration and without power. Armed with the promise of Muhammad Ali to agree to the conditions that had been proposed, he seemed almost to have brought matters to that point in the spring of 1751. Whilst, then, Bussy is marching on Aurangabad — the dictator of the Dakhan — everything seems to smile on the daring statesman who, from his palace in Pondi- chery, directs all the movements on the board, and of him thus triumphant, of him who in ten years has made Pondichery the centre-point of Southern India, we cannot refuse the expression of our admiration of the soaring genius, the untiring energy, the vast and comprehensive intellect. 28; CHAPTER VII. THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. The energetic measures taken by Bussy after the death chap. of MuzafFar Jang had confirmed the ascendency which . the French had attained in the counsels of the Subadar. 1751, All the promises, all the arrangements, made by the de- ceased Prince, had been at once ratified by his successor. Of these perhaps the most important at the moment was the engagement entered into with Muhammad Ali. It will be recollected that this noble, the representative of the family of Anwaru-din, abandoned by everyone after the downfall of Nasir Jang, had taken refuge in the strong fortress of Trichinapalli. Here, at the instance of the Maratha, Raja Januji, he had opened with Dupleix negotiations, which had terminated in a promise on the part of Muhammad Ali to recognise Chanda Sahib as Nawwab, and to make over to him Trichinapalli and its dependencies, on condition of being himself secured in the possession of his father's treasures, free from all inquiry as to his administration, and of being intrusted with a subordinate government in another part of the Dakhan. It was in the fullest belief that this engagement would be adhered to, and that the matter was settled, that Dupleix had despatched Bussy to Aurangabad. Yet, notwithstanding that Muhammad Ali had before the march of Bussy agreed to the terms proposed, and that Dupleix, on his part, had obtained and forwarded to him the sanction of the Subadar to their being earned out in their entirety, the matter seemed to hang 284 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLKIX WlTll ADVER^^ITY. CHAP, fire. Whether it was that he distrusted the promises of ^^^' Dupleix, or that he trusted to the chapter of accidents, J 75 J this at least is certain, that Muhammad Ali delayed, on one pretext after another, compliance with the terms to which he had agreed. At last, driven hard by Dupleix, he declared that further concessions would be necessary before he could give up Trichinapalli. So anxious was Dupleix for a peaceful settlement of the question, that even this new demand did not exhaust his patience. He sent the letter of Muhammad iVli to Bussy, with a request that he would obtain from the Subadar the necessary authority to enable him to agree to the terms it contained. Considerable as they were, these new demands were in his opinion small in comparison with the consequences which, he believed, compliance with them would entail, viz. the evacuation of Trichinapalli, and, with that, the pacification of the Karnatik. The consent of the Subadar was easily obtained by Bussy ; the proper documents were then forwarded to Mu- hammad Ali, to be considered valid only on the con- dition that he signed the treaty without further delay. Muhammad Ali, however, still hesitated. He had been in fact, throughout this period, urgently beseeching the English for their assistance ; and it was only when, at the end of four mouths after he had received intimation of the Subadar's consent to the additional conditions he liad required, he wrung from them a promise of substan- tive aid, that he boldly threw off the mask, and refused to surrender Trichinapalli on any conditions whatever. Thus again was Dupleix, much against his own inclinations, much, as he well knew, against the wishes of his masters in Paris, forced into war. Thus again did the question of French domination in India depend upon the capture of the city of Trichinapalli. The army, which, in November, 1749, had marched from Pondichery with the intention of carrying out this purpose, had been unwisely diverted to another object. BOTH PARTIES MARCH ON VOLKONDAH. 285 But this time Dupleix was resolved there should be no chap. such mistake. To the native army of Chanda Sahib, ^^^' consisting of from 7.000 to 8,000 men, he added there- ;[75i^ fore a European detachment of 400 men, a few Africans, and some artillery — the whole under the command of M. d'Auteuil. These left Pondichery in the month of March, 1751. Meanwhile the English, recognising and rightly recognising that their only chance of safety lay in their sustaining the cause of the anti-French pretender to the government of the Karnatik, had resolved to support Muhammad Ali with all the means at their disposal. In the early part of February, therefore, they despatched Captain Cope at the head of 280 Europeans and 300 sipahis to aid in the defence of Trichinapalli ; at the end of March following, they ordered a force of 500 Europeans, 100 Africans, 1,000 sipahis, and eight field- pieces to march from Fort St. David, for the purpose of co-operating in the field with the troops that still adhered to Muhammad Ali, and which were expected from Trichinapalli. This force was commanded by Captain Gingens, and, serving with it as commissariat officer, — the second time we have met him, — was Hono- rary Lieutenant Eobert Clive. The first detachment, — that under Captain Cope, — had during the same month made an unsuccessful attempt to capture the city of Madura, held for Chanda Sahib by Alim Khan, and had returned dispirited to Trichinapalli. Captain Gingens, for his part, ha^'ing been joined in the middle of May by Muhammad All's troops, 1,600 in number, had at once marched on the pagoda Verdachelam, about forty miles from the coast, and commanding the communications between Fort St. David and Trichinapalli. Taking and garrisoning this, and having been joined by a further detachment of 1,000 men from Muhammad Ali, and 100 Europeans despatched to his aid by Captain Cope, he moved forward to inter- 286 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAR cept Chauda Sahib and the Frencli, of whom he had ^^^ last heard as marching on Volkondah, about thirty-eight 1751 miles to the north-north-east of Trichinapalli, and on the high road to that place. Volkondah was a considerable place, strong in its natural position, and, for a native town, very fairly fortified. The governor held it for the Nawwab of the Karnatik, but as the rival forces approached it from different quarters, he was apparently undecided as to whether Chauda Sahib or Muhammad Ali had the better claim to that title. It was evident that a battle was imminent, and uncertain as to its results, he feared the consequences which a premature declaration in favour possibly of the faction that might be vanquished, might have on the party that should prove victorious. He therefore judiciously declared that the cession of the place would depend upon the issue of the impending contest, whilst at the same time he lent an attentive ear to the offers that were made him by both parties. The march of Chanda vSahib had been so slow that the English had had time to take up a position to the south-west of Volkondah, before he had advanced beyond that place on his road to Trichinapalli. It had now become indispensable for him to occupy Volkondah, and to drive the English from the neighbourhood. To gain over the governor he spared neither persuasion nor promises. Whether these would, under other circum- stances, have brought about the desired result may be doubtful, but this at least is certain, that the shifty con- duct of the governor so wearied the English commander, — who had likewise tried him his on persuasive powers, — that after a fortnight's useless negotiation, he resolved to compel that which the other would not willing yield. On the evening of July 19, therefore, without apparently acquainting the governor with his intention, Captain Gingens marched a great portion of his force against the place, with the intention of taking possession of it. THE ENGLISH ARE BEATEN. 287 The outer defences of the town, and the town itself, chap. . . VII fell at once into the hands of the assailants ; but this , attack, and the burning of some houses outside, roused 1751. the garrison of the fort, and the English were compelled to recoil from its stone walls with considerable loss. Their ill-advised movement decided the governor. He threw himself at once into the arms of Chanda Sahib, and summoned the French to liis aid. Before daylight, consequently, d'Auteuil put his force in motion, and entering the fort with a portion of his troops, poured upon the English such a fire of artillery, that notwith- standing all the eftbrts of their officers they quitted the field in a panic, abandoning their native allies, and leaving six pieces of cannon, several muskets, all their camp equipage and stores of ammunition, as a prey to the conqueror. Had the French pursued with any- thing like vigour, the war would have been that day at an end. But a fatality seemed to attend all the opera- tions that might have been decisive. D'Auteuil was laid up with the gout, and was quite unable to give his personal attention to details, nor had he a single officer with him upon whom he could rely. Instead, therefore, of taking advantage of the panic which had overcome the English, and of converting their defeat into an over- throw which must have been ruinous, the French and their allies contended themselves w^ith maintaining a brisk cannonade on their enemy from the north bank of the little river Valaru, which he had crossed in his retreat. It has been said,* indeed, that Chanda Sahib was hindered in his onward movements by the defection of one of his generals, in command of 4,000 horse. Desertions from a victorious to a vanquished enemy are not common, least of all among nations of the East. But, however, they may have been, it did not influence in the smallest degree the movements of the French. It was for them, on this as on previous occasions, to give • Orme. 288 THE STRUGGLES OE DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, the cue to their native allies. All the accounts of their ^ ' , - historians, the memoirs of Dupleix himself, record that 1751. they failed to do this, and that they failed because of the illness and apathy of their general, and the want of spirit of their officers. Never before, indeed, had such an opportunity been offered them ; never had such an opportunity been neglected. The force under Captain Gingens consti- with the tuted, exception of 180 men under Captain Cope at Trichinapalli, and a few left to mount guard at Fort St. David and Madras,* the entire available force of English soldiers on the Koromandel coast. A little display of energy on the part of d'Auteuil and his officers would not only have insured the destruction of this force, but, as a necessary consequence, the fall of Trichinapalli, and the restriction of the few English who remained to the limits of their possessions on the coast. This is no idle supposition. It is capable of positive proof So com- plete was the panic which possessed the soldiers of the little army under Captain Gingens, that they left their native allies to fight whilst they ffed in confusion ; f they heard without shame the taunts of a native chieftain on their cowardice ; and notwithstanding that they were not pursued, they abandoned their encampment at midnight, and leaving behind them their guns, camp equipage, and munitions of war, fled precipitately in the direction of Trichinapalli. Can anyone doubt that upon men so panic-stricken, the vigorous pursuit of an enemy would have produced the most decisive effect ? Can anyone believe that the consequences of such decisive action would not have been ruinous to the English 1 But no pursuit was attempted that day ; d'Auteuil contented himself with securing possession of Volkon- dah. On the following morning, however, finding that the enemy had disappeared, d'Auteuil followed on his * The reinforcements to be sub- Fort St. David till the end of July, tequently alluded to did not reach t Orme, Cambridge. THE FRENGir INVEST TRICHINAP^LLl. 289 track, halting within a few miles of the position he had chap. taken up in the hilly country round Utatur, about . twenty miles north of Trichinapalli. Here during a 1751. halt of three days, several skirmishes ensued, in one of which the English fell into an ambuscade and suffered severely. On the third day, Chanda Sahib attacked the English position, and although, owing to the non- arrival at the scene of action, at the time agreed upon, of the French contingent, he was repulsed, yet his attack made so serious an impression upon the English, that they retreated the same night to the banks of the Kolriin. They crossed this river, followed by Chanda Sahib and the French, on the 25th, and took possession of Srirangam, an island formed by the division into two branches of the Kolriin and Kavari rivers, but not deeming themselves even here secure, they abandoned this also and the pagoda upon it — a very strong position in which, supported by the troops in the city, they might have defended themselves against five times their number — and took refuge on July 28 under the walls of Trich- inapalli. The French and their allies meanwhile pushed on, and crossing the Kolrun took possession of Srirangam. First completing the conquest of this island by the capture of the mud fort of Koiladi, at its eastern extremity, they crossed the Kavari, and encamped on the plain to the east of the town, near a position now known as the French Rock. From this they com- menced a sort of bombardment of the place. Trichinapalli* is situated on a plain which once was crowded with rich villages and plantations of trees. The town is in form of an oblong square, the longest sides of which are east and west. On the north runs the river Kavari, less than half a mile from the fort. The town at the time of which we are writing was * This description is taken from Colonel Lawrence's account of the war. U 290 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, nearly four miles in circumference, with a double ^^^ enceinte of walls with round towers at equal distances. 1751. The ditch was nearly thirty feet wide but not half so deep, and at different seasons was more or less supplied with water. The outer wall was built of greyish stone; it was about eighteen feet high, and four or five thick, without parapet or rampart; the inner wall, distant from it about twenty-five feet, was much stronger, and was thirty feet high. Its thickness at the bottom was thirty feet, and it gradually decreased as it ascended by means of steps, to a width of ten feet at the summit. In the middle of the old town stood a most extraordinary rock about 300 feet high. On the top of it was a pagoda " which," says Colonel Lawrence, " was of sin- gular use to us the whole war ; here was constantly stationed a man with a telescope, who gave us by signals and writings an account of all the enemy's motions." It remains to be added that the city is about ninety miles from the coast, the river Kavari running something less than half a mile to the north-east of its northern face ; beyond that, a little more than a mile from the south bank of the Kavari, is the pagoda of Srirangam, and beyond that again the branch of the Kavari known as the Kolriin. The French had, as we have seen, taken post to the east of the city, and had opened fire on the walls. Before, however, much progress had been made in the siege, d'Auteuil, whom gout had utterly incapacitated, was, at his own request, relieved from his command, and returned to Pondichery. His successor was M. Law, nephew of the famous Scotch financier, and who had recently returned from France with strong recommenda- tions from the Directors. We do not meet him here for the first time. He it was who, at the time of the attack on Pondichery by Admiral Boscawen, had been intrusted with the defence of the outpost of Ariakupum; a command in which he had displayed energy and vigour. CLIVE APPR.VRS OX THE RCEXE. 291 His |)ast services and the character he theu bore were chap. sufficient to authorise the expectations which Dupleix ' . had formed from his nomination. He was indeed des- 1751. tined to be disappointed. But Captain Law's case is not the only instance in whicli showy qualities have covered infirmity of purpose, or where pomposity and self-assertion in the council-chamber have been mis- takenly regarded as indications of ability in the field. Nevertheless, at the commencement of liis proceed- ings, Law displayed no lack of energy. Finding that the English were resolved to defend Trichinapalli to the last, and deeming that its defences precluded the possi- bility of a successful assault, he determined to take advantage of the possession given him, by the recent French victory, of the neighbouring country, and to subjec tthe town to a strictblockade. Everything seemed to favour such a proceeding. The great body of the English troops were shut up in Trichinapalli, the few that remained could not expect to cope successfully with the French in the field, still less to introduce sup- plies into the town : in the entire Karnatik but one place, the small fort of Verdachelam, on the road from Fort St. David to Trichinapalli, held out at this par- ticular period for Muhammad Ali. The cause of the English seemed hopeless ; the fall of Trichinapalli, if strictly blockaded and pressed vigorously, appeared certain. Yet it was in these desperate circumstances, in this crisis of the fortunes of France and England, that there appeared upon the stage one of those men whose daring genius and power of original conception supply the want of armies. We have already stated that with the force led by Captain Gingens, to endeavour to intercept the march of Chanda Sahib and the French on Trichinapalli, there served as commissariat officer Honorary Lieutenant Robert Clive. This officer had originally come out to India as a writer in the civil u 2 202 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADYEESITY. (.HAP. service of tlie Comi)cinv in the year 1744, and had VII J. * * , been in Madras when that place was taken by La 1751. Bourdonnais. On the departure of La Boardonnais, and the disavowal by Dupleix of the terms of capitula- tion which he had unauthorisedly granted, Olive had escaped to Fort 8t. David. Here he enjoyed many opportunities of noticing the method of war adopted in the east, in the several attacks made upon Fort St. ]3avid by Dupleix and liis allies, and in the movements of Anwaru-din and his two sons to hinder their suc- cess. When, subsequently, the arrival of Admiral Boscawen secured for the English a preponderance on the Koromandel coast, and the siege of Pondichery was resolved upon, Olive obtained permission to join the besieging army in the rank of ensign. He is stated to have distinguished himself on this occasion by his daring courage, but the skill which was wanting in the leaders of the besieging army shone brilliantly within the walls of the town, and the enterprise miscarried. We next hear of Olive at Devikota, as usual in the foremost rank ; and shortly afterwards as commissariat officer of the expedition sent to intercept Ohanda Sahib. In the panic which followed the failure of Oaptain Gingens to possess himself of Volkondah, Olive showed considerable presence of mind, and attempted, though in vain, to rally the fugitives.* When the force re- treated the following day towards Trichinapalli, Olive, disgusted at a leadership which did not lead, and which declined to accept advice, returned to Fort St. David, and arrived there just as a reinforcement of about 400 men landed from England. One detachment of these he accompanied to V^erdachelam, and a second to Trichina- palli, increasing the English garrison in that place to 600 men. Olive himself did not remain in Trichina- * Orme statps, "Captains Gin- tenant Clive enleavouied to rally gens, Dalton, Kilpatrick, and Lieu- them, but in vain." HIS INBORN GENIUS. 293 palli. AVhat he saw there was not encouraging. The chap. men were dispirited, and had lost all confidence in their . leader. The French were superior in numbers, and 1751. seemed to be pushing their attack with resolution. The surrender of the last stronghold of Muhammad All appeared to him, therefore, to be inevitable, unless it were possible to infuse a sort of revolutionary energy into the counsels of the English. To attempt this at Trichinapalli would be, he knew, useless. The fate of the English must depend upon the action taken at the Presidency. To influence this action he left therefore Trichinapalli, and returned to Fort St. David. The plan which Clive had revolved in his own mind as the plan absolutely necessary for the safety of his countrymen, was due doubtless rather to his inborn genius than to extensive reading or study. It was nevertheless the plan which the greatest military leaders have loved to pursue, — a plan which, adopted by a man possessing daring and prudence, must always be suc- cessful, except when opposed by immensely superior numbers, or by genius of a still higher order. There IS this, too, with respect to such a plan ; no one but a great captain ever has tried it, ever could try it. It is too much for the spirit, for the capacity, for the nerve of an inferior man. To him it seems too bold, too venturesome, too hazardous. It leaves too much at stake. And this, — though the plan is as safe as it is bold, — is safe because it is bold. We allude to the plan of carrying the war into an enemy's country. The inferior sjeneral who hesitates to do this, thouofh he sees that if it could be done it would save him and ruin his enemy, does not calculate on the inevitable effect which such a movement must produce on the " morale " of the force opposed to him, especially when that force constitutes the principal, perliaps the entire, 294 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, available army of the enemy. He does not consider . that such a movement must paralyse the onward march 1751. of his opponent. Yet history abounds with such ex- amples. Even Frederick 11. of Prussia gave up, at a critical period, his movements in Saxony, when he found the Austrians were marching on Berlin. And if he, a consummate master of the art of war, would act thus, what may we imagine would be the eftect of such a movement on men of inferior capacity? It must always be startling, almost always decisive Clive, we say, had arrived at such a conclusion by the mere force of his genius. Hf had the capacitv to open the eyes of his mind, and see the result that must follow. He went, therefore, on his return from Trichina- palli, direct to the Governor, Mr. Saunders ; pointed out to him how, if matters were allowed to take their sluggish course, Trichinapalli, and, with it English interests, must fall ; that Chanda Sahib, Having brought all his resources to bear upon the siege, had left his capital comparatively unguarded ; that ',here was no force of his or of the French in the field ; that Law was at Trichinapalli, Bussy at Aurangabad; that, there- fore, a blow might be struck at the heart of the enemy's possessions, which, if successful, would either force him to leave his hold on Trichinapalli, or Avould open out a new field for military operations, success in which would compensate for the loss of that place. To add force to his proposition, he offered to lead himself the troops that might be destined to carry it into effect. Mr. Saunders, who had been appointed governor the preceding year, was a man who possessed the not in- considerable merit of appreciating the large schemes of men whom he trusted. He cordially received the propositions made to him by Clive ; ordered for field service a force of 200 Europeans and 300 sipahis, — thus reducing the garrisons of Madras and Fort St. David to their lowest point, — and crowned the whole CLIVE SURPRISES ARKAT. 295 by nominatinof Clive himself as commandant, with the chap. ... VII rank of captain, and with unlimited powers.* . Arkat, the place at which Clive aimed his blow, was 1751. the capital of the Karnatik, — the seat of the Nawwab's government. It lies sixty-four miles south-south-west of Madras. At the time of which we are writing it was an open town possessing about 100,000 inhabitants. There was, it is true, a fort with the outward signs of fortifica- tions, but these had long since fallen into decay. The ramparts were in a state of ruin, and the bastions were crumbling from age and want of repair. The garrison, entirely native, consisted of about 1,000 men, nearly one half of whom were cavalry ; to the native gunners, however, had been attached two or three French artillerymen for the purpose of instructing them in the European method of rapid firing. These were at the time in Arkat. To attack and take possession of this place, Clive, at the head of the force above detailed, left Madras on September G ; on the 11th, after halting one day at Kanchipuram, forty-five miles south-west of Madras, he arrived within ten miles of the capital. Thence he resumed his march, and, notwithstanding the unpro- pitiousness of the weather, which displayed itself in a thunderstorm of almost unprecedented violence, arrived the same day at the very gates of Arkat. The news of his march had preceded him, and the native garrison, terrified at the idea of opposing a man who could thus bid defiance to the elements, had hastened to evacuate the place. Clive therefore entered it without opposition, and, prescient as to the effect which its capture must have upon the enemy, proceeded at once to repair its fortifications. This successful occupation of the capital of liis native protege and ally, whilst it surprised and vexed, * Mr. Orme states that besides never been in ncti"n, and four of the Clive there were but eight officers six were memb-rs of the mercantile with this force, six of whom had service. 296 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, did not at all disconcert, the active-minded and ener- 1 ^, getic Governor of Pondichery. If Clive had calculated 1751. tl^'^^ his raid would lead at once to the abandonment of the siege of Trichinapalli, he found himself mistaken. Dupleix, in fact, looking at matters with the glance of a statesman and a general, saw that notwithstanding this diversion, the chances were still ten to one in his favour. It was by pressing more earnestly the siege of the strongly fortified Trichinapalli, the last refuge of Muhammad Ali, that he felt he could conquer Clive in Arkat. He therefore bent every energy of his mind to increase and render effective the force under Law. He sent him Europeans from Pondichery, a battering-ram from Karikal, and he urged both upon him and upon Chanda Sahib the urgent necessity of permitting no consideration whatever to interfere with the pressing and absolute necessity of conquering Trichinapalli. This was the true policy for nullifying and defeating the daring action of Clive. But, unfortunately for Dupleix, he was badly served. Law's action will be hereafter referred to. As for Chanda Sahib, no sooner had he heard of the capture of Arkat, than he insisted on detaching 4,000 of his best troops to retake his lost capital. Dupleix, though regretting that the force before Trichinapalli had been thus weakened, strengthened this detachment, as it passed Pondichery, by 100 Europeans. It was further increased by other native levies to the number of 10,000 men. Thus augmented it marched under the command of Raju Sahib,* son of Chanda Sahib, upon Arkat. The siege which followed not only presents one of the most glorious pictures of Anglo-Indian history, but it may be considered likewise as the turning-point in the * Orme and those who have Ilis name renlly was " Rajii," as followed his narrative call this prince stated in the text. Raju is a good I' Rajah Sahib" ; but " Raja " is an Muhamuiadan name. Vide Rloch- impossible name for a Muharomadau. manu's Ain-i-Akbari, page 4u2. CLIVE BESIEGED IN ARkXt. 297 Eastern career of the Biisrlish, — the foundation-stone chap. VII of their present empire. It was at Arkat that English . officers taught their sipahis to follow them with the 1751. implicit confidence which superior skill and energy alone can inspire ; it was at Arkat that they learned the lesson, followed up afterwards with such magnificent results by their leader, that in Asiatic warfare the ques- tion of numbers is merely a secondary consideration ; that discipline and the self-confidence born of it are of infinitely greater importance ; and there is nothing which a capable general, one who can impress his spirit on his soldiers, may not prudently attempt against an undisciplined enemy. It was at Arkat in fine, that the Anglo-Indian army received its baptism of victory. The incidents of that famous sieo'e are well known to the readers of Anglo-Indian history, On October 4th Raju Sahib took possession of the town, and commenced the investment of the fort. On the 5th, the besiegers beat back a sortie headed by Clive in person. Fifteen days later their battering-train arrived, and on Novem- ber 4, two 18-pounders from Pondichery. The garrison had been reduced to 120 Europeans and 200 sipahis. A reinforcement of 100 Europeans and 200 sipahis, sent from Madras and commanded by Lieutenant Innis, was attacked on the 5th at Tirupatur, and forced to take refuge in Punamallu. The garrison was thus left en- tirely to itself. Its stock of provisions, originally only a sixty days' supply, was more than half exhausted. On the 10 th, a practical breach having been made in the walls, Raju Sahib sent to Clive a proposal to surrender, offering honourable terms to the garrison and a consider- able sum of money to himself, and accompanying it by a threat to storm the fort and put the garrison to the sword, if his proposition were not acceded to. In reply Clive rejected the proffered terms, contemptuously as regarded the money, and tauntingly with respect to the threats. 298 THE STRUGGLES OP DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP. For some days Raju Sahib yet hesitated. He might . still, had he been left alone, have forced the evacuation 1751. of the fort by a continued blockade, for he was well aware of the attenuated state of the supplies within its walls. But all this time Mr. Saunders, the Governor of Madras, had exerted himself with unsurpassable energy to deliver his young captain from his difficult position. First, by reinforcements to Lieutenant Innis, under a more experienced officer. Captain Kilpatrick, he had enabled the detachment to march from Funamallu in the direction of Arkat. Secondly, and with a far more important effect upon Raju Sahib, he had induced the Marathas to take up arms on behalf of Muhammad Ali. A body of 6,000 of these, under the command of Murari Rao, had been for some time awaiting the course of events in the pass of Uamalcheri. But, though nominally the allies of Muhammad Ali, the fortunes of that chieftain were at so low an ebb that they hesitated at first to commit themselves in his favour. The sturdy defence of Arkat, however, had not been without its effect upon these hardy warriors. In the handful of men who had defended its dilapitated fortifications against numbers so superior, they recog- nised soldiers worthy of their alliance. They deter- mined, therefore, without further hesitation, to cast in their lot with the English, The intelligence of this finally determined Raju Sahib. He had to choose between an encounter with Murari Rao in the field, supported by a sortie from the garrison, or an immediate assault. With correct judg- ment he chose the latter alternative, and, on the even- ing of the 24th November (new style), made his prepa- rations for the storm. Unfortunately for the success of his plans, a deserter disclosed them to Clive. When, therefore, his troops advanced, early on the following morning, to the assault, they found that every possible preparation had been made to receive them, that cannon THE SIEGE RAISED. 299 were pointed at the breach, that spare muskets were chap. loaded and in readiness, and that the small garrison had, by the ability of its commander, been utilised so as 1751, to supply by the skilful disposition of the troops com- posing it the paucity of their numbers. Nevertheless, preceded by elephants to burst open the gates, the native troops of Raju Sahib advanced boldly to the attack. Unsupported as they were by the French con- tingent, which strangely kept aloof, they mounted the north-west breach, passed the first trench, and charged the English drawn up to receive them. They were, however, received with such a terrible and continuous fire, spare muskets lying handy for that purpose, that after vain efforts, in wliicH they lOst their gallant leader, a Muhammadan. they recoiled. The attack on the south-west, made by means of a raft thrown across the wet ditch, was equally unsuccessful, and at the end of an hour it became evident to liaju Sahib that Ins attack had failed. His loss amounted to 400 men, plain whilst gallantly attempting to storm a fortress defended mainly by Europeans, few indeed in number but strong in discipline, and commanded by a hero. No greater proof indeed could be given of the means at the disposal of the defenders than this, that, although not exceeding 200, including sipahis, in number, they, besides serving five pieces of cannon, fired ofi" durmg this hour's attack, not less than 12,000 musket cartridges ! * The following morning, Raju Sahib raised the siege, and retreated on Vellur, accompanied only by the French and the troops which had been sent from Trichinapalli, all the rest deserting him. Here we will leave him whilst we describe the effect of this repulse on the French leader himself. We have already stated that Dupleix had never regarded the attack upon Clive as aught but a very * Oirne. 300 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, minor and subordinate part of his great scheme. He had strenuously opposed the weakening of the force 1751 before Trichinapalli for the purpose of aiding in any such enterprise. And when, owing to the fears of Chanda Sahib, the native portion of that force was temporarily diminished, he had reinforced it by 100 Europeans, chiefly with the view of enabling it to con- tend, without certainty of defeat, against the English. His hope was that, thus reinforced, Raju Sahib might detain Clive in Arkat until Trichinapalli should be taken. It was a well-considered policy, the success of which was seemingly certain, provided only that skill and energy directed the movements before the walls of Trichinapalli. We see then Dupleix, in this crisis, fully alive to all its dangers ; detecting the able conceptions of Clive, and taking the measures which, properly carried out, would have thwarted them. We see him, so far from being deterred by Olive's march upon Arkat from prosecuting the siege of Trichinapalli, pressing that siege with greater eagerness than ever ; at the same time that he offered to Olive's movement an opposition just sufficient to procure for himself time to carry out, unmolested, the great object of the campaign We left Law before Trichinapalli at the head of a force of about 400 Europeans. All the energies of Dupleix had been from the first directed to increase the number of these to a strength which should be irre- sistible. Every detachment that landed from Europe, every party that could be called in, was used for that end. They were all sent off to the plain before Tri- chinapalli. So energetic was Dupleix, so earnest and enthusiastic in all he did, that in an incredibly short space of time Law saw himself at the head of one of the largest disciplined forces that had till then operated in the interior of the Karnatik, amounting of all arms to nearly 900 Europeans and 2,000 disciplined sipahis ; TIIK FATAL FEEBLENESS OF LAW. 301 whilst, encamped beside him, aiding liim in all his chap. undertakings, was the native army of Chanda Sahib, in . number nearly 30,000, a very large proportion of whom \i:a, were horsemen. Besides these he had a park of fifty guns, many of them of a large calibre. The most pressing orders were at the same time sent from Pondi- chery to push on the works, in order to capture the place before the operations of Clive should make them- selves felt in the vicinity. Law, in consequence, made a great show of activity, and succeeded in submitting the garrison to a strict blockade This, however, was all he did do. The man so bold and vaunting in coun- cil, whose pre-eminent object in life seemed to be to impress others with a sense of his great cleverness, showed himself, in command of an army, to be abso- lutely incapable. Overbearing to his officers, suspicious of everybody, haughty, vain, and obstinate, unenter- prising himself and checking enterprise in others, Law gained no confidence and conciliated no opinions. Like an obstinate commander, deficient in vision, who, unable to see himself, distrusts the eyesight of others, and thus allows opportunity after opportunity to slip away, so did Law, headstrong and incapable, persist in measures that were useless, and reject counsels that might have led to easy victory. The English that garrisoned Trichinapalli were led by Captain Gingens of whose inferior abilities we have ali'eady spoken. They were animated by a spirit far less buoyant than that which had induced the soldiers of Clive to dare so many dangers and difficulties. They were dispirited bv defeat, by retreat, and by being cooped up in a fortress which they appeared to have but small chance of defending with success. An assault on the part of Law would almost certainly have succeeded. This was pressed upon him from all sides, by Chanda Sahib as much as by Dupleix. But, confident in his own clever- ness, despising, or affecting to despise, the opinions of 302 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, others, Law clnnf? to his own courses, and adhered to . the safe blockade which, he thought, would in the end 1751. P^^^l hi^T^ through. Yet, even in this course, he showed singular blind- ness, and extraordinary deficiency in even the ordinary arrangements of his camp. The Dalwai of Maisur, encouraged by the resistance which Trichinapalli was making, and by the diversion of Clive, had sent a detachment of 500 cavalry to harass the besiegers. These not only defeated a small body of native horse, but were even successful, thanks to the want of order and arrangement in the French camp, and of spirit and enterprise on the part of the French leader, in entrapping sixty French dragoons into an ambuscade, and in destroying all but ten of that number. They were so encouraged by this success, that their leader, Innis Khan, proposed to Captain Gingens that he should march out with his English, and attack the united army of the besiegers. If Gingens would do this, and would undertake with his troops to engage the French, he promised, on his part, to encounter the entire cavalry of Chanda Sahib, though outnumbering his own in the proportion of twelve to one. This was at first declined. But on receiving a reinforcement of 1,000 men, Innis Khan renewed his proposition. Captain Gingens being still unwilling, the Dalwai did not hesitate to tell him that he and his soldiers were of a very different nature from the men he had seen fighting so gallantly at Arkat * Captain Gingens was apparently confirmed in his objection to active measures by the ill-success of a small force he had detached against the little town of Krishnawaram, thirty miles from Trichinapalli, occupied by the French, — the force having been repulsed with some loss, and their leader. Captain Cope, mortally wounded. Thanks, then, to the incompetence of his opponent, • Orme. LAW SLUMBERS WHILST OTHERS ACT. oU the measures of Law, uueiiterprising as they were, chap. seemed to be on a fair way to success. But he forgot '- , that there were other actors on the scene besides him- 175I. self. He forgot that the time, with which he was trifling, might be used to good purpose by his opponents. He forgot, or, at least, acted as if he forgot, that his army and the fortress of Trichinapalli were not isolated from all the world ; that, if he looked upon its capture as the final seal to French domination, others were determined to use every means in their power to prevent it. Thus it happened that he slumbered whilst others acted. When a little energy would have given him possession of the coveted prize, he was content to act with more caution and more reserve than might have been expected even from a Nicias ; nay more, he absolutely threw away chances, courted defeat, and, by his conduct, gave to his rival that empire of the East, which, but for him, might have been gained, at least for a time, by the French. ¥oy whilst Law, disre- garding the entreaties of Dupleix, slumbered before Trichinapalli, the daring energy of Clive was gaining for England advantages and resources of which the French were thus deprived. No sooner had the youth- ful victor of Arkat seen the besieging army of Raju Sahib melt away from before him, than, having received the reinforcement commanded by Captain Kilpatrick, and having made the necessary arrangements for the defence of the capital he had conquered, he set out in pursuit of the enemy at the head of 200 Europeans, 700 sipahis, and three pieces of field-artillery. Notwith- standing that his Maratha allies, venturing too close to Vellur, had sustained a severe defeat at the hand of the French who were with Raju Sahib, and that a reinforce- ment of these from Pondichery had effected a junction with their countrymen, raising their number to 300, Clive did not hesitate to move in their direction. After a forced march of twenty miles he came up with them 304 THE STRUGGLES OF DUrLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, as they were preparing to cross the Ariii. With their , usual gallantry, the French turned to meet their rivals, 1751. but, though somewhat superior in numbers, they were absolutely deficient in that one necessity, the possession of which by the English made up for even greater disparity. The force under Clive consisted of 200 Europeans, 700 sipahis, and 600 Maratha horse. With the French, 300 in number, were 2,500 foot, and 2,000 horse levies. But whilst they had no general, the English possessed (Jlive. The consequence was that the French badly posted, and having no competent commander, were completely out-manoeuvred. Charged in their flank at a critical period of the action, they were forced to abandon the field, and with it their guns, to the enemy. They retreated thence hastily on Jinji with a loss of 50 Europeans and 150 natives, killed and wounded. The English lost not one of their own countrymen and but eight sipahis ; of the Marathas about 50 were missing.* Encouraged by this success, Clive marched on Kanchi- puram which had been meanwhile taken by the French, reduced it after a smart resistance, and then returned to Fort St. David to concert measures for the relief of Trichinapalli. Whilst engaged in this important design, intelligence reached the Presidency that Raju Sahib, taking advantage of Clive's absence, had recovered Kanchipuram, and had ravaged the country up to within a few miles of Madras itself. Determined to clear the province of this enemy before venturing on the greater enterprise, Clive left Fort St. David at the head of a force, which, though inferior to that of the enemy, was yet considerable. The terror of his name preceded him. Raju Sahib and his French allies at once abandoned the vicinity of Madras, and retreated to an intrenched camp at Vendalur. Here, however, they conceived the design of surprising Arkat, whilst Clive should be engaged * Orme. CLIVE TRIU.MPPIS AT KAVARIPAK. 305 in the reduction of Kanchipuram. Strengthening this chap. place, therefore, they moved by forced marches upon , ^^^^ Arkat. The garrison of that place having refused their 1752. summons to surrender, they marched to the town of Kavaripak and occupied a position in front of it, so well covered that it was a veritable ambush. Here, under cover of the trees, they waited for Clive. Clive, who had been marching sixty-one miles with but little rest to his troops, fell into the ambush. It was dusk, and the enemy were so strongly posted that after a fighb of two hours it appeared as though Clive would for the first time be forced to retreat. By means of one of his officers, however, who could speak French, the English leader, at the moment when matters seemed desperate, succeeded in deceiving the enemy's sentries, and in bringing a large force into their rear. These, suddenly firing a volley, caused such a complete panic amongst the French, that they hastily abandoned their position and their guns, and fied as they best could. Many of them were taken prisoners, and Clive, by this artifice, converted an impending defeat into a victory, till then the greatest of the war. Another proof, if any were required, that valour and strong positions are useless if there is a general to attack, and a fool to defend them.* From the scene of this victory Clive marched to Arkat, and thence in the direction of Vellur. Whilst, however, contemplating the reduction of this place, which was held by Murtiza Ali on behalf of Chanda Sahib, he received instructions to repair instantly to Fort St. David, there to undertake immediate measures for the relief of Trichinapalli, the garrison of which was suffering from the close blockade persisted in by Law. On his way to that place, he came upon the site of the victory gained by de la Touche over Nasir Jang, * For a full account of this maiTcUous battle see The Dccisim Batt-es of India. 306 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, on which the risina: town of Dupleix-Fath-abad* was VII . , already struggling into existence. Allowing for the 1762. moment his dislike of the great French statesman to stifle his more generous instincts, Clive razed the town to its foundations. He then marched in all haste to Fort St. David. Here he found that the governor had been unsparing in his exertions to make provision for the contemplated enterprise. So great, indeed, had been his energy that, in three days after his return, Clive found himself in readiness to march towards Trichiiul- palli. This was on March 25, 1752. The 27th, however, brought once more to the shores of India the tried veteran, Major Lawrence. His arrival caused a delay of two days, as well as some change in the arrange- ment of affairs. On the 28th, however, all was in readiness, and a party of 400 Europeans and 1,100 sipahis, with eight field-pieces, escorting military stores and provisions, set out that morning for Trichinapalli under the command indeed of Lawrence, but with Clive as his trusted subordinate. It is time now that we should return to Dupleix. He it was who, at the time when he learned that Clive had proceeded to Fort St. David to concert measures for the relief of Trichinapalli, had, considering it no disgrace to learn something even from an enemy, instigated Raju Sahib to make that raid into the English territories, the results of which we have recorded. Though unsuccessful, it cannot be denied that it eminently deserved to succeed, that it had almost succeeded, when at the moment that victory was in his grasp, the carelessness of the French commander at Kavaripak threw it absolutely away. * Mr. Orme speaks of this town as incorrect. The tinvn was built to corn- having been built to commemorate memorate the triumph of Dupleix's that detestable action, the death of policy, brought to its crowning Nasir Jan;;. The prejudices and point by the victory of de la Touche. passions of the hour may have dis- The death of Nasir Jang was an posed contemporary Englishmen thus incident of that victory, for which to regard it, but tlie statement is the French were not responsible. DARING POLICY OP DUPLEIX. 307 Dupleix was terribly mortified at this failure. For the chap. . " . . VII moment indeed it entirely upset his plans. The defeat .^ at Kavaripak had not only deprived him of soldiers whom 1752. he could scarcely spare, of field-artillery that was priceless ; but it had cast down the spirits of his native allies to an unprecedented and even dangerous degree. No longer could he hope by their aid to effect a diversion in the northern part of the Karnatik. The English had not only gained territory, but with it, of more importance, the confidence of the military class. Desertion by wholesale had taken place from the French to the English standard. More than one important satrap had renounced his adherence to Chanda Sahib, and taken the oath of fidelity to the besieged Muhammad Ali. And this was the consequence of the victories of Clive, of the repeated defeats sustained by the French, more especially of the fatal disaster at Kavaripak. To see advantages there so nearly gained, so carelessly abandoned, was more than even the composed spirit of Dupleix could bear. Those of his own officers indeed whom he could have made responsible for the disaster had either been captured or killed. Upon Raju Sahib, whose incapacity had been conspicuous, the weight, therefore, of his anger fell. For several days he refused to see him, and when at last they did meet, he showed towards the son of Chanda Sahib a contempt, Avhich it was impossible for him, practised as he was in dealing with native princes, to conceal. But though mortified beyond measure at the ill-success of plans which so well deserved to succeed, Dupleix still adhered to that bold and daring policy which he justly regarded as more than ever necessary to the attainment of his vast plans. What had been lost in the northern Karnatik might be gained in the south. Trichinapalli might make amends for Arkat and Kavaripak. And now, Trichinapalli was apparently at its last gasp. Without money, with little ammunition, with deficient and failing supplies, with a European commandant X 2 308 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, devoid of ability, the English garrison and the Mughal ,_ , soldiers and their leader had already begun a course of J 752. recrimination, which, occurring between allies, is the almost invariable precursor of disaster. A little more energy on the part of Law, and tlie place must have fallen. It was at this crisis that intelligence reached Dupleix of the measures that were being concerted at Fort St. David. The number of the men destined for the relief of TrichiuapaUi, the nature of the stores they were to escort, the probable date of their departure, — all were known to him. He instantly took a resolution worthy of himself. Detailing to Law the information which he had acquired, he sent him, at the same time, the most stringent orders to mass a great number of his troops, leaving only a few to maintain the blockade of Trichinapalli, in order to attack and intercept the enemy's convoy. These orders were reiterated in suc- cessive despatches. The very mode in which they could be carried out was indicated with a clearness which left nothing to desire. He sent him besides all the troops that had become available by the cessation of the campaign in northern Karnatik, enjoining upon him that upon this stroke depended the issue of the war, — that, the English beaten and the convoy captured, Trichinapalli must surrender, French influence must triumph ; that, failing in this blow, France would have the mortification of seeing her power, her influence, her authority so dearly gained, and till then so vigilantly maintained, transferred to her hated rivals. It was indeed a grand opportunity. Had there been a Bussy instead of a Law in the French camp, who can doubt how he would have executed the instructions of his superior 1 But unfortunately for the real interests of France, Bussy, the true soldier, was far away at Aurang- abad, and l^aw, the pretender, was before Trichinapalli. It is vain indeed to speculate wdiether in the concussion between the rival and not unequal powers of Bussy and POSSIBILITIES BEFORE LAW. 309 Clive, the latter or the former would have come forth chap. . r 1 ■ • VII the victor. This at least is certain, that the youthful , , hero who laid the iirst foundations of English empire 1752. in India, though displaying on all occasions military talents and resources of the very highest order, never did meet on the field of battle an opponent of even ordinary merit. We will now see how I^aw used his opportunity. The distance from Fort St. David to Trichinapalli being about 150 miles, and the route necessitating the crossing of eight considerable rivers, amongst which were the Valaru, the Koiriin, the Vellar, the Pudu-Kavari, and the Kavari, the latter three times, Law could calculate to a nicety the time and the means for best attacking and crushing the enemy. The necessity for the passage of so many broad and rapid rivers multiplied his oppor- tunities for defending them. But he judged, it would seem wisely, that he would himself run less risk, and would insure the more comjDlete destruction of the enemy, if he were to allow him to approach within an easy distance of Trichinapalli, and were then to engage him in a position in which his defeat would be certain. So far Law judged correctly and wisely. But in the execution of this plan he failed lamentably. Instead of detaching from his own force a body of troops sufficient in number to render success a matter of cer- tainty, he sent to meet a party of 400 Europeans and 1,100 sipahis commanded by such men as Lawrence and Clive, a force consisting of but 200 Europeans and from 300 to 400 natives. He did this too at a time when the troops at his own disposal, independently of the levies of Chanda Sahib, consisted of 900 Europeans and about 2,000 sipahis. Well could he have shared two-thirds of this number for the important service he had in view ! Far safer would it have been for him to undergo the small risk of a sortie on the part of the English garrison, commanded, as it was, 310 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITFI ADVERSITY. CHAV \)y a man wliom recent experience had proved to . be unenterprising, than to court defeat by sending 175 2. against Lawrence a force whicli must be beaten. He might, under the circumstances, liave safely left his camp under the protection of one-fourth of his army, and have marched with the rest to crush Lawrence. So would have acted a real general, but experience has abundantly proved that over-caution and incapacity in the field are the almost invariable accompaniments of superciliousness and self-laudation in the cabinet. Having persuaded himself that he could only, with safety to his main force, detach 350 Europeans and 300 or 400 natives to crush 400 English, and 1,100 sipahis, commanded by Lawrence and inspirited by Clive, Law sent them to occupy the fortified post of Koiladi, on the northern bank of the Kavari river. The position was not ill-chosen, and, had it been occupied in suffi- cient force, would undoubtedly have proved a great obstacle to the advance of the English. A glance at the map will show the inherent strength of this position. The advance of Major Lawrence must necessarily take place between the two branches of the river Kavari. Of these, the upper branch was defended by the for- tified post of Koiladi on its northern bank, unassail- able by the English. Between the northern and the southern bank the distance was less than half a mile. Possessing Koiladi, and haviijg an equal or superior force available to occupy the ground between the two branches, it would have been easy for the French com- mander to have infiicted upon an advancing enemy a crushing defeat. As, however, the defending force did not nearly equal in number the advancing foe, its com- mander resolved not to attempt anything desperate. He considered, however, that as the ordinary road led directly within cannon shot of Koiladi, and that the English would probably follow it, he would be able, not only to inflict upon them considerable loss in men, but LAWRENCE DEFEATS LAW. 311 to capture or destroy a great portion of their convoy, chap. Chance, at first, seemed to favour his designs. On ^ '^ April 7, Major Lawrence, misled by his guides, took i-jo2. his force even nearer to the upper branch of the Kavari than would have been the case had he followed the ordinary route, and found himself all at once under the fire of the guns of Koiladi. These did considerable execution, and before he could move out of range, he had lost twenty Europeans, and his convoy and baggage had been thrown into great disorder. This was the time which the French force, had it been strong enough, might have used with crushing efiect. But its com- mander had apparently imbibed the hesitating and unenterprising nature of his chief. Partly on this account, partly doubtless because he felt himself tied down by the orders he had received, he remained sta- tionary in his stronghold. Major Lawrence therefore was able, not only to extricate himself from his position, but to safely convey that portion of the convoy* he had with him to within ten miles of Trichinapalli. Thus failed, and failed deservedly, Law's first attempt to crush the advancing English. Like all the measures of weak men it was a half measure, and was therefore inefiective. Fearing to run the risk of an attack from the garrison should he detach a strong force to meet Lawrence, he sent only a weak one, and thus incurred the greater risk of losing his whole army. For he ex- posed his force, first, to the risk of being beaten in detail ; secondly, to its being overwhelmed by the com- bined forces, superior in numbers, of Lawrence and Gingens. To avert a very small risk, therefore, he ran a very great one, and drew upon his force the destruction in which a bolder course of action would most probably have involved the English. It is a crisis of this nature which really tries a man, which tests the material of * He had left the remainder the south of the upper Kavari, a post previous day at Triktapaltl, on the helouging to the king of Tanjur. 312 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, which he is made. Law failed because, with all his , pomposity and arrogance, he was essentially a man ol" a 1752. limited intellect and narrow views.* His next measures appear to have been conceived in no abler spirit. Receiving intimation from the com- mandant of the detachment at Koiladi that he had been unsuccessful in preventing the advance of the English, it was even then possible for him, commanding as he did thi high road from that place to Trichinapalli, as well as the country in its neighbourhood, to atone, by a combined attack, for his previous inaction. But, although he had for some time been well acquainted with all the move- ments of Major Lawrence, he had made no effort to mass his forces. They lay scattered in the various posts he had assigned them. When, therefore, the news reached him that the English had passed Koiladi, he was for the moment, thanks to his own negligence, entirely without the means of offering an instantaneous obstruction to their further advance. Seeing nevertheless the great advantage over him which the English would certainly obtain, should they effect a junction with the garrison of Trichinapalli, he hastily called in his scattered detach- ments, prepared, when too late, to risk a general action. Such a resolution, taken twenty-four hours earlier, might have saved his army, and even have gained Trichinapalli. This movement could not be effected till the follow- ing morning. All that night the detachments moved into camp, and at daylight the force proceeded to take up the position assigned to it by Law, and upon which he fondly hoped the English general would march. Yet this position, although strong, was in a certain point of view almost necessarily ill-chosen. Law was too close • "We are well aware that Law, in rence. Any course would have been. his Plainte cotitre le Sieur Dupleix, ])referable to that which he adopted, attempts to justify himself ; but ad- But it is clear from the number he mitting his facts, he must still be had with him at the time of his sur- condemned. Had he, as he asserts, render — nearly 800 — that the number only 600 Europeans, he should have of his force of Europeans on April 7 inarched with those to crush Law- is understated at 900. LAWRENCE OUT-MANGEUVRES LAW. 313 to Trichinapalli to draw up his men so as to bar the road ^y^' across which Lawrence must pass, for in that case he ^^^..^J^^ would have exposed himself to the serious danger of an 1702. attack on his rear from the garrison. He was compelled, therefore, to take up a position in which he could meet an assault from both parties on his front. In this view he drew up his forces in a line drawn obliquely from the village of Chakalpalam on the Kavari to the French E-ock, and extended thence still moie obliquely to the almost inaccessible rock of Elmiseram. As the direct road to Trichinapalli lay between those two positions. Law was not without hope that the English would move upon them before attempting a junction with the garri- son. Major Lawrence, however, was far too wary. March- ing early in the mornhig from Kilakota, where he had encamped the previous evening, he fell in, before he had gone more than a m^le, with an officer sent by Captain Gingens to inform him of the disposition made by the French. Feeling that the game was too secure in his hands for him to risk the loss of it by a premature attack on a strong position, he made a detour round the point of Elmiseram in the direction of the Sugarloaf Rock, near which he was joined by 200 soldiers of the garrison, under the command of Captains Clarke and Dalton. At this place, therefore, the junction with the garrison may be regarded as having been virtually effected. It was just this moment, when the English could no longer be assailed with advantage, when they might, in case of defeat, take secure shelter under the guns of the fort, that the incompetent Law selected to assault them. Feebly made on his part, though supported with great resolution by the levies of Chanda Sahib, his attack did not succeed. The superiority of the French in artillery was neutralised by the superior energy of Clive, who led the English to the attack ; and after an interchange of cannon shot, considered, whilst it lasted, to have been 1752. 314 THE STRUGGLKS OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, hotter than any till then experienced on the plains of ^^^ Southern India, the French retreated to their rock with a loss on their part of 4U men, on the part of their native allies of SOU. Had not Major Lawrence, in considera- tion of the intense heat of the day, stopped the pursuit, they would have suffered far more severely.* Having repulsed this attack, the English marched without molestation into Trichinapalli. No language can paint the anger and mortification of Hupleix when intelligence of these events reached him. This then was the result of confiding the conduct of an array to a man whose principal credentials con- sisted in the super-excellent opinion, which, he allowed all the world to perceive, he had formed of his own abilities. All his recommendations had been disre- garded, inordinate caution had prevailed when the necessities of the hour peculiarly required dashing and daring tactics, and the English army, though en- cumbered by an enormous convoy, had been allowed to enter the beleaguered city virtually unmolested, — no serious attempt having been made to hinder them till they were under the walls of Trichinapalli ! Was it for such a result that Dupleix had schemed and planned, that he had pledged the rising fortunes of French India to the support of native princes who should be but the puppets of France 1 Was it to see the superiority in the field passing from his hands to the hands of his hated rivals, to witness not only the loss of the capital of the Karnatik, but a repulse from the last refuge of Muhammad Ali 1 He was fated indeed to suffer disap- pointments more bitter even than these. But, up to the present moment, he had been so thoroughly buoyed up by hope ; he had trusted that when the time came Law would show himself what he had always boasted himself to be ; above all, he had counted so implicitly on the * The Eng-lish, who fouglit under the cannonade, seven however were cover, lost fourteen men only trom struck down by the sun. — Orme. INTENSE DISAPPOINTMENT OF Dl'PLEIX. 315 capture of this convoy, on tlio destruction or, at least, chav. the repulse of this I'elieving party. To this end he had ^^^" devoted all his faculties. lie had been to Law the eye 175-; to see, the ear to hear ; it was not, alas for him, in his power to be the mind to conceive or the arm to strike. He had given Law all the necessary information ; the rest, being soldier's work, he had left to him as a soldier to perform. The result showed that the mere donning of epaulets does not make a man a soldier : that if devoid of the intellect given by God to man, and not, as some would seem to think, implanted in the dress he wears, that very dress and the fancied knowledge attaching to it make the pedant more pedantic, the shallow-minded and narrow more vain, more obstinate, more contemptuous of the opinion of the many wiser men who wear it not. Law had come out to Dupleix recommended by letters from the directors and by his own vaun tings, — the latter probably the cause of the former. Had he, who boasted himself a soldier, acted even as a man of ordinary common-sense would have acted, it might have been pardoned him had he failed in fair fight before the genius of a Clive and the persistence of a Lawrence. But it is clear that he would have failed equally before men of far inferior capacity. It needed but for his oppo- nent to be capable of advancing, — a rarer quality, how- ever, than is generally supposed, — and Law would have succumbed. He did everything out of season ; and the reason was, that although he wore a soldier's coat, he was not a soldier. How keenly Uupleix felt the bitter disappointment can scarcely be described, nor will we attempt to describe it. We would rather dwell on the measures which, in spite of his disappointment, he adopted un- hesitatingly, to remedy, as far as possible, the disaster. His was indeed no easy position. Where was he to find a general I Bussy, the only competent commander 316 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPT-EIX WITH ADYEESITY. CHAP, lie had imder him, was at Aiirangabad with the Subadar ; ^ Law, helpless at Trichinapalli. Besides those two, I7b)i. there was but the infinii d'Auteuil, disabled by the climate, and by gout, incapable certainly of making head against the vigorous energy of Clive. It seemed almost preferable to maintain Law, who was at least still vigorous, in commEind, than to intrust the last remains of the army to d'Auteuil. Before, however, he could take any measures in this respect, in fact the second day after he had heard of the entrance of Lawrence into Trichinapalli, Dupleix received from Law a despatch which threw him into even greater amazement. This was to the effect that, threatened by the English, and despairing now of gain- ing the place, he had determined to retreat at once into the island of Srirangam. The madness of such a scheme w^as patent to the far-seeing vision of Dupleix. It reemed to him indeed that for a general deliberately to move his forces into an island, where he would be cut off from all communication with his countrymen, was an act of which no one, who had not lost his head, could be guilty. There could not, he felt, be a more dangerous, a more incompetent commander at the head of an army than the man who should propose such a step. Under the influence of this feeling he instantly acted. Hoping that it might not possibly be yet too late to avert a great calamity, he sent strict orders to Law to retreat, if he must retreat, not into Srirangam, but upon Pondichery. With the view of aiding him in this undertaking, and to be prepared at all events for the worst, he strained every nerve to levy a fresh force to move towards Trichinapalli, and to endeavour to effect a junction with Law. His own funds, constituting the bulk of the private fortune he had amassed during his service, were freely spent for this purpose. No regard for his own interests stood in the way of the performance of his duty to his masters and to France. law's position still strong. 317 Thus, by incredible exertions, he succeeded in raising a chap. force of 120 Europeans, 500 sipahis, and with four ^^^ iield-pieces. The command of it he made over to ^--yo d'Auteuil, the only officer at his disposal, with instruc- tions that, on effecting a junction with Law, he was to assume command of the combined army. The party left Pondichery the second "vveek in April. Meanwhile, however, startling events had occurred in the neighbourhood of Trichinapalli. Law, although repulsed on xlpril 8 in his attempt to prevent the march of the English into that fortress, still occupied an extremely strong position. His right resting on the Kavari, maintained his communications with Srirangam and with the country on the northern bank of the Kolriin ; his centre was protected by the French Rock, whilst his left extended to the extremely strong post of Elmiseram, on the top of which cannon had been mounted. Chanda Sahib with his troops occupied the line of the Kavari, forming an obtuse angle with the French position. Had the resolution of Law then con- sisted in anything but words, he might have safely awaited here the attack of the combined English force ; for, although he would then be fighting with a river in his rear, — a most unpleasant position, — yet the ground he occupied was so strong that had it been resolutely defended an attack upon it must have resulted in the defeat of the assailants. It would appear that the English commander, Major Lawrence, thoroughly re- cognised this fact ; for he states in his memoirs that, having sounded his native allies, and having ascertained that on one pretext or another they were evidently unwilling to aid him in an assault on the French posi- tion, he was extremely concerned as to the steps ho ought to adopt to force Law to retreat. Law, however, played his game most effectually. The English, not thinking themselves strong enough to attack the French position unsupported by their native allies, 318 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, had resolved to beat up the quarters of Chanda Sahib. ^'^^' For this purpose, a detachment of 400 men under Captain jy-o Dalton moved out of Trichinapalli on the night of April 12, hoping to surprise the native levies. Unacquainted however with the road, they found themselves at break of day in front of the strongest part of the French posi- tion, between the French Rock and Elmiseram. Dis- covering at once the danger which they ran of being crushed by the entire French force, they endeavoured to retreat without being perceived. The morning light, however, warned the French of their presence before they were out of danger, and the chances seemed all to be in favour of their destruction. But the sight which would have lent vigour and energy to an ordinary man, which would have been used by Clive to make his own cause triumphant, added terror and dismay to the palsied faculties of Law. Far from regarding the retreating English as men whom by an energetic movement he could cut off and destroy, he looked upon their presence there as an indication that he and his force had been subjected to imminent peril, from which they had miracu- lously escaped. Instead then, of moving to attack them, he rejoiced at their retreating of their own accord. His apprehension indeed carried him so far as to direct that, as soon as the English should be well out of sight, pre- parations should be made for an immediate retreat across the Kavari into the island of Srirangam. It would appear, indeed, that this movement had been for a long time contemplated by Law, for he had often insisted upon its necessity to Chanda Sahib, and had even mentioned it in his letters to Dupleix. But Chanda Sahib, a better soldier than Law, had not only pointed out the insensate folly of the movement, but had abso- lutely refused to join in it ; whilst Dupleix, though for a long time not regarding it as serious or possible, had pointed out, in the clearest terras, that such a movement would, more than any other, compromise his own force 1752. LAW RETREATS INTO SRIRANGAM. 319 and the interests of French India. When finally he chap. heard that it had been decided upon, he had replied, ^'^^■ as we have already stated, by an imperative order to retreat upon Pondichery, and by the supersession of Law by d'Auteuil. It is difficult indeed to believe how a man in the possession of his senses could have per- suaded himself that Srirangam was a proper place to retreat upon. It was, in the first place, actually within long cannon-shot of Trichinapalli. In the second place, the fact of a small force remaining in an island, the river surrounding which could be crossed, was surely to invite an enterprising enemy to cut it off, — to force it in fact, unless relieved, to a surrender. To attempt such a movement in the presence of a Clive was a species of folly which that man only could have committed whose nerves and whose senses had been utterly prostrated. Of all places that could have been selected for such a purpose, Srirangam was, without exception, that one which most completely shut the door of hope on the force occupying it, in the face of an enemy strong enough to act on both banks of the river. Yet this was the place to which Law liad resolved, not by a sudden inspiration of folly, but after many days of painful consideration, to carry over the French army. Yet, though the matter had been long predetermined in his own mind, he had made no preparations for carrying his plan into effect. Perhaps he had hoped that after all it would not be necessary. This at least is certain that, up to the moment when the appearance of the English retreating from before his own position brought so vividly to his mind the idea of the dangers that might be in store for him on the right bank, not a single preparation for that retreat had been made. Nevertheless, bent on effecting it, he sent to Chanda Stihib, and to him communicated his resolution. This faithful ally of the French received the intelligence with anger and disappointment. Not he alone, but his 320 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITV. CHAP, principal commanders, opposed it with all their elo- ^^^" quence. Better far, they said, to meet defeat and deatli J 752 i^ open action, than to retreat to a position in which surrender must be necessitated. But all their remon- strances remained without effect on the paralysed spirit of Law. He would retreat, he said ; they might act as they choose ; and he issued orders at once to carry out his resolution. Chanda Sahib, though unconvinced, though despising the man, would not, at that dark hour, abandon the nation that had so long supported him. He might have escaped, but preferring to cast in his lot with the French, he accompanied them across the Kavari. Great was the confusion of the retreat. Not a single preparation had been made for it. The provisions, necessary for the support of the troops in Srirangam, were abandoned and burnt. Much of their baggage was left behind. The guns were with great difficulty trans- ported. However, after infinite labour, the French troops and those of Chanda Sahib found themselves in occupation of Srirangam, a detachment of the former only having been left to guard the rock of Elmiseram, which it would have been wiser to abandon with the rest of the position. The natural consequences of this movement were soon apparent. First ensued the capture of Elmiseram, effected on April 13, by Captain Dalton, after a faint resistance. Next, the movement which Dupleix and Chanda Sahib had alike foreseen, the detaching of a portion of the English army to the northern bank of the Kolrun, in order not only to cut off the supplies of the French, but to sever their communications with Pondi- chery. This measure was suggested to Major Lawrence by Clive, and the former, on consulting his native allies regarding it, found to his satisfaction that it met with their approval conditionally on the command of the English section of the force being intrusted to tlie con- CLIVE CROSSES THE KAVARl. 321 qiieror of Arkat. This matter having been settled, a chap. detachment consisting of 400 Europeans, 700 sipahis, , 3,000 Marathas, 1,000 Tanjurian horse, with eight 1752. pieces of artillery, crossed the Kavari and Kolrun on the night of April 17, and on the following morning took up a position at the village of Samiaveram, nine or ten miles north of Srirangam, and on the high road between that place and Pondichery. This masterly movement owed its success as much to the boldness of the English as to the nerveless despondency of the French leader. Had Clive been in the position of Law, what an opportunity here presented itself of placing the English in the position in which they had hoped to pin the French, by crossing the Kolrun, and taking them between the Srirangam force on one side, and that of d'Auteuil on the other. But all spirit and sense had apparently fled from the counsels of Law. He acted, as though he had but one object, — that of delivering himself and his allies, bound hand and foot, to the enemy. Meanwhile d'Auteuil, who had left Pondichery on April 10 at the head of 120 Europeans, 500 sipahis, and four field-pieces, reached Utatur, fifteen miles north of Samiaveram, on the 25th of that month. Here he learned the situation of affairs ; that Law was cooped up in Srirangam, and that between Law and himself lay Clive at the head of a superior force. Though, infirm and gouty, d'Auteuil had still spirit enough left in him not to be disheartened by these tidings. He had been sent expressly to relieve Law, and he could not leave him to himself without at least an eflfort on his behalf. Accordingly, he resolved to make a detour so as to avoid Samiaveram, and thus to reach the Kolrun without molestation from the enemy. He sent intelligence to Law of his intended movement, but unfortunately for him, one of his messengers was captured by Clive. 322 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP. IiTnorant of this, however, d'Auteuil set out on the vir. " . evening of the 25th, taking a route to the westward ; 1752. but he had not proceeded far before intelligence reached him that Clive, apprised of his movements, was on his march to intercept him; he accordingly returned to ITtatur. Clive, learning this, moved back upon Samiaveram. Meanwhile, however, Law had learned from one of the messengers sent by d'Auteuil of his intended march. Certain information reached him, at the same time, of Clive's intention to intercept him. Here was a splendid opportunity. By making a forced march of ten miles from Srirangam with his whole force, he might seize Samiaveram whilst Clive should be engaged with d'Auteuil, and then press on to crush the former in the field. Of the many chances granted to the French leader, this was the last and not the least tempting, — not the least likely to lead to great and important consequences. To have even a probability of success, however, it was requisite that Law should move with the bulk of his force, and should move with the rapidity of lightning. But this unfortunate leader, though a little braced up by the intelligence of the approach of d'Auteuil, was still incapable of real vigour or energy. Instead of moving himself at the head of his force, he detached only 80 Europeans, of whom 40 were English deserters, and 700 sipahis,* to carry out a scheme, upon the success or ill-success of which depended the domination of the French or English in India. This detachment approached Samiaveram after Clive had returned from his fruitless search after d'Auteuil. Little thinking, from his experience of the character of Law, that there was the smallest fear of an attack from the side of Srirangam, Clive had made no pre- parations to meet one, and had gone quietly to bed. The French detachment, meanwhile, had arrived at the * Orme. THE SURPEISE OF SAMIAVERAM. Z2' gates, succeeded, by means of the deserters who formed chap. a part of it, in persuading the English sipahis on guard ^^^' there that they had been sent by Major Lawrence to ^752. reinforce Clive, and they thus obtained entrance into the very heart of the English camp before the presence of an enemy was suspected there, and whilst Clive was still sleeping. Yet sleeping though he was, the presence of that one man on the side of the English alone made the difference between victory and defeat. Had he been the leader of the French none can doubt but that the latter would have that night crushed their enemies in their camp, and have recovered all the results that had been so wilfully thrown away. But Clive was the leader of those opposed to them, and never did he vindicate so completely his title to be a leader of men, a prince amongst his people, as on that eventful night. Never did anyone under such circumstances display a presence of mind more perfect, a courage more brilliant and ready. The circumstances were almost marvellous. The English force at Samiaveram occupied two pagodas, about a quarter of a mile distant from one another; round these were encamped the natives. Now, the French force had advanced through the natives, and had penetrated to the lesser pagoda, in an open shed close to which Clive was sleeping in his palanquin. Here, being challenged, they fired volleys into each of these places, one of them narrowly missing Clive, and most effectually awakening him. They then moved on, occupied the larger pagoda, and drew up their sipahis in front of it, — these keeping up an incessant fire in the supposed direction of the enemy. Meanwhile, Clive, on the first alarm, had run to the greater pagoda, and marched up 200 of his Europeans to see what could have caused the disturbance, still considering it a false alarm of his own sipahis, and never dreaming of an enemy. Approaching close to the lesser pagoda he went among the French sipahis, still believing them to Y 2 324 THE STRUGGLES OF DUFLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, be his own, and ordered them to cease fire. He did not even discover his mistake when one of them, 1752. ascertaining him to be an Englishman, wounded him in two places, and then, when attacked by Clive, ran towards the lesser pagoda. Clive followed him, only however to find himself in the presence of six French soldiers, w4io called upon him to surrender. Then, for the first time, the whole truth burst upon him. Comprehending it all in a moment, he called upon the Frenchmen to yield in their turn ; told them he had even come to offer them terms, and invited them to see for themselves his whole army drawn up to attack them. Completely deceived by his bold and ready artifice, three of the Frenchmen at once laid down their arms ; the remainder communicated Clive's terms to the party in the larger pagoda. These, however, refused to surrender, and it was not till after a most sanguinary contest, in the course of which Clive had another narrow escape, caused mainly by the desperation of the English deserters, that they yielded to terms. The French sipahis, meanwhile, had marched out of camp, but they were pursued by the Maratha cavalry and cut to pieces, it is said, literally to a man. After this repulse the situation of the French in Srirangam became desperate indeed. Entirely to cut them ofi" from all relief, as well as from all hope of escape, possession was taken by the Tanjurian allies of the English of Koiladi on May 7. There then re- mained only M. d'Auteuil with whom to deal. To rid that part of the country of him, Major Lawrence, on the 20th, despatched Captain Dalton at the head of 150 Europeans, 400 sipahis, 500 Marathas, and four field-pieces, — leaving Clive's detachment entire at Samiaveram. Meanwhile, d'Auteuil, scared by the ill-result of his attempt to turn Samiaveram, and of the well-meant but ill-supported attempt of the Srirangam party to surprise DALTON DRIVES D'AUTEUIL TO VOLKOXDAH. 325 that place, had remained quietly at Utatur waiting his ^y^^' opportunity. The opportunity came, but did not find ■ him capable of taking advantage of it. In fact Captain 1752. Dalton's party after a skirmish in front of Utatur, which had no decisive results, had advanced at once upon that place. Late experience had shown the English that the surest way to victory was to move straight on, — to destroy by that advance the morale of the enemy, and thus to more than half beat him before the actual fight had begun. Acting on this plan, Dalton made such a display of his troops, maintaining only a few with his guns and sending the infantry to attack the enemy in fiank, that d'Auteuil imagined that he had not simply a detach- ment, but the whole force of Clive before him. Having this impression, all his intellect fled, and he became the slave of his fears. Had he been as bold as Dalton, a resolute advance on the guns must have decided the action in his favour. But fear, not physical but moral, shutting his eyes and taking away his senses, he allowed himself to be deceived by this shallow device, and not- withstanding that he did actually repulse the English from Utatur, he abandoned that place in the night, and fled, unmolested, to Volkondah, thus leaving Law to his fate, to England a certain triumph. Whilst this w^as going on. Law, noticing from the watchtower of Srirangam the march of Dalton's troops, concluded that they must belong to Olive's force, and, this time acting with boldness, crossed the river with the bulk of his army, hoping to gain Samiaveram. But Clive was not the man to expose himself twice to the chance of being surprised. He at once marched to meet him, and came up with him just as he had crossed the Kolriin. It was not for Clive, under the circumstances, to seek an engagement. The enemy was already in the toils. A battle alone could extricate him. On the other hand, every circumstance should have induced Law to court an action. It was, his only chance, and here the 326 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITU ADVERSITY. ^^^^ numbers were in his favour. But, — he did not fight ; — v««.,^_^ he returned to Srirangam, only, alas for French 1752. interests, to surrender. The capture of Pachandah, a fortified pagoda on the northern banks of the Kolriin opposite Srirangam, com- pleted the investment of the French, and took away from them the opportunity, till then open to them, of commu- nicating in any way with the direct road from Pondichery. This place having been gained, still further to deprive them of all hopes of reinforcements from d'Auteuil, Clive marched in search of that officer, and coming up with him on June 8, at Volkondah, the native com- mandant of which place had been secretly gained by the English, he compelled him with his whole force to surrender. Thus deprived of his last hope, what was there for the unfortunate Law to do ? He, poor man, knew well, in his heart of hearts, to what end recent events had been tending, and for some days past he had been well aware that there was no alternative between cutting his way out and a surrender. Under such circumstances great men act; small men, on the contrary, allow themselves to be acted upon by every vague rumour, no matter whence it may have arisen ; nay, they go so far as to delude them- selves into the belief that somehow — how they cannot say — all will in the end be well. Thus it was with Law. He allowed himself to be deluded by all kinds of vain imaginings ; for a long time it was d'Auteuil's advance; then it was the hope of reinforcements from France; sometimes one thing, sometimes another. He appears never to have bethought him that a man's energy is given him to be employed ; that there is no conjuncture, how- ever trying, from which a man, by the exercise of that quality, may not extricate himself; that to depend on chance is altogether unworthy of a real man. Had he only dared to look facts in the face, he must have seen that he must surrender if he could not escape. His COURSES STILL OPEN TO LAW. 327 provisions were fast failiuoj him, his native allies were chap. ... VI r deserting hiin in hundreds, but still he had his , Europeans. In the beginning of June there yet remained 1752. to him 800 of these, in addition to about 2,000 trained sipahis, and 3,000 or 4,000 native levies who still remained faithful to Chanda Sahib. With these he might easily have taken advantage of the first fall of the Kavari to attack Major Lawrence's camp on the south of the river, to the troops guarding which he was in numbers vastly superior. Overpowering this, he might have thence cut his way, without much chance of molestation, to Karikal. In vain did Chanda Sahib over and over again implore him to have recourse to some such means. He could not make up his mind, he preferred to depend on acci- dents and chances, — and he was lost ! Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that he was so base as to be indiff"erent to the fate of that faithful supporter of French interests. Law knew full well that but one result to Chanda Sahib would follow his sur- render to the now triumphant Muhammad Ali. As for surrender to the English, that was absolutely out of the question, for France and England were not at war. In the contest between Muhammad Ali and Chanda Sahib, the French and English were not principals, they were simply hired mercenaries engaged on opposite sides. Whichever party might be victorious neither then could claim the open direction of aifairs. A proposition of surrender to the English could not, therefore, and would not, have been entertained. As for Muhammad Ali, it was not to be expected that, brought up as he had been to regard all means lawful to accomplish the death of a rival, he would hesitate as to the punishment to be meted out to one who had proved himself so persistent, so daring, so fertile in expedients as the French-protected Chanda Sahib. Having rejected all bolder counsels, and having made up his mind to surrender, Law busied him- self therefore to find the means of sa\ ing the life of his 328 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLElX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP. ally. For this purpose he entered into negotiations with , Manakji, general of the army of the Raja of Tanjur. 1752. This chieftain readily accepted the terms offered, and having received a stipulated sum of money in advance, with the promise of more to follow, having likewise sworn solemnly to protect the life of the fugitive Nawwab, Manakji, on the night of June 11, sent an officer with a palanquin to escort him to his camp. No sooner, how- ever, had the unfortunate man arrived there, than he was violently seized, loaded with irons, and placed under a guard. The next morning a conference was held to determine his fate, at which Major Lawrence was present. There can be no doubt whatever that a firm persistence on the part of that officer, more especially on the second day, — after the English had become, by the surrender of Law, absolute masters of the situation, — would have saved the life of Chanda Sahib. Major Lawrence himself asserts that, in the course of the debate as to the manner in which Chanda Sahib should be disposed of, he himself was at first silent, but subsequently proposed that he should be made over to the English. This, however, was objected to, and no resolution was arrived at. The second day after however, when Manakji inquired from him whether he seriously desired to have charge of the prisoner, the English commandant passed upon him virtual sentence of death, by declaring that he did not wish to interfere further in the dispute regarding his disposal.* A few hours later Chanda Sahib was stabbed * This indifference,— to use a light for the possession of the person of term, — of the English commander to Chanda Sahib, writes thus: — "Ter- the fate of Chanda Sahib has been rilied at the commotions which very gently treated by most English would inevitably follow if he gave historians. The statement however the preference to any one of the of Orme, biased as that writer is competitors, he (Manakji) saw no against the French, shows how com- method of finishing the contest, but pletely it was in the power of Major by putting an end to the life of his Lawrence to have saved Chanda prisoner ; however, as the Major Sahib, had he chosen to stretch foith (Lawrence) had expressed a desire his hand. Orme, after alluding to that the English might have him in the contest between Muhammad Ali, the\Ti>ossefi'sion,hethougJititiiecessari/ the Maisurians, and the MarAthas to know ivhether they serio^ishj ex- LAW SURRENDERS. 329 to the heart by order of Manakji, and his decapitated chap. head was sent to his triumphant rival. ' _ . But before this tragedy had been consummated, Law 1752. himself had surrendered. Resting on the broken reed of delusive expectations, he had allowed every oppor- tunity to pass by, until at last the arrival of a battering- train from Devikota placed it in the power of the English to compel him to submit to their own terms. After the usual amount of protests, and threats to defend himself to the last should those protests not be acceded to, he finally agreed that the French army should sur- render prisoners of war ; that the officers should be liberated on giving their parole never to serve against Muhammad Ali and his allies ; that the English deser- ters should be pardoned ; that all the arms, artillery, and munitions of war should be made over faithfully to the English commandant; and that the island itself should be surrendered. The conditions were faithfully carried out. On the morning of June 13, 35 officers, 785 soldiers, and 2,000 sipahis laid down their arms and surrendered themselves prisoners to the English commander, this latter acting not on his own account but as representative of Muhammad Ali. There was given up at the same time forty-one pieces of cannon, and an immense quantity of ammunition.* pectedthisdefefence;sindaecoTdiiig\y, whom they co-operated. It is clear ou the same morning that the pagoda that in the case now under notice it surrendered, went to the Major, ivith was not at all a question of dictation. whom he had a conference , lohich con- It is too evident that a word from vinced him that the English icere his Major Lawrence to Manakji would friends, and that they were resolved have changed the fate of the victim. 7iot to interfere any further in the dis- How can we avoid the simple con- pute. He, therefore, immediately on elusion to be drawn from the fact, his return to Chakalpalam put his that Manakji, satisfied that the design into execution, by ordering the English would not interfere to save head of Chanda Sahib to he struck off. the life of the prisoner, went straight (The italics are our own.) It is un- from the presence of Major Law- fartunately clear from this, that rence to order the execution of Major Lawrence did connive at the Chanda Sahib ? death of the unfortunate prisoner. * Our authorities for the account Professor Wilson states, in depreca- of this sh'>rt campaign are the history tion of this verdict, that at that of Mr. Orrac, the journal of Major period the English were not so well Lawrence, the memoir of Captain assured of their power, as to pretend Ualton, and the memoir and official to dictate to the native princes with letters of Diipleix. 330 THE STRUGGLRS OF DUPLEIX WITH ABVERSITJ!. CHAP. Thus fatally ended, after intense labour and anxiety . to its projectors, the expedition which, but eleven months 1752. before, had been despatched, full of the certainty of success, from Pondichery. What a termination to pros- pects which shone with such brilliancy in the outset, what a sequel to plans which seemed, at the time of their pro- jection, to be proof against failure! Then there was but one barrier to French domination in the Karnatik. They possessed commanding resources, a ruler whose influence with the natives was unparalleled, and, above all, the prestige of victory. Opposed to them was a pretender deserted by his allies, but occupying a fortified town, and a mere handful of dispirited English. But at the end of eleven months what a different picture do we behold ! The pretender has become the de facto ruler ; the handful of dispirited English, the arbiters of the Karnatik ; the victorious French army are prisoners of w^ar. Whence this revolution X Can we discern in the steady mind of Dupleix any symptoms of faltering, any signs of decay \ On the contrary. Never had he shown more unfaltering resolution ; on no previous occasion did he manifest a more zealous energy. His orders to Law, his encouragement of Chanda Sahib, his attempt to infuse energy into d'Auteuil, show the ardour of his spirit, the correct aim by which his views were guided. Had his orders been carried out, had even common prudence and energy been displayed by his commanders, his policy must have triumphed, the genius of France must have conquered. If, then, we look for the causes of a contrary result, we must turn our eyes to another quarter. Dupleix was the civil governor, possessing a power of devising plans, even military plans, for there is nothing in mili- tary plans which genius, though not specially trained to warfare, is unable to master, — such as has been accorded to but few men in any age. His was the eye to see, the brain to conceive ; but he possessed not in addition the REASONS FOR THE FRE>X'H FAILURE. 331 arm to strike. To carry out his vast plans he was chap. compelled to confide in others, and it happened, unfor- ^ ^^* tunately for him, that whilst, at this period, those whom uo2. alone he was able to employ were men of singularly feeble intellect, deficient in energy and enterprise, dread- ing responsibilty, afraid to run small risks, and therefore exposing themselves to great dangers, his principal adversary was a man of vast and comprehensive genius, of an aptitude for war sui'passing all his contemporaries, of a ready audacity and prompt execution in the field, such as have never been surpassed. Whilst then the de- signs for the French campaign were most masterly, being conceived in the brain of Dupleix, — their execution was feeble beyond the power of description, that execution being left to his lieutenants. The orders, the letters, the entreaties of Uupleix stand living witnesses in the present day of the exactness of his conclusions. Had they been obeyed, — and it is clear that obedience to them was easy, — Trichinapalli would have fallen whilst Clive was still besieged in Arkat; or, had untimelv occurrences prevented that great triumph, a literal obedience to his instructions w^ould have insured the interception and defeat of the relieving forces of Law- rence and Clive on the banks of the Kavari. Who could have believed that imbecility and fear of responsibility would ever find the level reached in the manufacture of a Law, — imbecility and fear of responsibility so clear as to draw even from the English historian, jealous as he is on all occasions of the reputation of the English leaders, the remark, that "it is indeed difficult to determine whether the English conducted themselves with more ability and spirit, or the French with more irresolution and ignorance, after Major Lawrence and Captain Clive arrived at Trichinapalli 1 " * To judge fairly and candidly the degree of merit or demerit attaching to Dupleix at this crisis of the * Oruie. 332 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLElX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, fortunes of French India, we propose to examine liis conduct after the occurrence of the misfortunes we have 1752. recounted. In what a position was he then ! Law, with the main body of the French troops, beaten and taken prisoners ; d'Auteuil, with the relieving force consisting of the only French troops available for garri- son purposes, beaten and taken prisoners ; Bussy, with all that yet remained, far off at Aurangabad ; Chanda Sahib, his trusted ally, murdered, and his levies dis- persed. To Dupleix then there remained at this crisis merely Pondichery, Jinji, and the French possessions on the coast, without garrisons to defend them, still less with troops available for operations in the field. His enemies, on the contrary, triumphant, possessors now of the influence and of the material advantages for which he had toiled, had it in their power apparently utterly to overwhelm him. They had not only an army and numerous native allies, but a Lawrence and a Clive to command them. Dupleix had no longer an army, no longer an ally ; since the departure of Bussy he had never had a general: he had to depend upon no one but himself, — and one other trusted and indefa- tigable councillor, — his own wife. Let us watch now how this man, thus overmatched, thus driven into a corner, made head against the enormous difficulties with which he had to contend. His own experiences and alliances with native chief- tains had satisfied Dupleix, that to such men there was no such disorganiser as victory. Prepared after defeat to sacrifice in appearance even their just claims, if by so doing they could retain a basis for future action, they would on a change of fortune, however occurring, show an absolute forgetfulness of past admissions, and increase thek demands to a most exaggerated degree. If this were the case when a native prince might be in alliance with a European power, to a much more extended and dangerous degree would it occur when three or four DUPLEIX KALLIES FRIENDS AROUND Illif. 333 native princes should occupy such a position. For then chap. each ally would measure his own claims by the claims . of his rival, and it would inevitably happen that such 1752. claims would often clash. Now in the war that had just then concluded, Muhammad Ali, the rival of Chanda Sahib, had been aided by three native allies, — by the Raja of Tanjur, the Raja of Maisur, and the Marathas. So long as it seemed certain that Muhammad Ali and his English allies would prove triumphant, — a conclusion which the imbecility of Law had made clear to the acute intellects of the natives at an early period of the contest, — it was evident to Dupleix that no attempts to bring them over to his side would have the smallest effect. Nevertheless he maintained native envoys at their courts, instructed by him from time to time to act as circumstances might render advisable. It was then, when victory declared itself against him, when he had no more any troops and not a single ally, that he put in action those arts of which no one better than he understood the use. His attempts were not at first made on Muhammad Ali. The English, he well knew, were acting in the name of that prince, and would be bound to attend mainly to his interests. Of the other parties to the alliance, the Marathas were the most influential, and with these, at the moment when the power he represented lay lowest in the estimation of the world, he commenced his secret negotiations. So well did he succeed that Muhammad Ali and his English allies soon found that almost the only profit they had derived from their victory was the surrender of Law and his army. In a moment, as it were, they discovered that the animosity of the Maisurians against Muhammad Ali, and of Murari Rao against both, would prevent that combined action in the field on which they had previously calculated; whilst the men of the Tanjur contingent, sick of service which seemed likely to bring 334 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. ^^A^- little advantage, were clamorous to return to their own , country. So pronounced were the secret intrigues and 1752. so undisguised the mutual suspicions, that, although Law's force had surrendered on June 11 it was not till the 9th of the following month that the Nawwab and his English allies were able to leave Trichinapalli, and even then he was forced to leave 200 of the latter and 1,500 of their sipahis as a garrison to protect the city against his former associates, — the Maisurians and the Marathas. The delay thus caused, and the disaffection in the enemy's camp were eminently serviceable to Dupleix. It so happened that in that very interval the yearly reinforcements of troops arrived at Pondichery from France. It is true that the men composing it were not of the best material, — indeed Dupleix himself asserts that they were a collection of the vilest rabble, — but they formed at least a basis upon which to work. To increase their number he landed the sailors from the fleet, and manned the vessels in their place with lascars. By these means he found himself provided with a body of nearly 500 European soldiers, able once more to present a respectable ap- pearance in the eyes of the native powers. To effect all this he had freely drawn upon his private resources, and made his entire fortune subservient to the cause of his country. An opportunity soon presented itself still further to confirm the opinions entertained regarding the magnitude of his resources, and to intimate very clearly to the native princes that Pondichery was yet unconquered. Harassed by their native allies, and by the intrigues fomenting around them, the English had made but slow progress after leaving Trichinapalli. They took indeed Tiruvadi, held by a small garrison of French sipahis, on July 17; but from that moment their counsels became as uncertain as had been those of the French two months earlier. Major Lawrence had DUPLEIX RE-ASSUMES THE OFFENSIVE. 335 left them on account of his health ; Clive had been chap. VII. compelled to proceed to Fort St. David trom the same . cause ; and the command of the troops in the field was 1752. left to the incapable Gingens. This officer remain- ing idle at Tiruvadi, instructions were sent him from Governor Saunders, contrary to the advice of Major Lawrence, to detach a portion of his force against Jinji. Major Gingens obeyed these orders by sending, on August 3, 200 Europeans, 1,500 sipahis, and 600 of the Nawwab's cavalry under the command of Major Kinneer, an officer who had but just arrived from Europe. Intelligence of the march of this detachment having been promptly conveyed to Dupleix, he determined to use it to strike a blow for the recovery of the prestige of the French arms. Sending orders, therefore to the commandant of Jinji to hold that place to the last extremity, he organised from his new levies a force of 300 Europeans and 500 sipahis, and sent them with seven field-pieces to occupy a position half way between Pondichery and Jinji, and commanding the pass just traversed by the English on their route to the latter place. Jinji was a fortress on many accounts very dear to the French. Its almost marvellous capture by Bussy, on the 11th September, 1750, had raised the reputation of his countrymen to the highest point all over India: the victory gained near it by de la Touche over the forces of Nasir Jang, had eemed to consolidate and cement French power in the Karnatik. The possession of Jinji alone gave them a prestige in the eyes of the natives, which it would have taken much to eradicate. Its natural inaccessibility, Dupleix was well aware, was sufficient to enable a well-commanded garrison to beat oft' a force five times the strength of that commanded by Kinneer. That officer likewise, he knew, was a stranger to the country and its people, and it seemed 336 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX AVITH ADVERSITY. CHAP, highly improbable that in the lottery of the distribu- , ' . tion of commands, the English should draw a second 1752. Lawrence, still less another heaven-born genius of the stamp of Clive. His plan, therefore, seemed certain to succeed. Operating on the rear of the enemy, who, he was sure, would make nothing of his movement against Jinji, he would induce him to attack the French in a position previously chosen and previously fortified, and he would then, it seemed certain, take his revenge for Srirangam. It fell out just as he had anticipated, Kinneer arrived before Jinji on August 6, summoned it, and met with a determined refusal. Appalled at its strength he was hesitating as to his action, when news reached him that the French had taken up a position at Vieravandi in his rear, cutting off his communications with Tiruvadi. With the spirit of a soldier Kinneer turned at once to attack this new enemy, and, rendered bold by the re- peated successes of the English, he did not care to reconnoitre, but dashed directly on the French position. To draw on the English against the strongest part of this, M. de Kerjean, a nephew of Dupleix, who held the command, dkected his men to retire. The English, on this, advanced with greater audacity, till they found themselves exposed to the full fire of the enemy's field- pieces, separated from them by a strongly fortified wall. At this moment Kinneer was wounded, the English sipahis retreated, and even the English white troops began to waver. Just then Kerjean directed a movement on their flank. On this service 100 French soldiers started. The manceuvre was decisive. The English fell back after but a slight resistance, leaving forty of their men dead on the field of action. Thus in less than two months after the terrible and seemingly irreparable losses caused by the incapacity of law, did Dupleix bring back victory to the French standards, and recover his influence amongst the native TITLES BESTOWED UPON DUPLEIX. 337 princes of the Karnatik. The effect was increased by ^y^^- the capture, shortly afterwards, of a company of Swiss ^.^^^.^ mercenaries, employed by the English under the com- 1752. mand of Captain Schaufon the high seas. The English denounced this action as opposed to the law of nations, the two countries being nominally at peace. But Dupleix triumphantly replied that he had as much right to capture English soldiers on the seas, as the English had to capture French soldiers on land ; that on this occasion he was merely acting in self-defence, as these soldiers had been sent to sea that they might the more effectually attack the French possessions on shore. There can be no doubt as to the soundness and com- pleteness of this reply. It was about this period that Dupleix received from the Subadar of the Dakhan, Salabat Jang, a patent containing his formal appointment as Nawwab of the Karnatik, and of the countries south of the Krishna, and as possessor of all the other honours conferred upon him by Muzaffar Jang. Salabat Jang also in- formed him that the Emperor Ahmad Sliah would shortly send an embassy with the imperial patents of confirmation. In consequence of the authority thus re- ceived, Dupleix appointed Raju Sahib, the son of the deceased Chauda Sahib, to hold the appointment under him. Finding, however, that the young man himself preferred pleasure and sloth to the occupation of w^ar, he entered into negotiations with Murtiza Ali, the surviving son-in-law and nearest relative of the family of Dost Ali. Murtiza Ali responded freely to the con- ditions, and agreed to advance a considerable sum of money, and to levy troops in support of his title. In the same month, likewise, the Directors of the Company of the Indies wrote to Dupleix to express their entire satisfaction with his conduct, and to inform him that the King of France had been pleased, in compliance with their solicitations, to confer upon him the- title of z 338 THE STKUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP. Marquis, with reversion in direct line to his descendants. . From all the eminent public men in France he received 1752. by the same opportunity congratulations on the receipt of this well-merited honour, and expressions of entire concurrence in the policy he had adopted. Meanwhile, all his hopes raised by the success at Vieravaudi, Dupleix renewed his negotiations with the Maisurians and Murari Rao, pressing them to declare openly in his favour. This they agreed to do, provided Dupleix should engage so to employ the main army of the Eng- lish as to leave them free to prosecute their views upon Trichinapalli. In accordance with these views Dupleix reinforced Kerjean to the utmost extent possible, and sent him to enforce a blockade of Fort St. David, so as to prevent any possible co-operation by the English with their detachment at Trichinapalli. By this means Kerjean's force was increased to 400 Europeans, 1,500 sipahis, and 500 native horse. The news of this vigorous action aroused Major Law- rence from his bed of sickness. Proceeding to Fort St. David by sea he arrived there on xlugust 27, and on the folloAving morning moved out at the head of 400 Europeans, 1,700 sipahis, and 400 troops belonging to Muhammad Ali, to reconnoitre the French position. Strong as it was he resolved to attack it on the follow- ing day. But Keijean, not confident as to the result of an action, retreated during the night to Bahur, two miles from Fort St. David, and the following evening, — Major Lawrence still advancing, — to Valianur, within three miles from Poudichery. At this time Dupleix was momentarily expecting the arrival of a ship called the " Prince," having on board 700 men, and, what was of equal importance, a tried commander on Indian soil, — M. de la Touche. As Major Lawrence was forbidden by his instructions to attack the French in their position on French soil, it would have been wise policy on the part of the French LAWRENCE AGAIN DEFEATS THE FRENCH. 339 coramauder to remain where he was until the reinforce- chap. ments should arrive. But it would appear that Major . Lawrence was equally aware of the hopes entertained 1752. regarding the " Prince," and he wisely bethought him of trading on the ambition of M. de Kerjean, who could scarcely expect to retain his command on the arrival of an officer with the reputation of de la Touche. He resolved, therefore, to move back to Bahur, hoping that Kerjean would followed him. The result fully answered his expectations.* Kerjean followed the English major the next day, and early on the morning of September 6 received the shock of his attack. The action was obstinate and bloody. The French received the assault with great intrepidity, crossing bayonets with the enemy. Their sipahis, howev^er, who were stationed in the centre, could not support the English charge and gave way in disorder. Their centre thus pierced, the whole line fell back, and fled in confusion. Kerjean himself, 15 officers, and about 100 men were taken pri- soners. The number of the killed and wounded on the part of the French is not recorded. The English, how- ever, lost one officer killed, four wounded, and 78 men killed or wounded. f The worst result of the action for the French was the unfavourable effect it had upon the Maisurian and Maratha leaders. Of the warriors of the latter nation, 3,000 under Innis Khan, who were on the march to join the French, at once trc.nsferred their allegiance to Muhammad Ali, and the Maisurians deferred for a short time their plans against Trichinapalli. The work of Dupleix, however, had been two well performed for a defeat of this nature to cause its permanent failure. * Major Lawi'ence states that Ker- who was taken prisoner in the action, jean was forced to act thus by the wished to clear himself at his uncle's repeated orders of Dupleix, and by expense. The movement was ex- the threat that he would be super- actly that which Dupleix would have seded by de la Touche. No autho- wished to delay, rity is given for this assertion, and it t Orme ; Lawrence's 3fcntuirs. can only be imagined that Kerjean, z 2 340 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. CHAP. He promised the Maisurians that, if they could only take . Trichiniipalli, it should be theirs. The magic of his in- 1752, fluence, still all-prevalent in the minds of the natives, was contirmed by the inaction of Lawrence after his victory. Thus it happened that, within six weeks of that action, the Maisurians and the Marathcis abandoned the English alliance, and declared openly for the French. Another advantage before the termination of the campaign of 1752 accrued to the French governor. The greatest of his opponents, Clive, was forced before the close of the year to abandon the scene of his triumphs, and to proceed to Europe for the benefit of his health. It is true that he signalised the few months prior to his departure by two achievements, showing not less energy, daring, and military talent than had distinguished his early victories. AVe allude to the capture of the forts of Kovlaon and Chengalpat; the former on the sea coast about midway between St. Thome and Sadras, 16 miles south of Madras ; the latter on the river Palar, commanding the high road between Fort St. George and Pondichery, and about 40 miles from the English Presidency. The capture of these two places is memorable from the fact that the 200 troops who formed the European portion of Clive's little army were raw recruits,* the sweepings of the English jails, and so little disciplined that on a shot from the fort of Kovlaon killing one of them all the rest ran away. Nevertheless, even upon this rabble, Clive exercised an influence so magical ; he won their respect to such an extent by his own contempt of danger and personal daring, his fail- ing health notwithstanding ; that at their head and by their means he reduced Kovlaon, defeated a force of * Lord Macaulay, in his essay ou for this statement, simply remarks, it Clive, states that the force was of could hardly be expected that any such a description that no officer but officer who had acquired reputation C'liAe would ris^k his reputation by would willingly risk it by taking the commanding it. Orme, however, command of them, who was Lord Macaulay 's authority REVIEW OF THE POSITIOX OF DUPLEIX. 341 700 sipahis and 40 Europeans sent by Dupleix to relieve chai* it, and then marching on Chengalpat, the strongest ' . place next to Jinji in that part of the country, forced 1752. the French garrison of 40 Europeans and 500 sipahis to evacuate it. He then proceeded to Madras, and thence to England. Notwithstanding these losses, however, a careful survey of the position of Dupleix at the close of 1752, and a contrast with the state to which he had been reduced by the surrender of Law and d'Auteuil but six months before, will show how much his vast genius had been able within that short period to accomplish. To do this completely, his relations to the Directors of the Company of the Indies must be borne in mind. This Company, not possessing one -fourth part of the wealth of the English Company, had deceived itself by the hope that the position of Dupleix, as master of the Karnatik, was too assured, too secure for him to requu'e any special aid from France. The Directors looked rather to Dupleix to transport to France vast sums of money. No doubt even up to the end of 1751, the position of Dupleix justified the public men in France in the most sanguine hopes as to the future of French India. But that was the very reason why real statesmen would have aided and supported him with all the means at their disposal. The transport of 2,000 or 3,000 men to Pon- dichery in 1751, would almost certainly have given France absolute possession of Southern India. She her- self would not have felt the loss of that insignificant number of her soldiers, whilst they could scarcely have failed to gain for her the coveted prize. But instead of support of this nature the Directors literally starved Dupleix. They sent him comparatively a small number of ships, and no funds ; the few men to serve as soldiers — to gain for France an empire greater than herself — were the off-scourings of the jails and the sweepings of the galleys. When he asked them for a competent 342 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. ^yf}'- general they sent him a Law. It is true that, elevated ^ ^^. by the hopes they had formed from the success of his 1752. large schemes, they vouchsafed him flattering letters and a marquisate. These, however, were but cheap rewards which Dupleix would gladly have bartered for a few hundred of those brave troops who were idling their time in the g'arrisons of France. Thus left to his own resources we see him evoking material strength out of the slightest materials, drawing to himself allies, w^hen, as it would appear, there remained to him nought but destruction. He thus succeeded because, in the first place, he possessed a genius for organisation of the highest order; because, in the second, he considered no sacrifice too great to be made for the glory and interests of France. Bitterly personal as was the hatred borne to him in that day by contemporary Englishmen, seizing as they did every occasion to attribute to him motives of personal ambition and personal vanity, even they were forced to admit his genius and his devotion to his country. " To give Dupleix his due," writes Major Lawrence in his memoirs, "he was not easily cast down; his pride supported him, and at the same time his mind was full of resources." Mr. Orme likewise admits that the French ^vould have been compelled " to cease hos- tilities after the capture of Srirangam, had not M. Dupleix been endowed (and this at least is much to his honour) with a perseverance that even superseded his regard to his own fortune, of which he had at that time disbursed £140,000, and he continued with the same spirit to furnish more." It was this disinterestedness, this abnegation of his own interests when the interests of France were concerned, that gave him influence and authority with his own people, that gained the lasting admiration and respect of all the native princes with whom he came in contact. In Dupleix they recognised a man not only thoroughly in earnest, but who was proof against the ordinary consequences of disaster. THE GREAT RESOURCES OF DUPLETX. 343 Never was he more full of resources than when chap. apparently the well of those resources had been dried . up. The princes of India never felt safe when they 1750, were opposed to that versatile intellect, to that resourceful genius. So thoroughly did the English recognise his magic power, that they kept their puppet, Muhammad Ali, in the strictest seclusion. Dupleix contrived, nevertheless, to correspond with Muhammad Ali. It was only, however, to receive an answer begging Dupleix not to impute to him the fault of his conduct, " for," added Muhammad Ali, " you know that I am no longer master of my actions." Never, perhaps, was his genius more eminently dis- played than after the catastrophe of Srirangam. With- out troops he was exposed to the full fury of the victorious army of Lawrence and Clive, and though these were forbidden to attack Pondichery, they had it apparently in their power to reduce the French settlement to the most insignificant dimensions, to deprive it of all real power in the country, of all in- fluence with the natives. Yet by raising up enemies within their own camp, Dupleix delayed their march from Trichinapalli, rendered any decided action on their part impossible, gained for himself that which of all other things was most necessary to him, — time, — and actually succeeded in less than two months after that great disaster, in beating in the field the victorious English, and in determining the most powerful native allies of that nation to transfer their material aid to the French colony. But for the precipitancy of Ker- jean, the advantages gained by the English at Trichina- palli would have been quite neutralised. It was, it must be admitted, an immense misfortune to Dupleix, that whilst his own commanders in the Karnatik w^ere men of Che most ordinary ability, and even, as in the case of Law, of marked imbecility of character, there should have been opposed to him the 344 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX AVlTll ADVERSITY. CHAP, greatest genius for war of that epoch. The strong, sharp, incisive blows of Clive were terribly effective 1752. on the besotted leaders of the French forces ; they were met by no counterstroke, by nought, in fact, but weakness and indecision. With a rough and determined hand Clive broke down the foundations of French dominion, infused a confidence into the English soldiers that never afterwards left them, and showed the world that the natives of India, when well led and when possessing confidence in their com- mander, are capable of evincing the best qualities of real soldiers, alike of courage and constancy, heroism and self-denial. But for this one man no diversion would have been attempted on Arkat, the English garrison would have remained dispirited in Trichinapalli, and, it is more than probable, would have yielded that city to the superior numbers of Law. But it was Clive that broke the spell of French invincibility : he it was who first showed his troops and the natives of the Karnatik that it was possible to conquer even the soldiers of Dupleix. He transferred, moreover, to the English troops that opinion of their own qualities in the field, which till his coming had been monopolised by the French. It was a hard destiny that brought to the overthrow of the plans of Dupleix, a genius so warlike, a mastery over men so unsurpassed. Yet, though unsuccessful, on the whole, in the Kar- natik, the victories of the French troops in another part of Indian soil, more than compensated in the mind of Dupleix for the calamities they sustained near the coast. French influence was still paramount, the repu- tation of the French arms still supreme, the power of the French governor still unquestioned, at the court of the Subadar. To gain that influence, to maintain that reputation, to increase that power, Dupleix had not hesitated to deprive himself of the services of his best, his only, general, even to risk his supremacy on the WHAT BUSSY ACHIEVED AT AURANGABAD. 345 Koromaiidel coast. Certainly in those days it Avas chap. " ' VII considered, even by the enemies of Uupleix, that the gain at Aurangabad far outweighed the losses in the 1752. Karnatik. To see how that gain was achieved, how French influence was so consolidated as to be for many years proof against the overthrow of French power at Pondichery, we must now devote a few pages to the romantic career of the energetic and stout-hearted Bussy. 346 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAPTER VIII. BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP. The vigour and energy displayed by Biissy at Ambur , and Jinji, his prompt action at Kadapah, alike on the 1751. field of battle as after the death of MuzafFar Jang, his subsequent march through the entire breadth of the Dakhan, and his triumphant entry into Aurangabad on June 29, 1751, have been already adverted to.* What there then remained to him to accomplish, and how he accomplished it we have still to record. But in order that we may obtain a complete and comprehensive view of the situation — that, transport- ing our minds to the past, we may gaze at a panorama from which the light of the present is excluded, so as to see the India of that day exactly as India then was — we purpose in the first place to give a brief retro- spective sketch of the country known as the Dakhan, defining its original connexion with, and its degree of dependence upon, the empire of the Mughals. The term Dakhan, or more correctly Dakhin, though embracing in its literal meaning the whole of the southern part of India, was always held by the Muham- madans, and has been since held by ourselves, to com- prehend only that portion of southern India lying between the Narbada and the Krishna. After the extinction of the Tughlik dynasty in 1399, there arose from the ruins of the Delhi monarchy six indepen- dent sovereignties south of the Narbada. These were the states of Golkonda, Bijapur, Aurangabad, Bidar, * Chapter VI. THE DAKIIAN. 347 Birar* and Khandesh. Of those, in the course of chap. VIII time, Birar merged into Aurangabad, and the greater . part of Bidar into Golkonda, the remainder being swal- iTni lowed up by Bijapur. But with the accession of the House of Taimur to the throne, there commenced a struggle on the part of its representatives to conquer these ancient appanages of the empire. Their efforts were so far successful that in 1599 Khandesh was in- corporated by Akbar into his dominions. Thirty-eight years later, x^urangabad, till then governed by the Nizam Shahi dynasty, and the capital of which had been captured by Akbar in 1600, was finally conquered by Shah Jahan. The dynasty of Adil Shah in Bijapur succumbed to his son and successor, Aurangzeb, in 1686 ; whilst the dynasty of Kiitab Shah in Golkonda, offered a successful resistance to that monarch but a year longer. Thus it happened that, twenty years before his demise, the whole of the country — lost to the crown of Delhi on the dissolution of the empire under Muhammad Tughlik — had recognised the supre- macy of Aurangzeb, It must not be imagined, however, that every portion of the three fallen monarchies of Golkonda, Bijapur, and Aurangabad, stretching as they originally did to the sea to the westward, and comprising the cities of Puna and Satara, as well as Bijapur and Golkonda, was in an equal degree subject to that monarch. Before even their conquest had been achieved, there had appeared the first germs of a power destined to rival, and finally to overshadow even, that of the Mughal. Commencing as a robber and a freebooter, Sivaji succeeded in baffling, sometimes even in defeating, the armies of the Emperor. Leaving the capitals of the Musalmau * The Birar of those days did not Bhonsla. Nigpiir itself did not include nearly so much territory as form a part of it, being the capital the kingdom of that name governed of the adjoining province of (Jon- by the Maratha family of the dw^na. Its capital was Elichpur. 348 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, dynasties to be occupied by the Mughals, he filched . whole districts for himself. So successful had he been 1751, in such enterprises, that on his death, in 1679, he left as an inheritance to his son the western or seaboard portion of the territories that owed allegiance to the rulers of Aurangabad and Bijapur. The consequence of this, and of the subsequent contest of the Marathas with Aurangzeb, was that on the death of that prince in 1707, the territory called the Dakhan, dependent on Delhi, comprised the ancient kingdom of Golkonda, a portion of the old kingdom of Aurangabad, with Aurangabad itself, and but a small slice of Bijapur. Dependent on this, however, was the long slip of 560 miles of territory on the eastern coast, known as the Karnatik. The western coast, with the exception of the parts occupied by the English and Portuguese, but including the cities of Puna, Satara, and Bijapur, had become permanently Maratha. Aurangzeb was himself exercising regal functions in the Dakhan when his last illness attacked him at Ahmadnagar. On his death — February 21st, 1707 — the authority in that quarter devolved upon his son, Azim Shah, with whom was the best officer of the late Emperor, Zulfikar Khan. When, notwithstanding the efforts of Zulfikar, Azim Shah was defeated and slain by his brother Sultan Muazzam, at Agra, in June of the same year, the latter so highly appreciated the talents of his opponent's general, that he at once appointed him Subadar of the Dakhan, conferring upon him at the same time the title of Amir-ul-umara, or lord of lords. Zulfikar, however, preferred the intrigues of the Delhi court to an independent viceroyalty. He accepted, indeed, the appointment, but, leaving Daud Khan Pani as his deputy, he joined Muazzam, who had assumed the title of Bahadur Shah. On the death of this prince, in 1712, a grand opportunity was offered to Zulfikar for the exercise of the adroit baseness that with THE DAKHAN. 349 him was habitual. He took full advantage of it, so full chap. . (^ VIII indeed, that he very speedily met with the ordinary fate . of unprincipled intriguers. For, having betrayed the 1751. Emperor Jahandar Shah into the hands of his nephew Farukh Siyar, he was at once strangled by order of the new sovereign. Zalfikar was succeeded in the gover- norship of the Dakhan by Chin Kalich Khan, created Nizam-ul-Mulk, a title which has gone down to his descendants, the present rulers of Haidarabad. Nizam-ul-Mulk, at a later period honoured by the title of " Asaf Jah," the " pillar of state,"* was Subadar of the Dakhan when the first contest for supremacy between the French and English began in the Karnatik. We have seen how in the early part of those struggles he imposed his law upon the contending parties, by the appointment, after the murder of Said Muhammad Khan, of his trusted lieutenant, xlnwar-ud-din, as Nawwab of the Karnfitik. His death, and the conse- quences resulting from it — the succession of his son Nasir Jang, his alliance with the English, his murder at the battle of Jinji; the installation of Nasir Jang's nephew Muzaffar Jang, his death at the moment of victory over the revolted Nawwabs ; and, finally, the elevation in his place of Sahibat Jang, the next sur- reviving son of Nizam-ul-Mulk, have been already recorded. f We have now to see what sort of an inheritance it was upon which Salabat Jang thus entered, the obstacles that lay in his path, the difficul- ties that seemed to increase with every movement that he made. The office of Subadar of the Dakhan had not been an hereditary office. It had lain in the gift of the Emperor of Delhi. Now, at the time of the death of Nizam-ul-Mulk, the imperial throne had just fallen into the nominal possession of Ahmad Shah, but that * Literally, "the Asaf of dig- the possession of the highest wis- nity." The word '' Asaf " is a dom. proper name, supposed to be that of t Chapters III. uud VI. the VVazir of Solomon, and iudicates 350 BUSSY TO 1754. ^yf^f' monarch found himself too beset with difficulties of his - own to pay much attention to the affairs of the Dakhan. 1751. It was in consequence of this, and of the increasing anarchy at Delhi in succeeding reigns, that the satrapy of Haidarabad — the appointment to the government of which still remained nominally with the Emperor — came to be regarded virtually as an appanage of the family of Nizam-ul-Mulk. It was, however, the know- ledge that the real appointment was vested in the Emperor, which induced the various claimants of the family of Nizam-ul-Mulk to the Subadari to fortify their pretensions by the publication of an imperial firman. It was by virtue of such a rescript, real or pretended, that on the death of Nizam-ul-Mulk, his son, Nasir Jang, set forth his claims to be his successor. Relying upon the same authority, the validity of which was equally doubtful, Muzaffar Jang disputed those claims. When death had removed these two competitors, and the French general, Bussy, had elevated the third son of Nizam-ul-Mulk, Salabat Jang, to the dignity, that nobleman, records Mr. Orme, " did not think it safe to appear in sight of the capital before he had acted the stale but pompous ceremony of receiving from the hands of an ambassador, said to be sent by the Great INIughal, letters patent, appointing him viceroy of all the countries which had been under the jurisdiction of his father, Nizam-ul-Mulk." Salabat Jang, however, was but the third son of that famous viceroy. The elder brother, Ghazi-ud-diu, had indeed, as we have stated, preferred, on the death of his father, to give a sullen acquiescence in the elevation of his second brother, Nasir Jang, to the Subadari, rather than to plunge into a contest with one who had taken care to possess himself of his father's treasure. But time had changed the aspect of affairs. Nasir Jang had gone, Muzaffar Jang had gone, and in their stead reigned Salabat Jang — a man born in luxury, unused GHf^l-UD-DlN CONSPIRES. 351 to govern, effeminate, slothful, and possessing an chap. almost empty treasury. This state of things pre- sented an opportunity for self-aggrandisement, which, 1751, in the decline of the Mughal Empire, few possessed sufficient virtue to resist. Ghazi-ud-din at least had not that virtue. Through the agency of Mulhar Rao Holkar, he opened negotiations with the Peshwa, Balaji Baji Rao, and succeeded in inducing the great chief of the Marathas to support his pretensions. We have seen how the difficulty presented by this alliance had been momentarily overcome. A present of two lakhs of rupees, during his march to Golkonda, had induced the Maratha general to retire. Such pre- sents, however, ever form but incitements to new attacks. From the date of his triumphant entry into Aurangabad — June 29, 1751 — to the autumn of the same year, Salabat Jang had indeed lived unthreatened. During that interval, however, Ghazi-ud-din and Balaji Baji Rao had had time to cement their plans, and it soon became but too clear that the prospect of a larger bribe had combined with the promises of Ghazi-ud-din to determine the Peshwa to make a new and more formidable attack upon the Dakhau on the earliest and most convenient occasion. Affairs in that quarter being "thus threatening, we may proceed to inquire how they were influenced by the conduct of Bussy ; how, likewise, his presence in the capital of that division of the empire affected, or was likely to affect, the plans which Dupleix was evolving for the growth of a French empire in India. The march of Bussy to Aurangabad in 1751, at the head of a force of 300 Europeans and 2,000 disciplined sipahis, his overthrow during that march of the three conspiring Nawwabs, his prompt elevation of Salabat Jang to the office and dignity of Subadar, had had the primary effect of making the French absolute masters of the situation. Bussy had, indeed, been a consenting 362 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, party to the payment of two lakhs of rupees to Balaji Baji Rao, as the price of his retreat, but solely because 1752 he considered, and rightly considered, that the pos- session of the capital, and the peaceful occupation of the country, in the first instance, were objects which could scarcely be purchased too dearly. Arriving at Aurangabcid, he so ordered his conduct that, whilst nominally the faithful ally, he might really be the master, of the Subadar. To this end he selected as his own residence, and as the place to be occupied by his troops, a fortress at one of the extremities of the city, and completely commanding it. On the defences of this he mounted his guns, and disposed his detachment in such a manner that it might be ready for immediate service. He established amongst his men the most rigorous discipline. No soldier was permitted to leave the fort but at a fixed hour and at a fixed time, and not even then without the written permission of the com- mandant. Punishments, more or less severe, according to the ofience, followed every infraction of discipline. The result was all that could be desired. There were neither bouts of drunkenness amongst the soldiers themselves, nor quarrels or altercations with the towns- people. The richest and most valuable goods were freely displayed under the protection of the French soldiery. Indeed, their conduct at Aurangabad was so exemplary, that the natives soon came to admire them for their courtesy, as much as they had before feared and esteemed them for their valour.* Nor was Bussy for a long time less happy or less successful in his dealings with the Subadar and his courtiers. It was impossible that a man possessing any discrimination of character could be long associated with Salabat Jang, without noticing the weakness of * The account of the proceedinjfs of Dupleix, the histories of Orme, of Bussy from 1751 to 1754 is based Wilks, and Grant Duff, and the upon the memoir and correbiwudenoe " Seir Mutakherin." ASTUTE POLICY OF BUSSY. 353 his nature. Few could fail to see that in a Govern- chap. VIII. ment like that of the Dakhan — a Government quasi- . \ . independent, but which, notwithstanding, a powerful 175I. Emperor at Delhi might at any moment reclaim, a Government which, thus founded on no solid or per- manent foundation, was exposed to the incessant attacks of the encroaching power of the Marathas — everything must depend on the character of the ruler. If that ruler were weak and unstable ; if he had no resources within himself, no mental energies upon which to fall back and to depend, it was certain that he must become the sport of fortune, the tool and instrument of the strongest mind that had access to him. Now, Salabat Jang, Bussy early divined, was that weak and unstable nature, and he determined that no one but himself should play the part of the strong- minded counsellor. In the force which he commanded he had one instrument upon which he could r-ount to enable him to attain the desired position. It was not, indeed, that he displayed, or intended to display, his troops in an attitude of menace. He was far too wise for that. He shut them up, as we have seen, in a fortress, and drilled them into courtesy and gentleness. But the moral effect of that force was increased thereby tenfold. Whilst they excited no jealousy, not a man but knew what they had done, what they could do, what they were ready to attempt, at the slightest word from Bussy. His power of restraining such a force added greatly to the influence of its presence. But it was not upon the force that he entirely relied. That was indeed the basis of his power ; but a less able man might notwithstanding have used the influence given him by so strong a position to little piu'pose. Bussy trusted for the success of his plans to his own acquaintance with native character. Though frank, open, and conciliatory, he was in those days, before yet age and gout had begun to undermine his faculties, a AA S54 BUSSY TO 176J. CHAP, model of resolution and tact. He had spent many . years in India in close contact with the natives, more 1751. especially with those of high rank, and he understood them thoroughly. He had, too, the advantage of possessing a settled plan. Before leaving Pondichery he had concerted with Dupleix the manner in which he was to carry on his relations with Muzaffar Jang, and he anticipated no difficulty in following his instructions to the letter now that he had to deal with the more facile character of Salabat. A glance at the map of India, and a recollection of the history of that period, will show how vast, how gigantic, yet, under ordinary circumstances, how feasible was this plan. Separated by the Vindhya range from the disorganised empire proper of the Mughal, the possessor of the Muhamma- dan province of the Dakhan seemed to be in a position to be able to give law to the whole of south-eastern India. He commanded a large army, and ruled over a warlike population. He was the liege lord of the ruler of the Karnatik, and he wielded in that province itself the authority of the Mughal. He was thus the pos- sessor of the moral and physical power ; he had the right to use force, and the force ready to be used ; and in those days, when the name of the Mughal was every- thing, and the reputation of the European settlers com- paratively nothing, that double power was, if not an irresistible, yet a very potent, lever. This being the position of the province known as the Dakhan, and this the power of its ruler, can we greatly blame that policy which at a moment when France had all but overcome her hated rival in the Karnatik, deter- mined, without striking a blow, to make that position and that influence purely French 1 What a vista did it not hold out to a patriotic ambition ! What dreams of empire, what visions of imperial dominion! Pos- sessing the Karnatik, by this policy gaining the Dakhan, the minarets of the Jami Masjid, and the RISK INCURRED BY DUPLEIX. 366 iewelled ornaments of the peacock-throne seemed near chap. enough to excite the fancy and to stimulate to irre- . sistible action ! xihi. This tempting vision offered yet another advantage. It seemed so easy of accomplishment. Knowing the native character so thoroughly as did Dupleix, he was well aw^are that notwithstanding the obligations under which the reigning Subadar might be to the French, they would all be forgotten unless he were continually reminded of their power as a people — unless he had constantly before his eyes evidence of their superiority. It was therefore, primarily, not less to maintain French influence at the court of the Subadar, than to support the pretensions of Muzaflar Jang, that Bussy had been directed to accompany that prince to Aurangabad. Dupleix did not doubt that with the French troops under a soldier-diplomatist in occupation of his capital, engaged to support the Subadar ; and, what was of more consequence, with the Subadar himself feeling that he could depend upon them alone to support him ; the soldier-diplomatist, if he were skilful and able, would inev^itably draw to himself the whole influence of the province, that he would shape its foreign policy, and inspire its political action — that he, in lact, would become the omnipotent mayor of the palace, the Subadar subside into the powerless automaton. Thus to divide his forces and to lose the services of his ablest general in the presence of such an enemy as the English, who had the sea as their base of oper- ations, was undoubtedly to run a great risk. Yet before we condemn Dupleix too harshly for running such a risk, we must point to the situation of a flairs on the coast at that time. The two nations were nominally at peace. The entire Karuatik and Trichinapallf, w4th the sole exception of tiie town of that name, had acknowledged Chanda Sahib as Nawwab. The English had positively refused to assist Muhammad Ali in the AA 2 166 BUSSY TO 1751. CHAP, defence of that city. But, even were he to succeed in , persuading them to do so, it seemed as though Dupleix 1751. had nothing to fear from their efforts, for Lawrence, their ancient leader, was absent, the genius of Clive had not then been discovered, and Dupleix knew and rated at its real value the capacity of such men as Gingens and Cope. Could he foretell that out of that dispirited colony of baffled enemies, who, not even venturing to remove their seat of Government to Madras, remained cooped up in Fort St. David, idle spectators of his daring enterprise, there would arise one of the most consummate leaders of the agel Ought he to have acted as though such a contingency were possible \ Yes, undoubtedly, if we are to judge men by the highest standard, if we are to make no allowances for human impulses and human passions, we are bound to declare that he ought so to have acted. Before sending Bussy to the Dakhan, he ought at least, as a measure of wise precaution, to have made sure of Trichinapalli, to have crushed the last rival of Chanda Sahib. Had he done that — had he thus deprived the English of all pretext to interfere, and had he then been able to send Bussy to Aurangabad — the Karnatik would have been his, the Dakhan would have become his, and before long, all India south of the Vindhya range would have acknowledged the supremacy of the French. Still, though it was a great, as it turned out, indeed, a fatal fault, who will assert, that in the presence of so great a temptation, and in the prospect, seemingly certain, of repose in the Karnatik — for, it will be remembered, Muhammad Ali had lulled the suspicions of Dupleix by promises to surrender — who, we say, will assert that such a fault ought to be imputed as a fatal mistake to the illustrious Frenchman \ We must recollect that the moment was so opportune — Muzaffar Jang going to take possession of his government, the bussy's influence at aurangabai). 357 uecessity that he shoukl be accompanied by a body of chap. Frenchmen so urgent, the peace of the Karnatik so . assured — that there seemed but small necessity for the n.')!. services on the spot of a Bussy. To Dupleix it must have appeared as if he incurred a very small and a very distant risk, in order at once to grasp a very present and very certain gain — a gain which must have an enormous effect on the result of any future struggles in the Karnatik. Can we even blame him much, if he, look- ing into the future with but human eyesight, decided to run that small risk ^ The prospect, indeed, was so peculiarly alluring to a brilliant imagination, that Dupleix would not have been Dupleix had he decided to neglect or to defer it. As it was, everything seemed at first to favour the daring plans of the French governor. He could not certainly have been more fitly or more ably represented than by the clever and versatile Bussy. We have already noticed the skilful and unobtrusive manner in which this officer disposed his soldiers in Aurangabad. His own conduct was based upon the same principle. To appear as nothing, yet to be everything in the State ; to show himself to the world as the commandant of the French contingent, maintaining in the eyes of the natives by his lavish expenditure and outward show the dignity of that office ; to direct in secret all the foreign relations of the Government, to make all their acts chime in with French interests. In this manner he laid the foundations of an influence destined to survive the loss of power and prestige at Pondichery, and which, had that power and that prestige not fallen, would, in all probability, have worked with a most decisive effect on the events that were to follow. From the date of the arrival of Bussy in Aurangabad, on June 29, 1751, all his efforts were directed to the establishment of this occult influence. He entirely succeeded. Very little time elapsed before he had 158 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, biouglit Salubat Jang to tlie persuasion that the safety of his person (lepeiided on the presence of the French 1751. troops at his capital, and that the security of his empire could be best assured by his following the counsels of the French general. The latter kept himself all this time studiously in the background. His secret in- fluence, liowever, was exerted to appoint as ministers of the Subadar men whom he believed to be devoted to himself; and although he was more than once, as we shall see, deceived by the superior finesse of Asiatic intriguers, he never wanted the boldness and prompti- tude to repair every error, and even to use to the advantage of liis country the opportunity afforded him by the attempts to weaken his influence. Whilst Bussy was thus employed in laying the founda- tion of French power at the court of the Subadar, the intelligence reached him of the alliance between Ghazi- ud-din and the Marathas, having for its object the expul- sion of the French nominee, Salabat Jang. Whilst, in all probability, Bussy would have preferred to pursue that task of consolidation which would have enabled him to employ the resources of the Dakhan in aid of the French designs in the Karnatik, he can scarcely have regretted the opportunity, which this threatened invasion seemed likely to afford him, of teaching the warlike inhabitants of western India to respect French discipline and French valour. Whilst, therefore, the news, that Ghazi-ud-din himself was advancing from the north at the head of 150,000 and Balaji Baji Rao from the west with 100,000 men, spread consternation and dismay in the court of Aurangabad, whilst some coun- selled retreat, and others even entered into negotiations wdth the invader, Bussy himself remained calm and unmoved. When called upon by the Subadar for his opinion, he gave him advice of the same nature as that which Clive a little later gave to Governor Saunders — advice which stamped him at once as the man for the TIE DISCONCERTS BALAjf. 359 occasion : — " Care not," he said, " for the in\ adiuix chap. V r [ r army, you will best preserve the Dakhan by marching __^ upon Puna." It is a signal proof of his great influence 1751. at the court of the vSubadar, that this bold advice was promptly followed. The better to make his prepara- tions the Subadar had moved from Aurangabad to Golkonda. When, after many days, he ascertained that the allied enemies had begun their movements from two opposite directions upon Aurangabad, he, accompanied by Bussy, and in pursuance of the plan suggested by him, broke up from that place, and, leaving Aurangabad to its fate, marched upon Bidar,* the original capital of the ancient kingdom of that name. Besides the large but irregular army of Salabat Jang, Bussy had with him 500 French troops in the highest state of discipline, and 5,000 drilled sipahis. Meanwhile, no sooner was the rainy season over, than Balaji Baji Rao entered the Dakhan, and, proceeding on the true Maratha principle of making war support war, ravaged the country on every side. It is not to be imagined that he had any particular regard for Ghazi-ud- din, or any particular hatred of Salabat Jang. With him it was simply a matter of business. Whilst the two Muhammadans were fighting for the sovereignty of the province, it was for him to hold aloof until one was thoroughly beaten, and both were completely exhausted. * Grant Duff and the author of safety of Puna. On the other hand, the " Seir Mutakherin" both state Bidar lies in the direct route from that Ahmadnagar was the towQ upon Gokonda, where Bussy theu was, which the Subadar marolied after to Puna, and it is the pUice whence leaving Golkonda. Mr. Oi me on the the must telling attick could be contrary indicates Bidar. We are made on the Maratha's territory, inclined to believe that in this in- We can easily imagine how the stance Mr. Orme is correct. The intelligence of an expedition starting Marathas were marching on Auraii- for Puna from that place, would gabad f rom Puna, and their natural inevitably bring down Balaji from route woull take them through the north to protect his capital. Ahmadnagar. Considering that EUio't's Ili.stori/ of India by its Ghazi-ud-din was likewise march- oion Ilidorians (vol. viii., paire 318) ing upi)ii Aurangabad, a movrraent states distini-tly that uhazi-ud din of Bussy upon Ahmadnagar would mari^hed on and occupied Aurauga- certainly not have had the effect cf bad, and that Salabat Jang, on hi-ar- alarining BalajBaji-i Rao about the ing this, marched forth to meet him. 360 BUSSV TO 1754. ^^ff- Action on his part, then, wonkl give a large slice of the ■ ^ - , _ ■ Dakhan to the Marathas. Meanwhile, little dreading 1751. any movement on the part of Salabat Jang, he proposed to enrich himself and his followers by the plunder of the border provinces of the Dakhan. The bold march of Bussy upon Bidar, however, entirely disconcerted these plans. Still more was Balaji troubled when he saw that the enemy had no intention whatever of remaining at Bidar, but were moving thence direct upon his capital. Renouncing at once all thoughts of the invasion of the Dakhan, Balaji hastened to proceed to the defence of his dominions. He was at the head of a numerous army, confident in its leader, and in whom that leader reposed the fullest trust. Very often had he led them to victory, more than once indeed over this same army of the Dakhan, which now had the pre- sumption to invade the sacred soil of the Marathas. Could he doubt the result now 1 Of the foreigners who accompanied the army of Salabat he might indeed have heard, but the smallness of their numbers was sufficient to deprive them of any formidable character. They, besides, had never come in contact with a regular Maratha army ; had never been called upon to repel those sweeping charges of cavalry, which had so often proved fatal to the armies of the Muhammadans. Selecting then 40,000 of his best horse, and leaving the remainder to follow, Balaji hastened to bar the road to Puna, and, if possible, to destroy the enemy at a blow. The Subadar with his French allies had but just left Bidar en route to Puna, when they learned the approach of the Marathas. In accordance with the Muhammadan tactics they formed up to await their attack. Bussy, however, so planted his guns, consist- ing of ten field-pieces, as to command the ground over which the enemy must charge. Having done this and placed his infantry in line of support, he calmly awaited the approach of Balaji. THE FRENCH PROVE THEIR STEEL. 361 Tt was indeed the first time that the Marathas had chap. VIII regularly met a European enemy on the open field — for , the Maratha contingent in the Karnatik had consisted 1751. of comparatively a handful, and they had there acted the part of auxiliary skirmishers rather than of an in- dependent force. But Bussy had now before him the flower of the Maratha army — and of the Maratha army in its best form. The Marathas were at that time the rising power of Hindustan. The warriors of that people had not then begun to depart from the traditions, an adherence to which had made them a nation. Their splendid horsemanship, their long endurance, their ability to move without tents, without baggage of any sort, without other supplies than those which each individual soldier carried upon his horse, had combined with their daring tactics to render them superior to those Muhammadan armies, which a long course of misgovernment and want of system had ruined. The luxurious equipments of the armies of Aurangzeb formed a striking contrast to the unostentatious camps of Akbar, and from the time of the death of Aurangzeb even the appearance of discipline had ceased. The Mughal armies, hopeless of victory, conscious of the incapacity of their leaders, half beaten before they had struck a blow, felt themselves unfit to make head against the new power that was gradually overwhelm- ing southern India. Bussy was well aware of this. Full well did he know that the issue of the contest that day depended upon himself and his soldiers, upon those French whom he had led almost across the continent ; who, starting from the waters of the Bay of Bengal, were now strain- ing their eyes to gaze upon the Arabian Sea. He waited for attack, however, full of confidence. At length it came. The clouds of dust, the loud tramp of countless horses, could forebode nothing else. It was clear that 40,000 of the choicest horsemen of the East o62 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, were about that day to endeavour to surpass all their former deeds of valour. At full speed, though without 1751. order, with spear in rest, shouting victory, they charged. But the nerves of the little band of Frenchmen were not shaken. Standing at their guns, they waited coolly the order of their commander. When it came, dis- charges of grape and cannister, not single but con- tinued, combined with a never-ceasing file firing from the infantry, told the Maratha horsemen what kind of enemy this was against whom they would have to contend for empire. The result was never doubtful. After a few rounds the Maratha horse could bear no more. They turned their horses' heads and disappeared.* Bussy was not the man to allow a victory to remain barren. He pursuaded the Subadar to march instantly towards Puna, not stopping to listen to the offers of the Peshwa for accommodation, but to move straight upon the capital. There were, however, as is usual with an oriental army, wheels within wheels. Balaji Baji Rao was on bad terms with Tara Bai, the grandmother of the youth- ful Raja of Satara, and she was even then disputing his right to govern for her grandson. With her, there- fore, to weaken Balaji, the advisers of Salabat Jang had entered into communication. On the other hand, Balaji, recognising at once the value of the services rendered by the French contingent to the Subadar, endeavoured, by all those means so common at an oriental court, to excite amongst the the nobles of the Dakhan jealousy of the French leader, by attributing to him personal motives and private ambition. We shall see that both these efforts bore their fruit in their season. Little caring for, probably ignorant of, these intri- * The author of the " Seir Mutak- way with au army of 50,000 horse, herin," a Muhamniadan, thus writes but was defeated ; at which time the of the hattle, " Balaji Rao, without French with their musketry and suffering him (Salabat Jang) to their expeditious artillery drew come so far (as Puna), met him half smoke from the Maratha breasts." BUSSY SURPRISES THE MAR.-VTHA ARMY. 363 gues, Biissy, still prevailing with the Siibadar, moved on chap. until he found himself once more in the vicinity of the ^^'^' Maratha army at Kajapur on the Gur river. The time 1701. was propitious for an attack. An eclipse of the moon had called all the Hindus to their devotions, and liussy was resolved to take advantage of their superstition to beat up their quarters. It was a new thing to his Muhammadan allies to witness this attempt to fight the Marathas with their own weapons — to attempt to surprise those who had owed a great part of their success to their own quickness and vigilance, 80 great was their opinion of the Marathas that this attack seemed to them, witnesses as they had been of the flight of the cavalry of Balaji in the open field, to savour more of rashness than prudence. Nevertheless Bussj attempted it. Taking advantage of the moment when the eclipse of the moon would, as he believed, engross all the attention of the enemy, he moved upon their camp, and opened suddenly a fire of artillery and small arms. The surprise was complete. Balaji himself, who was " busy at his devotions, and naked, had hardly time to throw himself on an unsaddled mare, on which he saved his life by flying with all his might."* His example was followed by his entire army, and though the accounts of the slaughter vary,f it is certain that the Marathas lost an immense quantity of booty, and that a heavy blow was dealt to their prestige as warriors. Proportionately, and even more than proportionately, did the victory increase the reputation of Bussy. It can easily be understood on how high an elevation those who had so dreaded Maratha dash and daring must • Seir MutalcTieriti. upon in the ni?ht, and with so much t Grant Duff asserts, on the axitho- success, that they lost a vast number rity of Maratha accounts, that the of men, whom the French consumed surprise was incomplete, and that in shoals at the tire altars of tlnir the Marathas did not suftVr mate- artillery." Grant Duft' admits tliat rially. The author of the " Seir this action had an immcns-c ettVct in Mutakerin " states, on the other raising Bussy's reputation. hand, that the Marathas "were set 364 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, have ])laced the man wlio knew thus how to avail him- . self of their weaknesses. 1751. The day following this exploit, November 23, 1751, Bussy advanced towards Puna, the Marathas content- ing themselves with hovering about his flanks, and endeavouring, though unsuccessfully, to impede his advance. On the 24th he attacked and destroyed the town of Taligaon. Two days later, Balaji made another desperate effort to recover his lost prestige. Some of the most famous Maratha chieftains — amongst them the sons of Ranuji Sindhia and Kunir Trimbak Yekbuti — were chosen to lead a renewed attack on the allied camp. On November 27 this attack was made, the enemy charging the native troops of Salabat Jang, dashing through every obstacle and completely over- whelming them. It seemed for an instant as though it would be impossible to restore the day. The little band of Frenchmen all this time, however, maintained their position, threatened but not assailed. At last, noting the slaughter of his allies, Bussy changed his front and brought his guns to bear upon the masses of hostile cavalry with such effect, that they retreated from the field they had almost gained, and gave time to the troops of the Subadar to rally from their disorder. The next day the town of Korigaon on the Bhima was occupied by Bussy, who thus found himself within twenty miles of the capital of the Peshwa. It formed no essential part of the plan of Salabat Jang, however, to make any conquests from the Marathas, His interests pointed rather to breaking up the confederacy between that people and Ghazi-ud-din, even, if possible, to forming an alliance with those who had been the allies of his rival. Swayed by the wise counsels of Bussy he had, in the presence of two armies, each superior to his own, succeeded not only in pre- venting a junction which would have overwhelmed him, but in forcing the one army to meet him on the ground NEGOTIATIONS FOR PEACE. 365 he had chosen, and in so dealing with it as to convince chap. • • VIII its leader that it was for his interest to ally himself with . him, rather than with his competitor for the rule of the 1751. Dakhan. Thus, after the last battle, the Peshwa began to consider whether it was necessary or advisable to continue the contest further. Any nearer approach to Puna or Satara might, he felt, give to the partisans of Tara Bai a weight sufficient to endanger his own influ- ence and povs^er. He accordingly opened negotiations with Salabat Jang, and although these were protracted, owing to some difficulties raised by that nobleman, an armistice was concluded at the beginning of the year. Salabat Jang was anxious to come to an under- standing with the Marathas, the more so as his own army, badly organised and worse officered, was almost in a state of mutiny. The men had some reason for their discontent, for their pay was considerably in arrear, and the officers, especially the superior officers, for the most part uneducated in their profession, were jealous of the credit gained by the French. They con- stantly insinuated that Bussy had ulterior objects in view which a prolongation of hostilities alone could procure for him. But there was another reason not less potent. Ghazi-ud-din was approaching Aurangabad, and it was an object with Salabat to deal with him whilst yet the recollection of the recent campaign should be fresh in the minds of the Marathas. The advice given by Bussy, under these circumstances, was worthy of his reputation for tact and skill. The French leader had not been unobservant of the signs of discontent. But \t had seemed to him even less desirable for French interests than for those of the Subadar, to march upon Puna. He resolved, therefore, to act in such a manner as at the same time to allay those discontents, and to further the interests of his countrymen. He accord- ingly supported the propositions in favour of peace, both openly and in private, thus alike disarming his 366 BUSSY TO 1754. ^y^^' enemies and gaining still more entirely the confidence • of the Subadar. 1751. The armistice concluded, the army returned towards Golkonda, overthrowing on the way some refractory rajas who had refused tribute. But in the course of its march an incident occurred which called for the prompt action of Bussy. The Prime Minister of the Subadar, Eaja Raghunath Dass, a man devoted to French inter- ests, was assassinated by some of the Affghan soldiers of the army, whose officer the raja had insulted. It then became necessary to arrange that a fitting person should be appointed in his place. And here Bussy for the first time allowed himself to be over-reached. He had met at the court of the Subadar a nobleman of ability and skilful address, Saiyid Lashkar Khan. This man had divined the designs of the French, hated their persons, and dreaded their influence. Nevertheless, in order the better to counteract their plans, he dissembled his sentiments, and pretended for Bussy in particular the greatest devotion and esteem. He hoped by his means and by his influence to obtain office under the Subadar, intending, after he should have obtained it, to use all his power to thwart the French policy and to undermine the position of the French leader. Bussy was com- pletely taken in. Believing Saiyid Lashkar to be the man he represented himself to be, he recommended him to the Subadar as a fit successor to the deceased raja, and obtained for him the appointment. There was, however, much for Bussy to effect before the intrigues which Saiyid Lashkar instantly set on foot should have time to work. Ghazi-ud-din yet lived and threatened. So far indeed from abating his pretensions in consequence of the defeat of Balaji, he had stirred up the Bhonsla to attack the Dakhan in the north-east, whilst he himself, with Malhar Kao Holkar to assist him, should enter it through the gate of Aurangabad. The threatened invasion of Hindustan by Ahmad Shah EXTKAOKDINARY INTRIGUES AT AURANG^BAD. 367 Abdali had, indeed, combined with the hostile attitude chap. . . VIII of the Rohillas, and the consequent intrigues at the , court of Delhi, to detain Ghazi-ud-din at that capital 1751. longer than he had anticipated. By degrees, liowever, the difficulties in the way of his departure were removed, and in the month of September, 1752, he reached Aurangabad with an army computed at 150,000 men. Then began those intricacies of intrigue such as are seen only in an oriental court. There were assembled at Aurangabad, Ghazi-ud-din, whose real and avowed object was to obtain the sovereignty of the Uakhan, and to obtain which he was ready to sacrifice a portion of it to the Marathas ; on the side of that people, Balaji, supported by Holkar and the Bhonsla, was endeavour- ing to persuade each of the rivals to offer him a higher bid than the other. Salabat Jang had there no avowed representative, although his minister, Saiyid Lashkar, was present at the conferences. This man, however, the better to carry out his plans, had persuaded his master to connive at the fiction that he had been dis- missed from the office of Diwan, and had, therefore, proceeded as a discontented noble to the confederates. In this way, he urged, he could better worm out their secrets. His real object, however, was to cement to the utmost of his power the alliance between the Marathas and Ghazi-ud-din, with the view of expelling Salabat Jang, and, with him, the French general and his troops. The right of Ghazi-ud-din, as the eldest son of his father, gave him in this dispute a moral influence, which was not without its effect on the nobles of the Dakhan, and which very much disturbed Salabat Jang himself. It is possible that under the circumstances, and in the face of the Maratha alliances, which Ghazi- ud-din had at length cemented by the offer of a consi- derable sacrifice of territory, he raiglithave been inclined to listen to a compromise, when an event occurred wliich 368 BUSSY TO 1754. ^yJtf- I'emoved the necessity for further negotiations. Tjiving - at Aurangabad in the ancient palace of the Subadars 1751. was one of the widows of Nizam-ul-Mulk — she who had borne him but one son, the next in order to Salabat Jang, Nizam All. All the hopes of this lady were con- centrated in the ardent desire to see this son sitting on the viceregal seat of his father. Between that wish and its accomplishment there were however two obstacles. One of these, Salabat Jang, was out of her reach ; the other, Ghazi-ud-din, was at Aurangabad. To thrust him out of the path she wished her son to follow she had no scruple as to the means by which such a result might be obtained. She accordingly invited Ghazi-ud- din to a feast, and in a dish of which she persuaded him to partake, telling him truly that it had been pre- pared with her own hands, she poisoned him. Ghazi- ud-din died that night. The commission of this crime left Salabat Jang with- out an avowed competitor for the office of Subadar of the Dakhan. He had still, however, before him the whole force of the Manithas, not only the army of the Peshwa, but, united with it, those of Holkar and the Bhonsla. The ruler of tlie Muhammadan state of Burhanpur, who had before declared for Ghazi-ud-din, now announced his intention to stand by his engage- ments with the Marathas. There remained then to Salabat Jang the alternative of a murderous and doubt- ful war, or the resignation to the Marathas, offered by Ghazi-ud-din, of the territory west of Birar from the Tapti to the Godavari. The decision was left by the Subadar to Bussy, and he regarding a solid peace on such conditions as more favourable alike to the interests of the French and the Subadar than a doubtful war, recommended compliance with the terms offered, stipu- lating only that the Bhonsla should retire beyond the Wainganga river. This stinulation was agreed to, and peace was proclaimed. BUSSY PUSHKS FRENCH INTERESTS. 369 These arrangements having been completed, Saiyid chap. Lashkar returned, unsuspected, to his office of Diwan, ^^^^' and the Subadar, who, accompanied by Bussy and his ;^y52 army, had been moving in the direction of Aurangabad, set out for Haidarabad, destined thenceforth to be the capital of the Dakhan. This was in the early part of 1753. During the year that had passed, Bussy in addi- tion to his own duties had been in constant communi- cation with Dupleiz, had watched and lamented over the incapacity of Law without being able to draw him from his embarrassment, and had shown in every letter his own readiness to be employed for the best advantage of France. In the course of it he learned the decline and death of Chanda Sahib, at the same time that he received from Dupleix intimation as to the utter unfit- ness of him who should have been his successor. Under these circumstances he applied himself with untiring zeal to use his position at the court of the Subadar for the benefit of France. How, he thought, could this be more strenuously carried out than by the appointment of Dupleix himself to be Nawwab of the Karnatik. This appointment had indeed been conferred upon Dupleix by Muzaffar Jang, but, from motives of policy, Dupleix had made over the dignity of the office to Chanda Sahib. On the death of this latter, was it to revert to Dupleix, for him either to administer the office himself or to appoint a deputy in his place, or was he to suffer it to be bestowed upon some possible enemy of the French power '? To such a question there could be but one reply. By his influence with the Subadar, with whom the nomination legally rested, the confirma- tion only of the court of Delhi being required, Bussy procured the issue of the patent for the investiture of Dupleix, the receipt of which at Pondichery we noticed in our last chapter. We have now described to our readers the manner in which Bussy was employed during that trying period, BB >70 BUSSY TO 1754. Chap, ^yhen the unassisted genius of ])upleix had to contend VIII or ■ /» , against the steadfastness of Ijawrence and the genius of 1753. Clive. Although the scene of his action continued to be still distant from Pondicheiy, yet his movements were so intimately connected with the policy of Dupleix, that we propose to continue the account of them up to the moment when, in an evil hour for the interests of the French, their greatest proconsul was recalled to be another victim to the besotted Government he had served but too Avell. The year upon which he was now entering, 1753, was to see Bussy exposed to many trials ; to witness his suc- cessful over-riding of the dangers and artifices peculiarly calculated to test the qualities of a statesman ; to show how vain are troops and resources and strong military positions, when there is not a real man to command them. In the month of January, just after peace had been con- cluded with the Marathas, and whilst the Subadar was on his return march to Haidarabad, Bussy, worn out by fatigue and exposure, was suddenly prostrated by sick- ness. So severe w^as the attack, that, unwilling as he was, at a moment so critical, to relax his grasp of the threads of the various negotiations in which he was engaged, he was nevertheless forced, in obedience to the directions of his medical advisers, to consent to pro- ceed for change of air to Machhlipatan. The reluctance with which he allowed himself to be persuaded was due mainly to his conviction, that, just at that precise period, the maintenance of the influence of the French depended almost wholly on his own presence at the court of the Subadar. He had no one near him to whom he could intrust those delicate negotiations ; not a single officer in whose judgment, even in whose ability to maintain discipline over his troops, he could place any confidence. His second in command, M. Goupil, was a man of the most ordinary abilities — one of those simple characters whose want of imaginative power constantly exposes SAIYID LASHKAR's INTRIGUES AGAINST BUSSY. 371 tliein to the machinations of intriguers. To leave the chai'. force in his hand, even had Bussy possessed, as he sup- posed, a devoted friend in Saiyid Lashkar, was indeed i75o_ a risk : to leave it with liim, when that Uiwan was his determined though secret foe, was to expose it to almost inevitable disgrace. Fortunate was it for Bussy, that in the state of weakness to which his malady had reduced him he never once suspected the secret object to which all the machinations of Saiyid Lashkar were directed. It is scarcely too much to suppose that the shock of such a discovery and the endeavour to counter- act its effects would have been fatal to him But, though not suspecting it, the prospect of his departure caused him terrible uneasiness. But there was no help for it, he must have rest and change and relaxation or he must die. With a heavy heart, then, he set out, leaving his place to Goupil, his counsels to the Subadar and Saiyid Lashkar, and promising to all a speedy re- turn, little imagining the form and fashion which that return would take. No sooner had the Subadar reached Haidarabad after his departure, than the Diwan commenced the secret machinations, by means of which he hoped to effect a permanent breach between the Subadar and the French, to rid the country, in a word, of the latter. In this course the weakness and indecision of Goupil came greatly to his aid. We have before adverted to to the strict discipline which, from the time of his arrival at Aurangabad, Bussy had introduced into his army, and we have pointed out how the exact and rigrorous order which he enforced had contributed to the confidence of the people, even to their affection for their European allies. General as such feelings were among the population, they were far more deeply im- planted in the breast of the Subadar himself. Salabat Jang had not been a careless spectator of the fate of his relatives. The fact that his own brotlier, Nasir BB 2 372 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP. Jang, and his nephew, MuzafFar Jang, had both been . treacherously slain by their own vassals, had impresse 1 1753. him with the advantage of having in his immediate vicinity a body of men unconnected with his nobles, upon whom he could fully and entirely rely, whose support would enable him to make a successful stand against the worst form of rebellion. He had deter- mined, therefore, at the outset, never to separate himself from the French. To them he ad been indebted for his quasi-regal position ; depending upon them only he felt that he could maintain it. These resolutions in their favour had been confirmed and strengthened by the signal services rendered by Bussy in the war with the Marathas, not less than by the ex- act discipline which he had maintained amongst his men. On the departure of Bussy, however, the Subadar not only lost the man with whom alone, of all the French, he was accustomed to hold confidential intercourse, but he witnessed likewise, very soon after, a marked change in the conduct alike of officers and soldiers. Goupil, in fact, was not even a disciplinarian ; he was simply good-natured and weak. The regulations which Bussy had so rigidly enforced, were by him one by one set aside. The consequence was that the troops who had been, under the one, the preservers of public order, became, under the other, its persistent infringers. Drunken- ness and licentiousness took with them the place of so- briety and discipline. This change of conduct on their part was naturally followed by a change of feeling on the part of the people, until by degrees the alienation became marked, and the dislike to the foreigners intensified. Saiyid Lashkar had not only watched this change of con- duct with an eager eye, but he had, by many means in his power, encouraged it. The most effective of these means was the withholding from the French their monthly pay. Not only did he hope thus to incite SAIYID LASHKAR FOMENTS FRENCH DISCONTENT. 373 them to some acts of indiscipline such as would embroil chap. them with the people, and exhibit them in an odious , light to the Subadar, but he trusted to it likewise as 17.53. the charmed weapon by which he would procure the removal of their headquarters from Haidarabad, and their final expulsion from the Dakhan. He set to work, however, with great caution and with all the appearance of friendship. When he informed the French officers that he possessed not the funds to pay them, he accom- panied this avowal with numberless professions of the most profound regret, laying the blame on the tribu- taries who had neglected to send in their imposts. When, some time afterwards, the French officers, beset by their soldiers for want of money and themselves seriously inconvenienced on the same account, again complained to him on the subject, he went a step further. The state of affairs, he said, as to the non- receipt of the public revenue, remained the same, but, he added, the French were at liberty to take the law into their own hands, by moving against the refractory tributaries. These, in different parts of the country, distant from one another, he indicated ; nor did he fail to point out to the French officers the pecuniary ad- vantages which might result to them personally from such a mode of collecting the revenue. This pro- position, apparently so fair and even considerate, completely deceived Goupil and his officers, and some detachments were at once sent out. Under other circumstances it might perhaps have been difficult to obtain the consent of the Subadar to their departure, but the acts of violence and disorder recently committed by the French liad even scandalised Salabat Jang, and he offered no o]:)position to the plan. But though the force had been thus diminished, Saiyid Lashkar determined to divide and weaken it still more. He persuaded the Subadar to return to Aurangabad — the city in his dominions most distant 374 BUSSY TO ]7.'54. CHAP, from the seat of the French power — accompained only . by a small detachment of French soldiers and sipahis, 1753. leaving the remainder at Haidantbad, the governor of which city received at the same time the most positive instrnctions to make them no advances of pay. He determined at the same time to disembarrass himself and the court of the presence of M. Goiipil, who, im- becile as he was, yet by virtue of his commission as commandant ad interim of the French forces, occupied a position which, when the plot was ripe for execution, might give him sufficient influence with the Subadar to defeat it. This part of his scheme he managed with an adroitness the coolness of which is worthy of admir- ation. He went to Gou])il, told liim of the intended movement to Aurangabad, intimated tlie intention of the Subadar to take with him but a small escort of French troops, and then begged that he would com- mand it. Goupil, unsuspicious, replied that his duty was to remain with the bulk of the force, and that as the escort was to be so small, it would suffice if it were commanded by an officer of inferior rank. He accord- ingly remained at Haidarabad, sending M. de Janville, an officer of but little weight or experience, to com- mand the escort accompanying the Subadar. Determined from the outset to leave no stone un- turned to accomplish his end, Saiyid Lashkar had like- wise entered into a correspondence with the English, oftering to aid them with the whole power of the Dakhan, if they would assist him in his schemes for the expulsion of the French. This proposition coincided entirely with the wishes of Mr. Saunders, but, engaged at the tim^e in a deadly struggle with the French before Trichina] )alli, he was able to lend only a moral support. He entered, however, into an active correspondence with Saiyid Lashkar, and encouraged him to persevere in his great undertaking. Towards the end of April, 1753, the plot seemed on the verge of success. The SAITID LASHKAR's PLOT DEVELOPS ITSELF. 375 French were scattered all over the countrv ; their main chap. VllI detachment at Haidarabad had been starved into a . condition bordering upon mutiny ; in attendance upon 1763. the Subadar was a young officer without influence or ability. It seemed natural to Saiyid Lashkar that troops, so high-spirited as the French, thus starved and neglected, would be but too glad to accept a free dis- missal from the country in which their presence seemed to be so unwelcome. So completely, indeed, did Saiyid Lashkar count upon the success of this policy, that he wrote at that period to Mr. Saunders, telling him to have no fear for the result, " for," he said, " I have arranged the mode in which to rid myself of your enemies. The plan is in action, and with the assist- ance of Providence, the result will be what you wish. I expect to be with you by the end of the rains, and to arrange then everything in a satisfactory manner." Meanwhile, the French at Haidarabad were in want of everything. The governor of that city, Muhammad Husen Khan, had carried out only too well the orders he had received, and had refused the French troops and sipahis even the smallest supplies. Nor were their detachments better off in the provinces. Separated from the main body and from one another, they were not in a position to effect anything in the presence of the silent opposition that seemed everywhere to rise up against them. They fell at once into despondency ; every thought turned towards Bussy ; had he been on the spot, they argued, this dilemma would never have occurred ; he alone could extricate them from it. Such were their thoughts, and, thus thinking, tliey des- patched messenger after messenger to their old leader. When Bussy received these messengers and the letters they carried, he was lying still sick at Machh- lipatan. The sea-breezes of the coast had indeed con- tributed somewhat to the restoration of his strength, but prudence counselled him a longer intermission 376 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, from the harassiner duties of official life. But almost VIII. 't> simultaneously with the letters from Haidarabacl there 1753. came from Poudichery a communication which decided him. That confidential letter from Saiyid Lashkar to Mr. Saunders, from which we have extracted, happened to be intercepted by French agents. By them it was carried to Pondichery, and handed over to Dupleix. Dupleix received this letter at a time when he was meditating those proposals to Mr. Saunders for peace, which he essayed in July of the same year, and to which we shall refer in their proper place. To this course Bussy, from his sick bed at Machhlipatan, had long urged him, advising him to renounce the old policy of empire he had so long followed. To make proposals for peace with any effect, however, it was necessary for Dupleix that he should be paramount in at least one province of India. Hitherto he had trusted that his prestige in the Dakhan would make up for his losses in the Karnatik. But now, this letter showed him that his prestige in the Dakhan was ■waning, his power about to be anihilated. He com- prehended all in an instant. He saw at once how it had happened, how it was to be remedied. With him to think strongly was to act vigorously. He at once despatched to Bussy a letter, written in the most emphatic terms, urging him, even though his health might not be completely re-established, to set out immediately for Haidarabad. The manner in which Bussy acted on receipt of this letter is thus recorded by Dupleix himself: " Le sieur de Bussy," he writes, *' was too zealous a patriot not to sacrifice even health itself for the benefit of the State." Without delaying a day he issued orders to all the detachments in the district to unite at a place near Haidarabad, where he proposed to join them at the end of that month.* Set- ting out then himself, he found all his troops, amount- * xMay, 1753. BUSSY MAKES HEAD AGAINST HIS ENEMY. 377 ing to 500 Europeans and 4,000 sipahis, assembled chap. there. His first step was to re-establish the relaxed ' . discipline of his little army, the next to restore their 1753. confidence : this done he marched upon Haidarabad. The governor of that place, intimidated by his prompt action, and seeing that the scheme of his chief had missed fire, consented, after some demur, to liquidate the arrears of pay, without, however, engaging to make any stipulation for the future. Meanwhile, a letter from Dupleix to the Subadar had made Saiyid Lashkar aware of tlie interception of his letter to Mr. Saunders. He knew then that the mask had fallen from his visage, and that the keen glance of the ruler of Pondichery had read all the thoughts of his heart. Still he seemed resolved to trust to the chapter of accidents to carry him through his hazardous game. Still he refused to advance the necessary sums to Janville's detachment. Still he ordered Muhammad Husen Khan to temporise and gain time. He thought most probably that at Aurangabad, in the extremity of the Dakhan, in close contiguity to the almost impreg- nable fortress of Daolatabad, he was safe even from the scorn of Dupleix and the vengeance of Bussy. But he was not. The communications of Bussy with Muhammad Husen, and the shifting and prevaricating conduct of the latter, very soon convinced the French leader that, under the circumstances of the case, but one course of action remained to him. He must march at once to th e city which tlie advisers of the Subadar had selected as the place whence to offer to himself and his French these repeated insults ; he must push these traitors from their seats, and re-establish witli the Subadar his old bonds of confidence and amity. Every preparation accordingly was at once made for a march upon Aurangabad on the conclusion of the rains. An undertaking more hazardous, more difficult, more daring, it is not easy to conceive. From Haidarabad to >78 BUSSY TO 1764. CHAP. Auran<^abad is a distance of five hundred miles. The VIII. . , . . _ ^ " , , officials ol the entire country were under the sway of 1753. Saiyid Lashkar. The equipment of the force for such a march was a matter of no small consideration. No money for that purpose was forthcoming from Muham- mad Husen, and the expenses, not only of the equip- ment, but likewise of the supplies had to be met and provided. But besides this, the possible attitude of the Subadar and his advisers had to be looked to. There was no means of knowing w^hat Saiyid Lashkar, wielding as he did the resources of the province, might not attempt in such a conjuncture. There was the possibility, indeed, that the handful of Frenchmen might have to fight their way to Aurangabad, sur- rounded by enemies, with no resources but their own brave hearts and the courage and capacity of their leader. Nevertheless, Bussy, not only found means to equip the force, but no sooner had the rain ceased to fall than he set out. The mere fact of his march completed the confusion that reigned in the mind of Saiyid Lashkar. It unnerved and unstrung him. As abject and depressed as he had before been haughty and confident, he des- patched letters of submission to Bussy, tendering his resignation, confessing his fault, and requesting the French general to appoint another in his place. This submission, however, did not stop Bussy. He still marched forward until he arrived within a few miles of Aurangabad. He then altered his plan. Feeling him- self master of the situation, he was unwilling that the terms which he resolved to impose should seem to be the result of force or compulsion on his part. He resumed then at once the old character of the submissive ally of the Subadar. He claimed nothing, but hinted at everything. Sometimes he flattered Saiyid Lashkar, at other times he whispered the faintest indication of a menace. The result answered his expectations. Having TFIE TRIUMPH OF BUSSY. 379 allowed his wishes to be penetrated, everything that he chap coveted was granted, and Saiyid Lashkar, who had ex- , haiisted intrigue in order to rid the Dakhan of this Frencli 1753. warrior, was forced to sign his name to a treaty which ren- dered that same Frenchman independent of ministerial influence ; which severed from the Dakhan to add to the government of Pondichery four of the finest provinces on the eastern coast of Southern India. On December 4, all preliminaries having been ar- ranged, Bussy was met by Saiyid Lashkar and other lords of the court, and conducted into the presence of Salabat Jang. This interview, which was of a purely formal character, liaving been concluded, Bussy signed with Saiyid Lashkar the articles of agreement by which the French alliance was thenceforth to be regulated. The principal of these provided that the four provinces Mustafanagar, Elliir, Kajamahendri, and Srikakolam, should be made over to the French for the support of their army so long as a certain strength should be main- tained in the Dakhan, they receiving the rents then due on account of them ; that the French troops should have the sole guardianship of the person of the Subadar; that he should not interfere in the affairs of the Karna- tik ; and that the other affairs of the State should be conducted with the concurrence and by the advice of M. Bussy. In return for this Bussy engaged to sup- port Saiyid Lashkar in the office of Diwan. By this treaty there accrued to the French 470 miles of sea-coast, from the Cliilka Lake to Motupili ; stretching inland to a distance varying from 30 to 100 miles, watered by such rivers as the Krishna, the Gund- lakamma, and the Godavari, and — including the head- land of Divi and the districts previo^^sly ceded — con- taining the important districts of Ganjam, Vizagapatan, Godavari, Yanaon, and Krishna, containing many im- portant towns and trading stations. This united terri- tory, afterwards called the Northern Sirkars, possessed 380 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, an area of about 17,000 geographical miles, and yielded . an annual revenue of about £400,000 sterling. The 1753. forests within its limits abounded in teak ; one part of the country was famous for its manufacture of cloth, another for its growth of rice. Nor was it wanting in capabilities of defence. Resting on the sea, it was separated from the inland by a chain of mountains run- ning, at unequal distances, nearly parallel with the coast. These mountains were covered with forests possessing only three or four passes, capable of being defended by a hundred men against an army. To use the language of the English historian, " these territories rendered the French masters of the greatest dominion, both in extent and value, that had ever been possessed in Hindustan by Europeans, not excepting the Portuguese, when at the height of their prosperity." * Was not such a prize worthy of the struggle 1 Did not this important cession of a rich, a defensible, coun- try, justify to some extent the pertinacity with which Dupleix continued to struggle, the obstinate retention of Bussy in the Dakhan 1 What impartial observer, looking at the position of the French and that of the English in the month of December, 1753, would hesi- tate to affirm that the main advantages rested with the French 1 The English of that period could not help seeing and admitting it. Had it been possible for Du- pleix at this period to have waived something of his high pretensions, to have given up his scheme in its shadowy outline in order to be the more secure of its sub- stantial proportions, his policy might yet have ultimately triumphed. But it was not to be possible. When we do revert to the history of the negotiations that he inaugu- rated, we shall, we fear, be forced to allow that the sentence pronounced by the French historian*!' upon one * Orme, from whom this account + M. Thiers, llidoire du Consulat of the Northern Sirkars has been et th P Empire. mainly taken. BUSSY AND SAIYID LASHKAK. 381 of whom in the greatness and versatility of his genius chap. I)upleix was in many respects the type and forerunner, may be applied also to him, and to admit, that if in 1754^ war he was guided by his genius, he was sometimes impelled, to too great an extent, in politics by his passions. The first act of Bussy after receiving the patents for the transfer of the four provinces, was to send thither a body of 150 Europeans and 2,500 sipahis to take pos- session of and to protect them ; that force being placed under the order of the French agent at Machhlipatan, M. Moracin. There is conclusive authority for stating that the mode in which these provinces were adminis- tered by the French was such as to do them great honour. " The rent was moderate, enforced without rigour, accu- rate accounts were prepared, and most of the hereditary officers, if not those possessing rent-free lands, were confirmed in their property." * But although thus foiled, notwithstanding that his efforts to expel the French had resulted in the aggran- disement of that nation, Saiyid Lashkar Khan did not in the least relax his endeavours to get rid of them. He was still left minister, and of the minister there were abundant opportunities of whispering calumnies into the ears of a credulous prince. Once more, therefore, he resolved to play upon the fears of Salabat Jang. He represented to him that it had ever been the policy of the French to make the accession of a new ruler an occa- sion for their own profit and advantage ; that to this end they had supported Muzaffar Jang against Nasir Jang, and on the death of the former had preferred him, the present Subadar, to the legitimate heir of Muzaffar Jang ; he added, that out of all these transactions the French had made a profit, and that now, having obtained all that was possible from the reigning sovereign, they ♦Grant Duff. 382 BUSSY TO 1754. CHAP, would be prompt to listen to the ambitious offers of his VTTT brothers. He therefore urged the Subadar at once to 1754. place his brothers in confinement. He did this in the hope that Bussy, knowing the innocence of the two princes, would at once intercede in their favour, and that this intercession, interpreted by the Subadar to his discredit, would instil into his mind suspicions which must tend to his speedy disgrace. With the Subadar, indeed, this scheme produced the desired result. He issued prompt orders for the in- carceration of his brothers. But Saiyid Lashkar had mistaken the character of Bussy. The able officer at once recognised the right of the Subadar to an uncon- trolled supremacy in his own family. The imprison- ment of tlie two princes did not affect French interests. Notwithstanding, therefore, that several of the nobility and many friends of Saiyid Lashkar urged him to inter- cede in their behalf, he held himself studiously aloof. To all their importunities he replied that he respected the orders and secrets of the Subadar and his ministers, and that he did not wish to mix up in State affairs which did not concern the interests of his nation. This prudent conduct on his part convinced the Subadar of the groundlessness of the suspicions witli which his minister had endeavoured to poison his mind. As to Saiyid Lashkar, he was so disconcerted at the result of this second intrigue, that he sent in his resignation and retired into private life. He was succeeded in his office by Shah Nawaz Khan, a nobleman of high character and position, believed by Bussy to be attached to French interests. Opportunity was taken at the same time to remove from office all the adherents of the fallen minister, and to replace them by others professing devotion to the French, This change had the happiest results. From the time of its taking place to that of the recall of Dupleix in August of the same year, the condition of the French GREAT POSITIONS SECURED BY BUSSY. 383 troops remained unaltered. It is true that Janujf ^^^^■ Bhonsla, son of the famous Raghuji, made an attempt . to invade the dominions of the Subadar. No sooner, 1754. however, had he learned that it was Bussy who was marchinsr agrainst him, than he hastened to conclude a peace.* Another attempt of some stray Maratha bands to disturb the French occupation of the Northern Sirkars was dissolved by the fire of the French artillery ; the disaffected noble who had incited it being forced to throAV himself on the mercy of Salabat Jang. In other respects, thanks to the prudence of Bussy, to the con- fidence which he inspired in all about him, everything continued tranquil. The French troops, well housed and regularly paid, showed their ancient discipline and recovered the lost confidence of the people. In the month of April, Bussy accompanied the Subadar to Haidarabad. After remaining with him there for two months, he set out for Machhlipatan to settle the affiiirs of the four new provinces he had obtained for France on a regular basis. The day before his departure au incident occurred which is worthy of being recorded. The Subadar summoned for that day a grand council of his ministers, and invited Bussy to be present at it. On his entering the hall of audience, the Subadar and his nobles hastened to assure him that as they felt, one and all, that to him and to French valour alone they owed their present peace and prosperity, they wished, before he left for the coast, to swear to him an inviolable attachment and an eternal gratitude, requiring from him a solemn oath on the sacred book of the Christians to continue to them his protection, and to return to their aid when they should be menaced by an enemy. A Testament was then produced, and in the presence of all Bussy took the required oath. Then, leaving be- hind him officers whom he could trust, he set out for • April, 1754. 384 BUSSY TO 1754. ^viir M:achhlipatan. Here he was when the arrival of M. — ^-«^ Godeheu at Pondichery, on the 1st August following, 1754. gave him the first intimation of the fatal blow which France herself had dealt to her own struggling children in the East. 385 CHAPTEK IX. THE PALL OF DUPLEIX. It is now time that we should return to Dupleix. We chap. left him at the end of 1752, disappointed indeed in his - '_ views on the Karnatik, but still maintaining a bold front iio-j. before his enemies ; still hopeful of the future, especially hopeful of the action of Bussy in the Dakhan : not having resigned one of his daring schemes, nor faltered in the prosecution of his far-seeing plans of empire ; still cool, determined, resolute ; confident in himself, confident in the fortunes of France. He had like- wise this consolation, that the great Genius who had delivered the English at Trichinapalli had left India for Europe, and he was himself daily expecting the arrival of 700 men under a leader who had proved his steel. It was not, alas ! for him to imagine that those troops and the gallant de la Touche would meet with the most terrible of the deaths* on the broad ocean, and that he would have again to parry, with diminished resources and without a general, the powerful attacks of Saunders and Lawrence. The number of European troops which Dupleix had at his disposal at the beginning of 1753 did not ex- ceed 360. To support these were 2,000 trained sipahis and 4,000 Maratha horse under the command of the versatile Murari Rao. Major Lawrence, on his side, was able to bring into the field not less than 700 Europeans aided by 2,000 sipahis and 1,500 horsemen * A body of 700 men under de la "Prince," in 1752. She, however, Touche left the Isle of France for was destroyed by fire with nearly all Pondichery in a vessel called the on hoard.— Onne. CO 386 THE FALL OF DUPLELX. CHAP, in the employ of Muhammad Ali. With respect to the , cavahy arm, therefore, the French had the superiority 1753. both in the number of the troops and the material of which they were composed. But in the number of Europeans, the nerve and mainstay of an army, the English had immeasurably the advantage.* But notwithstanding this real inferiority, Dupleix determined to make up by the rapidity of the move- ments of his force for its inequality in the matter of Europeans. In the leader of the Maratha, Murari Rao, he met with a man willing and able to second him in this mode of warfare. With him it was concerted that whilst the Maisurians under their Dalwai (prime minister) Nandaraj, should press the city of Trichina- palli — upon which Dupleix had renounced none of his views — he, with his own Marathas cavalry and the entire available French infantry, avoiding a pitched battle, should so occupy Major Lawrence and the English, that no opportunity should be afforded them of assisting the beleaguered garrison of that city. The fall of that place would, it was hoped, at once ensure the overthrow of Muhammad Ali and the supremacy of the French. In pursuance of this plan, the allied force of French and Marathas, under the command of Murari Rao and M. Maissin, marched from Valdavur on January 14, and intrenched themselves on the river Panar, near Tiruvadi, seven miles from Fort St. David, and in close vicinity to the spot in which d'Auteuil had defeated Cope and Muhammad Ali in July, 1750. From this place, which they fortified very strongly, they com- menced a series of harassing movements against the English, cutting off their supplies, capturing their forage parties, and rendering it most difficult for the * The statements in this ch apt (;r of Colonel Lawrenee.and the histories are based on the memoir and corres- of Mr. Orme and Colonel WUks. pondence of Dupleix, the narrative LAWRENCE FOILED BY THE FREXCH. 387 garrison of Tiruvadi to hold any communication with chap. the garrison of Fort St. David, or with the inhabitants . of the surrounding country. In vain did Lawrence 1753. attempt to bring them to action ; the allies on his appearance in force invariably drew up behind their intrenchments. To such a state of distress was he reduced at last, that he found himself compelled to use Ms whole force as an escort to the convoys whose arrival was necessary for the support of his troops. This service wearied and dispirited his army, besides entailing upon it many losses from the Maratha skir- mishers, who never failed to hover about and harass his line of march. For three months this state of affairs continued, the French and Marathas constantly issuing from their impregnable position to annoy and damage the enemy. On April 12th, in particular, the English force return- ing to Tiruvadi from Fort St. David with a convoy was surrounded by the whole body of the enemy, and but for the ability of Lawrence and the misconduct of the French battalion, which hastily abandoned a defile which it ought to have held, would have been in great danger. The same day, however, Lawrence having been joined by 100 English and 100 Swiss from Madras, determined to endeavour to put an end to the unsatisfactory state of affairs, by storming the French intrenchment. He accordingly made a strong recon- naissance in its direction the next day, and mounted two 24-pounders on a battery whence he might bom- bard it. The little effect, however, which the fire from these two pieces produced on the enemy's defences, as well as an examination of their strength, determined Major Lawrence to desist from the attempt as one that was beyond his power. The three months during which the main force of the English was thus kept employed on escort duty at Tiruvadi had been used meanwhile to a very different pur- cc 2 388 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, pose by the contending parties at Trichinapalli. This ' . city, after the surrender of Law, had been left by the 1753. English commander under the charge of Captain Ualton, having under him a force of 200 Europeans and 1,500 sipahis. An abortive attempt on the part of the Dalwai of Maisur to surprise the city after the departure of Major LaAvrence, had resulted in his retiring with his troops to Srirangam. Here he entered into corres- pondence with Dupleix at the same time that he con- tinued to profess friendship for Muhammad Ali and the English. When, however, the junction of his ally, Murari Kao, with the French, and his stoppage of the supplies necessary for the English, left no doubt as to his hostile intentions, Mr. Saunders resolved no longer to keep terms with him, but sent instructions to Dalton to treat him as an enemy. The twelve months of renewed warfare before Tri- chinapalli, of which we are about to give a general de- scription, were fraught with the most important con- sequences to both the rival European nations then struggling in India. We shall see the genius of the two peoples displayed in the form for which each has for centuries been remarkable. The daring of the French, their activity, their courage, their devotion, will be found not less conspicuous than the obstinacy, the perseverance, the coolness, the intrepidity under difficult circumstances, of the English. We shall have to admire not less the address and versatility of Dalton and the vigour and presence of mind of Lawrence, than the skill of Astruc and the dash of Mainville. In one point, and that an essential one, the English had the advantage at the outset. Their European soldiers were superior in number ; they, too, had shared in all those conflicts which had terminated in the surrender of Law ; they had served under Clive and under Lawrence, and had learned under their able leading to believe in their own invincibility. The French soldiers, on DALTON APPLIES FOR AID. 389 the other hand, were, at all events, for several months, chap. . . I]K not only fewer, but they were dispirited by defeat, ' . and had ceased to place the smallest confidence in their 1753. leaders. The campaign opened on January 3 by an attempt on the part of Dalton to drive the Maisurians and Ma- rathas by a night-surprise out of Srirangam. Night- surprises with a force composed to a great extent of native troops are always more or less hazardous, and this one proved no exception to the rule. Dalton made good way at the outset, but the darkness of the night caused amongst his men a confusion, which the re- peated charges of the Maratha cavalry converted into disorder. The attack was consequently repulsed, and Dalton was forced to retreat into Trichinapalli with a loss in killed and wounded of 70 Europeans and 300 natives. Far from being cast down by this defeat, Dalton exerted himself with success to foil all the attempts of the Maisur leader to take advantage of his victory ; and when, at last, this latter succeeded in establishing 8,000 of his best troops at the Fakir's Tope — a strong position, about four miles south of Trichinapalli — Dalton availed himself of his personal acquaintance with the character of their commander — one Virana — so to play upon his fears, that he aban- doned of his own accord his impregnable position, and left it still feasible for Dalton to communicate with the open country beyond. But before this had happened, Dalton had ascer- tained from personal inspection that but three weeks' supplies remained to him in Trichinapalli. xlt the time he made this discovery, the position of the Dalwai of Maisur in Srirangam, and of Virana to the south of the town, had effectually barred from him all communi- cation with the country, and ignorant then how far he might be successful in his attempts to frighten the latter, he had despatched an express messenger to 390 THE FALL OF DUPLEll. CHAP. Major Lawrence begging him to march to the relief . of the city. 1753. Major Lawrence received this intelligence on the 1st May, not quite three weeks after he had proved the inutility of attempting the French position on the Panar. His part was instantly taken. Leaving 150 Europeans and 500 sipahis under Captain Chace for the defence of Tiruvadi, he marched with the remainder of his troops, amounting to 650* Europeans and 1,500 sipahis for Trichinapalli by way of Chelambram, Kun- dur, and Tanjiir. He took with him no tents, and only the quantity of baggage absolutely necessary. As he approached Trichinapalli the plain was crowded with the 5,000 cavalry and 3,000 infantry that formed Virana's force. They, however, offered him no opposi- tion, retiring into Srirangam, as he, on the 17th May, entered Trichinapalli. But this movement on the part of the English did not escape the eagle eye of Dupleix, Conjecturing at once that the destination of their force could be no other than Trichinapalli, he instantly despatched 200 Euro- peans and 500 sipahis to Srirangam to reinforce the hundred men he had sent thither at the beginning of the year. The command of this force he confided to M. Astruc, a promising officer though untried in com- mand, and he directed him to proceed by the Volkondah and Utatur route, already familiar to us from the move- ments of the previous year. In the intrenched camp on the Panar, there remained 160 Europeans and 1,500 sipahis under the command of M. Maissin. Hostilities between the rival powers before Trichina- palli commenced on May 21, by a daring attempt on the part of Major Lawrence to drive the enemy out of • Major Lawrence had with him behind and 100 as casnaltiee, there at the beginniog of the year 700 would remain 650, Ot these he sent Europeans ; he was joined in April 100 into hospital on arrival at Tri- hy 20O more, as stated in the text ; chinapalli, and his force was further deducting from these the 150 left thinned by desertions. CONTEST ON THE KAVARl RENEWED. 391 Srirangam. In this, however, after operations which chap. lasted twenty hours, he was foiled.* He accordingly . withdrew his troops, who had suffered but slightly, and 1753. moved to the Fakir's Tope, the old position of Virana, four miles south of the town. Despairing then of driving the French out of Srirangam, he set to work to supply the city with provisions. Owing, however, to the numbers of the Maratha horse and the intrigues of the enemy with his allies, he found this a work of greater difficulty than he had anticipated. Nevertheless, as its accomplishment was of primary importance, he devoted to it all his energies, though it compelled him rigorously to avoid hostilities for the five weeks follow- ing his repulse from Srirangam. This time had been well employed by Dupleix. No sooner had he ascertained the small number of troops left behind by Lawrence at Tiruvadi — a number liable to be diminished by the necessity of providing supplies for that garrison and for Fort St. David — than he sent in- structions to Maissin to spare no efforts to storm it. Maissin, in consequence, attacked the place first on May 3, and, failing, renewed the assault some days later. He was, however, once more repulsed, but when the English, not content Avith repelling the attack, sallied forth to the number of 60, accompanied by 300 sipaliis, into the plain, they were surrounded by the Maratha horse, and cut to pieces to a man. From this success resulted the capitulation of Tiruvadi with all its remaining garrison, the capture of Chelambram, and a movement on the part of Murtiza Ali, the Nawwab appointed by Dupleix, to recover the strong places of the Karnatik. Accompanied by fifty French soldiers and a considerable native fores, this chieftain did in- deed cause considerable alarm to the partisans of Mu- hammad Ali, completely defeating on one occasion * Mr. Orme attributes this failure Captain Polier, a Swiss officer in the less to the skill of M. Astruc than to English service. He admits, liow- thewant ot perception on the pan of ever, the ability of Astruc. 392 fHE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, tlie troops of that Nawwab commanded by his brother, . although aided by a party of forty English, most of 1763. whom, after a gallant resistance, were slain in the encounter. The Karnatik thus once more cleared of active enemies, Dupleix again bent all his energies to the capture of Tricliinapalli. The troops that had been on the Panar were accordingly despatched to reinforce those in Srirangam — a measure by which the French force in that island was raised to 450 Europeans and 1,500 drilled sipahis. Their arrival at that place com- bined with the inaction of Lawrence to incite Astruc to vigorous measures. Marching out of Srirangam, there- fore, he crossed the Kavari, and took up a position to the south of Trichinapalli, a little to the north of the English camp. Learning next morning that Major Lawrence was confined to the city by ill-health, Astruc profited by his absence to take possession of some heights about a mile south of and commanding the English camp. These heights, known as the Five Rocks, being guarded only by sipahis, Astruc easily carried. He at once diligently set to work to fortify them, and succeeded so well that when Lawrence, hearing of their loss, moved out to endeavour to recover them, he was repulsed and com- pelled to retire to a position about a quarter of a mile nearer the town out of reach of the enemy's fire. This bold and successful manceuvre on the part of Astruc gave an immense advantage to the French. Their position at the Five Rocks was not only unas- sailable, but it was the key of the surrounding country. It enabled them to intercept all the supplies destined for the garrison, and to bar a passage to the enemy's convoys. The advantage they possessed in cavalry seemed to render any movement on the part of Lawrence impossible. Nor did the idea of a general action present to the mind of the English leader any BRILLIANT PROSPECTS OF THE FRENCH. 393 impression that it would better his position. Sickness ^Jt^^' and exposure had worked with such effect upon his . garrison, that he was unable to bring more than 500 1753. Europeans into the field. To support these he had but 1,300 sipahis and 100 horse — the rest of his native allies remaining in the city out of dread of an encounter with the Marathas. On the other side, Astruc commanded 400 French soldiers and 1,500 sipahis, supported by 8,000 Maisur horse, 1,200 foot, 3,500 Maratha cavalry, and 15,000 irregular infantry. Was it likely, was it even probable, that the small superiority in the number of Europeans, or that the superior ability of their leader, should make up for the general numerical superiority possessed by the French and their allies 1 The position of the English was indeed gloomy, and it seemed as though a few days' patience on the part of Astruc must compel them either to attack an impreg- nable position or to capitulate. To precipitate matters, however, Astruc resolved to force the enemy to take refuge within the city itself. This, he saw, must be the result of the capture of another eminence called the Golden Rock, about a mile nearer to the city than his own position, and on which there was only a sipahi guard. This rock taken, there was no position between it and Trichinapalli which could afford shelter to the English force. We see now clearly the position of the hostile armies. On the one side Astruc, with a force on the whole overwhelmingly superior, though in one parti- cular, that of European troops, inferior by one-fifth ; — Astruc with this force possessing an almost inacces- sible position, barring supplies from the garrison, and needing only the possession of another height, one mile nearer the city, to insure its downfall ; on the other side Lawrence, sick and weakly, in a defensive position unable to attack with any chance of success, with no 394 THE FALL 0J<' DUPLEIX. CHAP, native allies, dependent solely on his Europeans, and ^ '_ , well aware that the capture of the Golden Itock, from 1753. which they were but a mile distant, by the French, was alone wanting to insure his ruin. Such was the position. It will be patent to all that it only remained for the EngUsh leader to await with what calmness he could, command the attack of the French. After some days' mingled dread and expectation it came. On the morning of the 7th July, watching the moment when a large number of the English sipahis had been detached to receive their rations, Astruc sent forward a select body of his grenadiers and best sipahis to attack the Golden Rock, whilst he himself supported their onslaught with his whole army. The advanced party moving with the dash and celerity peculiar to French soldiers, clambered up the heights, and after a vigorous resistance carried the post Meanwhile Lawrence, who was in camp, had no sooner noticed the movements of the enemy against the rock, than he hastily collected all his available force, amounting then to 420 FiUropeans and 500 sipahis, and hastened to support his men on the rock. So much time, however, had been lost in turning out, that he had scarcely covered half the distance between his camp and the rock, before the position had been carried by the French. Scarcely, too, had he endured the mortifi- cation of seeing the flag of France waving over its summit, when the fire of the French artillery from either flank of the base of the rock, showed him that the whole force of the enemy had arrived to repel any attack that might be made to recover it. The loss of the rock and the extraordinary danger of his own position, became evident to the mind of Lawrence at one and the same moment. What was he to do % To retire was to expose himself to almost certain destruction, for his retreat would be harassed and impeded by the crowds of Maratha horsemen who Splendid conduct of Lawrence. 395 were even then threatening his battalion. To advance chap. was to advance in the face of a triumphant enemy, , possessing a strong position, vastly superior in num- i7,53_ bers. It appeared indeed but a choice of deaths. Thus seemed to think Lawrence. For a moment he halted, though but for a moment only. That brief interval was sufficient to bring him to a resolution, worthy of himself, worthy of the nation to which he belonged. Under all doubtful circumstances to attack is a principle which, in India, should be stamped upon the mind of every commander. Especially when re- treat and attack present alike sombre aspects should the general recollect that the one encourages, the other demoralises ; the one insures defeat, the other at least offers a chance of success ; it is, at the very worst, better to die advancing than retreating, to command the respect of the enemy rather than to afford him an opportunity for the display of his contempt, with its concomitant encouragement to his soldiers. It is probable that some such thoughts coursed through the mind of Lawrence, as after that momen- tary halt he detached a chosen body of grenadiers and sipahis to storm the hill on its front, whilst he himself moved rapidly against the main body of the French, drawn up on the left of iis base. It was a heroic resolve, heroically carried out. The grenadiers and sipahis clambered up the hill without pulling trigger, and reaching the summit charged the French stationed there with so much vigour and impetuosity, that they drove them headlong down on the opposite side. Mean- while Astruc, noting the advance of Lawrence, but not the movement of the grenadiers, had drawn up his men with their right resting on the left spur of the rock which, he deemed, covered his flank. Opposing thus his own line to the English, who by this time were within fifty yards of him, he ordered the Maratlia horse and his native allies to move up and take tliem in flank 396 THE PALL OF DUPLKIX. CHAP, and rear. Their destruction seemed to him to be, IX ... . . ■ beyond question, inevitable. But just as his arrange- 1753. ments were about to take effect, the fire of the English grenadiers from the rock on his right flank startled and discomposed his line, and before they could recover from their surprise, a volley from the English followed by a bayonet charge completed their confusion. The French officers, and conspicuously amongst them Astruc himself, exerted themselves to restore the battle, but it was in vain. Completely panic-stricken by the sudden- ness of the surprise at the moment when victory seemed certain, the French soldiers hurried from the field, leaving it to Murari Rao and his Marathas to cover their^ retreat. This service was performed by these famous horsemen with their usual gallantry. They even, indeed, attempted to dispute the field with the English, when, three hours later, Major Lawrence moved off to his old position with the two French guns — the trophies of the day — which he had captured. But the little body of Englishmen, formed in a moving square, repulsed every attack, and, finally halting, poured in so continuous a fire upon the masses, that they broke and fled in all directions. It is impossible to over-estimate the service which Major Lawrence rendered his country on this eventful day. But for his unsurpassed coolness and presence of mind Trichinapalli would have fallen, and with it all the hard-earned conquests of the previous year. For- tunate indeed would he have been if in the presence of the swarming Maratha cavalry, and the French troops, flushed with victory, he had escaped the fate of Law. His merit on this occasion was the greater, because the French leader, Astruc, committed no glaring mistake. His plan was well conceived and well executed. He could not imagine that his soldiers would give up the place they had won almost without a blow. He acted throughout with courage and judgment; and though THE ENGLISH SOLDIERS AND THEIR LEADERS. 397 forced to succumb, it was in consequence of an event chap. which it had been impossible to foresee, and against ^ -' . which he could not have provided. The greater honour 1753. is on that account due to the Englishman, who, in a sudden and dangerous crisis, elected to dare all in the face of an overpowering enemy, rather than to yield to him in the field ! Nor is it possible to leave this subject without a word with respect to those gallant troops who followed him so nobly. Those men had been trained by Clive and by Lawrence himself to the same state of perfection attained many years later by the veterans of Wellington. They were men who could be trusted to perform any service — men who regarded neither difficulties nor numbers, who asked merely to be shown the position of the enemy and to be told to attack it. No finer feat of arms has been performed in any part of the world than the assault by a handful of grenadiers of the Golden Rock, held by an enemy that had just conquered it, and whose army was formed up at its base ! The attempt alone was sufficient to intimidate an enemy whose morale was inferior, who had not learned by experience that the one way to conquer was to move straight on. It was, in fact, one of those deeds of heroism which deserve to be recorded in the archives of a nation's history, never to be suffered, as has been the case with this, to fall into oblivion and neglect.* The French, after their defeat, retreated to the Fakir's Tope, thence to continue the system of blockade • The story is told at length by his adversaries than Mr. Mill to his Mr. Orme, Colonel "Wilks, and by friends. He writes: "Lawrence Miijor Lawrence. Their works, how- knowing how much he could depend ever, published at intervals from up- upon his troops, marched boldly wards of half a century to nearly against the French, and, after an ninety years ago, are scarcely avail- obstinate and bloody combat, re- able for the general reader. Mr. Mill mained master of the lield of battle." describes the whole campaign of l"5o It will not then be denied that this in nineteen lines, and makes no par- gallant action has, with modern liis- ticular allusion to this action. Baron torians, fallen into "oblivion ami Barchou de Penhoen is more just to neglect." 398 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, which they had inaugurated. Astruc after his defeat , resigned his command, and proceeded to Pondichery. 1753. His successor, M, Brennier, determined to attempt to effect by blockade the object that force had failed to compass. He succeeded in reducing the townspeople to extremities : the price of rice speedily rose to one rupee the pound ; of firewood there was an absolute want ; the city became rapidly deserted by its inhabi- tants, who preferred even the risk of attack from the enemy to death from starvation. In his chief object, however, Brennier had no better fortune than his pre- decessor, for Lawrence, determined to employ every possible means to avert disaster, moved with the main body of his army in the direction of Tanjiir, leaving Dalton to defend the city. On learning this movement on the part of Lawrence, Brennier proposed to himself two plans : the first to storm Trichinapalli whilst so weakly guarded ; the second, to move upon Lawrence with his whole force and destroy him. But, unfortunately for his own pur- poses, he allowed his mind to rest upon both objects at the same time, instead of concentrating all his energies upon one. Thus, the better to carry out the first, he sent into the town a devoted Frenchman, named de Cattans, who engaged to act the part of a deserter, and whilst so employed to make drawings of all the internal defences, and to indicate the weak parts of the fortifi- cations. It happened, however, that de Cattans was discovered, and obtained a promise of his life solely on the condition that he should indicate to the French leader the strongest parts of the fortress as those which were the weakest and least guarded. This was accord- ingly done.* So much time, however, had passed in the interval that before these papers reached Brennier he was entirely engrossed by the other plan — the inter- * De Cattans was nevertheless French force, on the return of Major hanged as a spy in sight of the Lawrence to the city. — Orme. BKENNIER AXD LAAVKENCE. 399 ception and attack of Major Lawrence, who, he heard, chap. was escorting a large convoy of provisions from his . camp near Tanjiir into Trichinapalli. It was of the 1753. utmost consequence to the French that this movement should not succeed. Accordingly, on the morning of the 18th August, Brennier moved from his camp, and took up an ex- tended position stretching from Waikanda on the south-west to the French Rock on the south-east of the city — the points the French occupied in force being Waikanda itself, next to that the Golden Rock — the scene of the defeat of Astruc, but of which in the absence of Lawrence they had taken possession ; — the Sugarloaf Rock, distant about a mile and a half from it, and the French Rock, Their infantry and artillery were strongly posted at the Golden and Sugarloaf Rocks ; the space between the Golden Rock and the French Rock was tilled by swarms of cavalry ; there was a small detachment at Elmiseram ; Waikanda was held by sipahis, the intervening spaces being filled by masses of irregular troops, whose line stretched even to the banks of the Kavari. In this position, occupying all the strong posts, Brennier believed he could inter- cept and destroy the English force, burdened as it was with a large convoy. But the English had advantages that he knew not of. It was true that their force was burdened with a con- voy, but it was not less so that whilst encamped near Tanjur, Lawrence had received a reinforcement not only of 5,000 Tanjurians, but of 170 Europeans, and 300 sipahis from Fort St. David. But that was not all. By means of the high tower in the centre of the city, Dalton w^as able to observe all the movements of the French, and to communicate them to Lawrence. This he did not fail to do on the present occasion. The English leader marched to the attack, therefore, not only at the head of a body of Europeans considerably 400 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. ^i^^ larger than that of the enemy, but with almost as ■ perfect a knowledge of his movements as if he had 1753. been an officer on Brennier's staff. It will have been noticed that the two rocks, called the Golden and Sugarloaf, formed the key of the French position. The Golden Rock was, however, by far the most important of the tw^o, as it commanded the entire country between it and the city, and Brennier ought to have held it at all costs. Lawrence, knowing its importance, determined, after depositing his convoy in safety, to direct on it his main attack. The better, however, to delude Brennier, he halted his troops in front of the Sugarloaf Rock, and made all his dis- positions as if to attack it. Brennier, completely deceived, believing that he was to be attacked on the Sugarloaf Rock by Lawrence's whole force, sent hurried orders that the greater part of the force on the Golden Rock should be despatched to reinforce him. Lawrence gave him plenty of time to carry out this movement, but it had no sooner been effected than he detached his grenadiers and 800 sipahis to seize the Golden Rock. This they did without much difficulty. Before, however, it had been accomplished, Brennier noticed the movement. Then, too late, perceiving his error, he sent a detachment to preserve or to recover it. This detachment finding the rock lost did not attempt to recover it, but taking up a position on some high ground between the two rocks, opened a very galling fire on the English. Lawrence, noticing this, conceived the idea of cutting off and destroying this detachment before it could be assisted by the main body, which, after making a slight forward movement, remained as if paralysed on the slopes of the Sugarloaf Rock. He accordingly detached 500 men, natives and Europeans, for this purpose. They advanced without guns in the face of a heavy fire of artillery which mowed down many of them. This caused a hesitation on the part of THE ENGLISH DEFEAT BRENNIER. 401 their leader, but Lawrence, perceiving it, ran out to chap. them himself, and led them to the charge. At this moment, also, Dalton, who from the tower within 1753^ Trichinapalli had watched the progress of the fight hastened to the ground with his detachment and two field-pieces, and attacked the French in rear. Separated from their main body, which all this time remained in an extraordinary state of inaction, the French detach- ment retreated to Waikanda, not however till they had inflicted and suffered heavy loss. Brennier, whose earlier movement might have saved the day, no sooner beheld the retreat of his detachment, than, seeming to recover himself, he advanced with his main body to attack the victorious English. It was, however, too late ; for his troops, disheartened by the retreat of their comrades, and by the sight of the English in force on both flanks, declined the combat, and retreated, as fast as possible, to the Five Rocks, and thence followed their comrades in disorder to Waikanda. The Tanjurian cavalry, which might have handled them severely, feared, even in their retreat, to attack the soldiers of France. They contented themselves with reducing Elmiserara, which was but slightly guarded. This second battle before Trichinapalli cost the Eng- lish 140, the French 100, Europeans, and proved not less than the first the superior generalship of the English leader, and the higher morale of his soldiers. It is difficult to imagine conduct more imbecile than that exhibited by Brennier. He allowed himself to become the dupe of the most transparent stratagem, and its success so confounded him that he seemed incapable of giving any orders until it was too late to retrieve his vanished fortunes. It is not surprising that the French soldiers should display their want of confi- dence in such a leader. Meanwhile, after the action, the French concentrated D D 402 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, in Waikaiida threw up intrenchments, as though pre- ^^' , pared to defend it. Lawrence, whose supply of pro- 1753. visions had become again exhausted, advanced, a few day later, to the Five Rocks, and on September 4 made as if he would attack Waikauda. Brennier, totally demoralised, did not even attempt the defence of the place, but retreated hurriedly and in disorder to Mutachalinur, on the banks of the Kavari, a position which assured his communications with Srirangam. Here, to his surprise, he was joined by an important reinforcement of 400 Europeans, 2,000 sipahis, and six guns, under M. Astruc, and 3,000 tried Maratha cavalry. Astruc at once re-assumed the command of the French force. This reinforcement ought to have changed the fortune of the campaign. The French soldiers, of which it was partly composed, were men who had but recently arrived from the Isle of France, and who had been engaged during the few subsequent weeks in over- running the Karnatik. They were free from the discouragement that had fallen on the others, and should have been employed on the offensive before they had become inoculated by the despondency that reigned in the camp. But previous ill-success had made Astruc overcautious. The thii'd day after the junction he led the combined force towards the south, and took possession of the Five Rocks, and the Golden and Sugarloaf Rocks, recommencing that system of blockade which had twice before broi^ght the English to great straits. Lawrence on his part moved towards Elmiseram, alike with a view to cover his convoys, and to effect a junction with a fresh reinforcement of Europeans then shortly expected. In such a position it was the policy of the French to avail themselves of their superior •> numbers to attack the English. The occasion was favourable ; Murari Rao in particular urged it upon them ; but their councils were divided, and Astruc LAWRENCE, EEINFORCED, RESOLVES TO ATTACK. 403 himself was averse to appeal to the arbitrament of the chap. sword. He confined himself, therefore, to intercept- ^^' ing supplies and attacking convoys, whilst he 1753, hurried on the defences he was throwing up at the Golden and Sugarloaf Rocks. This was acting the policy of Lawrence. This officer remained in the open plain, amusing the French by feigned attacks, till September 27. On that date he was joined by 237* Europeans and 300 sipahis. As bold as his adversary was cautious, he at once determined to attempt the storm of the French intrenchments before they should be quite finished. Astruc had, like Brennier before him, placed the greater part of his force on the Sugar- loaf Rock, the intrenchments of which had been com- pleted on three sides ; to the Golden Rock he had detached 100 Europeans, 600 sipahis, and two guns, intending to fortify that also. The space between the rocks and all around them was occupied by the Mara- thas and Maisurians. Astruc hoped, by holding an impregnable position here, to blockade the English on three sides, whilst Dupleix should induce the Raja of Tanjur to renounce their alliance. This would com- plete the investment, and insure the fall of Trinchina- palli. Such was the state of affairs when, on September 27 the detachment under Captains Ridge and Calliaud joined Lawrence. That officer resolved to attack with as little delay as possible. Moving, accordingly on the morning of October 1 to the Fakir's Tope, he drew up his men and offered battle. Astruc, however, having declined it, he encamped on the ground on which he was drawn up, But before break of day on the follow- ing morning, he advanced at the head of 600 Europeans, six guns, and 2,000 sipahis towards the Golden Rock, assaulted it in three columns before he had been • One of the officers with these quently faiiious in Anglo-Indian was Captain Calliaud, a man subse- warfare. DD 2 404 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, perceived, and carried it without giving the French IX leisure to fire their two guns, which were captured 1763. loaded. Only waiting to re-form, Lawrence then ad- vanced quickly towards the Sugarloaf Rock, his men shouting and drums beating, the Maisurians fleeing before them. Here, however, in front of the unfortified face, the French were drawn up to receive him, with a strong body of sipahis on their left. These men, how- ever, would appear to have been disheartened by the sight of the fugitive Maisurians escaping from the Eng- lish, as well as by the shouts of the latter, for they gave way without striking a blow. The right division of the English, following them up, discovered the left flank of the French unguarded. They, therefore, wheeled to the left, and took their line in flank at the same moment that the two other divisions charged it in front. Stationary as they were, the French could not stand this double attack. In vain did Astruc exert himself to restore the battle. The English pressed on so hotly that rallying was impossible. Broken and divided, fleeing in disorder and dismay, the scattered remnants of the French force made no halt till they had placed the waters of the Kavari between themselves and their pursuers. This great victory, gained by the superior boldness and daring of the English leader, was decisive. Eleven pieces of cannon. 111 prisoners — amongst whom were M. Astruc and ten officers, 200 killed and wounded, testified to its importance. On their side the English lost but 40 men. Nor were its results on Trichinapalli less favourable to the English. That city was at once delivered from the horror of scarcity. For whilst the main body of the French took refuge, cowed and para- lysed, in Srirangam, Major Lawrence, sweeping their detachments from the country south of the Kavari, poured supplies into the city, and then moved himself with the main body of his troops to Koiladi, on the STRAINED POSITION OF DUPLEIX. 405 north bauk of the Kavari, within the territories of ^^^^■ Tanjur. In this position we must leave the hostile ^ " , parties — the French beaten and dispirited, without con- 1753. fidence in themselves or in their leaders ; the English proud of themselves, proud of the general who had three times led them to decisive victory, proud likewise of their achievements, confident and secure as to the future ; here we must leave them, to return once again to the action of the Governor whose great plans had thus been so strangely baffled. Whilst these tremendous conflicts were going on in the vicinity of Trichinapalli, Dapleix, continuing to feed and to strengthen his armies before that place, had been exerting himself to the utmost to restore peace to the Karnatik. To this course he had been moved by several concurring reasons. The Directors of the Com- pany of the Indies and the French Ministers had never ceased to urge it upon him. The continued warfare, from which so much had been expected, drained the pockets of the shareholders, a result ill calculated to satisfy those who looked only for dividends. The con- test which Dupleix had declared over and over again could not possibly last long, and could not end but in the elevation of France to a pitch of unprecedented glory, seemed to the Directors likely to be spun out indefinitely, and to end in humiliation rather than in advantage. In that august body, the want of immediate success on the part of Dupleix had produced the usual results. Those who had long been envious of his success now joined the faction that was really alarmed, to agitate for an end to such a state of things. The longer the war lasted, the more powerful and persistent became the adherents of the party in favour of peace at any price. But that was not the only reason. Dupleix was himself most anxious for peace with the English, if only to give him time to consolidate his arrangements 406 TUE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, ^vith the native powers, to obtain from his European ._^^^,i_^ rivals an acknowledgment of his right to the terri- 1753. tories conceded to him by the representatives of the Mughal. He had previously, in February, 1752, addressed Mr. Saunders with this object, but the answer he received not having been of a nature to encourage him in the hope of a successful result, he had allowed the subject to drop. In the July of the following year, however, urged by the considerations to which we have adverted, as Avell as by the pressing solicitations of Bussy, who, by an engagement to become his stepson, had but just acquired a fresh right to advise him, he attempted to renew the negotiation. Saunders met him in what may be termed a conciliatory spirit, if we have regard only to the main object pro- posed to be attained. But the course of their correspon- dence soon showed that, though they equally wished for peace, the rival powers held very different ideas as to the conditions on which that peace was alone attainable. Dupleix insisted on the recognition by the English of himself as Nawwab of the Karnatik, an office which had been bestowed upon him by the Subadar, and been con- firmed, he asserted, by the Court of Delhi. The English Governor, on the other hand, loudly asserted the claims of Muhammad Ali. Under these circum- stances it would appear that whilst both governors continued to negotiate, they felt alike strongly that the terms of the treaty would be decided, not by their argu- ments or protests, by the validity of the parchments they displayed, or of the patents promulgated in their favour, but by the armies which were then contending for the possession of Trichinapalli. This fact alone is sufficient to account for the perseverance, constancy, and energy displayed by Mr. Saunders in sending reinforce- ments to Lawrence, and by Dupleix in the despatch of every available soldier to strengthen the forces of Brennier and Astruc. THE ASPECTS OF TUE WAR. 407 It will readily be conceded, we think, that having chap. regard to the number of European troops he despatched "^ _ to the scene of action, and the largely preponderating 1753, force and superior excellence of his native allies, Dupleix had good reason to hope for a decided success before Trichinapalli. He, at least, had strained the resources of Pondichery to assure himself of such a result, and it was not for him to anticipate that a fatality would continue to be inseparable from the operations of the French leaders before that place. He was not a man to be easily discouraged. He had replied to the first and second battles of the Golden Kock by pouring in fresh reinforcements, and urging his generals to renewed exertions. When even the news reached him of the third and most fatal defeat on that fatal ground he did not despair. That information, on the contrary, only nerved him to make another vigorous effort, conducted with more subtlety, more daring, than any of the others. His plan was, whilst still continuing to negotiate with Saunders, to send secretly to Srirangam the last reinforcements he had received from Europe, with instructions to their commander to use them at once to attempt the storm of Trichinapalli, whilst Lawrence was resting, with the main body of his forces, at Koiladi, fifteen miles distant. In pursuance of this determination, 300 Europeans and 1,200 sipahis were despatched from Pondichery early in November under the command of M. de Mainville.* They arrived at Srirangam on the 21st. The better to conceal his intentions Mainville endeavoured, and very successfully, to keep his arrival secret from the English garrison and from Lawrence. He did not even endeavour to intercept the supplies of the garrison, but employed his whole time in preparing for the meditated enterprise. At length, on December * All the English -writers state only after the arrival of Godeheu was that M. Maissin. commanded on this the command made over to Maissiu. occasion ; but the records show that 408 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP. 8, all his arrangements having been made, without any suspicion existing on the part of the English, Mainville 1753. determined to put his plan into execution. His orders were clear and precise ; 600 Europeans supported by 200 more and the sipahis, were to attack and carry the work covering the gateway known as Dalton's battery. As there were here but fifty sipahis, Mainville antici- pated that this could be accomplished easily and without firing a shot. He, therefore, gave the strictest orders to abstain from firing. This work carried without alarming the garrison, it was determined to dash round the traverses, of which there were two, and apply a petard to the gate of the town, or should that fail, to attempt to escalade — the walls here being but eighteen feet above the rock ; — for this purpose ladders had been prepared. Following this arrangement Mainville crossed the Kavari at 3 o'clock on the morning of the 9th, and suc- ceeded in reaching the base of the outwork without having been perceived. The 600 Frenchmen escaladed this place and surprised the sipahis, whom they found mostly asleep. Had they then but pushed forward, had they obeyed Mainville's instructions to abstain from firing, nothing could have saved Trichinapalli. But instead of thus acting, their evil genius prompted them to turn two of the 12-pounders which they had captured and found loaded against the walls of the town. They accompanied this fire by a volley of small arms and by shouts of Vive le Hoi. The effect of this fire was to rouse the garrison. Under orders received from Captain Kilpatrick, the command- ant, detachments instantly proceeded to their respective alarm posts ready to receive the enemy. Meanwhile the French, after their insane and useless volley, pressed along the passage round the traverses, and under the guidance of an English deserter followed closely by twc men carrying petards, had arrived within a short distance mainville's humiliating failure. 409 of the gate — the exact locality of which, however, was chap. known only to the deserter. Whilst they were advan- . cing, the English had hurried to the gate, and had 1753^ commenced an indiscriminate fire into the passage lead- ing up to it. The night was dark, and they could take no aim ; nevertheless, their first fire killed the English deserter and the two petardiers when within a few paces of them. The others, not knowing exactly what had happened, began, after some little confusion, consequent on the darkness, to attempt the escalade. Theii* ladders, however, had suffered so much from the enemy's fire and from other causes, that they had but a small number available. Those that they had were nevertheless boldly planted, and an officer preceded by a drummer and followed by his men led the way up one of them. The drummer, however, was killed, the officer pulled into the town, and the ladder thrown back. Others were similarly treated, until, having lost all their ladders, without ropes or any means to retreat down the rock they had ascended, exposed to the fire of the enemy without being able to return it, the French were driven to despair. They could not even make known to the garrison their wish to surrender. For some hours longer, hiding themselves as best they could, still exposed on the least movement to a continued fire, they were left in the most pitiable position When at last day dawned, it was only that the greater part of this large force, which had set out with such hopes of victory, which had had victory within its grasp, might surrender, en masse, prisoners of war. Of the entire body of 600 men, eight officers and 364 men were taken prisoners, many were wounded, one officer and 40 men were killed ; the remainder, nearly 200 in number, jumped down from the rock into the ditch, and though several of them were maimed in the attempt, were carried off by their comrades. It would seem, in sober truth, that a fatality did attend 410 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, ull the Freuch operations against Trichinapalli ! This enterprise, well planned, up to a certain point well exe- l75o. cuted, certain then under the conditions of ordinary prudence to succeed — why did it fail ? What was it that prompted that ill-timed and useless volley ^ The second query is an answer to the first ; to the second itself it is beyond our power to reply. We must content ourselves with remarking that that foolish act of a few foolish men changed entirely the face of events. It not only by its consequences took away from the French the hope of ever gaining Trichinapalli ; * it not only gave all the triumphs of the campaign to the English, but it was the main cause of that humiliating treaty, in which, but a few months later, France gave up the labour of years, renounced the right even to aspire to dominion in the territories of Southern India, What a lesson does not this story convey to soldiers — what a lesson to mankind in general! What a lesson never to turn, when in the pursuit of a great end, either to the right or to the left, to allow no lighter thoughts, no ideas of vain glory, to move a man off the direct path by following which with single- ness of purpose he can alone hope to reach the desired goal ! To the views of Dupleix, the author of the plan, al- though not responsible for any part of its execution, the blow was fatal. Nor had it, unfortunately for him, come entirely unaccompanied by other disasters : Murtiza Ali had a little before been defeated before Trinomali, and Muhammad Kumal, another French partisan, before the pagoda of Tirupati, But this was the finishing stroke ; this it was that convinced Dupleix of the necessity of at least entering into negotiations with the English Gover- * Mnjor Lawrence writes: "The Trichin&palli to the greatest risk it scheme was well laid, and had not had run during the war." Colonel French petulance made them too Wilkes: "It the orders prohibiting soon discover themselves, they, per- firing had been obeyed, the place haps, might have had time to exe- must in a few minutes have been in cute their desisns." Mr. Orme writes possession of the French.*' that the assault "'exposed the city of DQPLEIX TREATS FOR PEACE. 411 nor. Far better for him to come to terms, even though chap. they might be disadvantageous, than to see his best-laid ^^' plans thwarted and ruined by the want, on the part of u^-^ those who were to execute them, of ordinary prudence and the commonest self-command. Accordingly, and with the hope rather than the ex- pectation that some practical result might arise from the meeting, Dupleix proposed that commissioners should be appointed, armed with full powers, to treat regarding an accommodation. To this the English Governor acceded, and the little town of Sadras belonging to the Dutch, nearly equidistant from Madras and Pondichery, was fixed upon as the seat of conference. The English commissaries, Messrs. Palk and Vansit- tart, arrived at this place on the 30th December ; the French — ]M. de Kerjean, M. Bausset, and Father Lavaur, the principal of the Jesuits — delayed by the non-arrival of passports from the English Governor — not till the 21st of January. The next day the con- ference held its first sitting. The English commissaries began by declaring that they had no propositions to make, and none to listen to, which did not comprehend the acknowledgment of Muhammad Ali as sole and legitimate master and Nawwab of the Karnatik, or which did not guarantee to the Haja of Tanjur the full and entire possession of his kingdom. The proposals of the French commissaries were, in words, much more moderate. They suggested that ^la- dras should be quit of the annual ground-rent due to the government of the Karnatik ; that Punamath, a town in the Chengalpat district, and its dependencies should be ceded to the English Company ; that all the expenses of the war on the part of the English should be defrayed ; that the French Company should give to the English Company the necessary securities for free- dom of commerce ; and that in consequence of these cessions, the English Company should evacuate the 412 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, countries and fortified places dependent on the Karnatik ; ^■^' that for Muhammad Ali there should be provided 1753. a suitable governorship in some part of the Dakhan under the mutual guarantee of the French and English Companies ; that he should be considered quit of all monies due by him to the treasury of the Dakhan ; and that the Raja of Tanjur should be maintained in the possession of his territories under the guarantee of the two Companies. Such were the French proposi- tions, extremely moderate, even conciliatory, in their outward form, but in reality no less favourable to French, than were the counter-proposals to English, interests. The French scheme, in fact, must be ex- amined rather with reference to what it omitted than to its contents. We find in it no mention of the Subadar of the Dakhan, none of the Nawwab of the Karnatik. But, the rival candidate for the last-named appointment being in it provided for, the intention was clear to take it for granted that Salabat Jang would be acknowledged as Subadar and his nominee, Dupleix, as Nawwab of the Karnatik. Exactly then as the English proposition claimed all that the English had been contending for, so did this of the French ask everything that Dupleix had demanded from the very beginning. The English commissaries received the French propositions in silence, but at the next meeting of the conference they declared that their instructions forbade their even discussing any articles, until the two which they themselves had pre- sented should have been subscribed to by the French deputies. To this the French would by no means agree. They challenged Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Palk to show them any patent conferring upon Muhammad Ali the office of Nawwab of the Karnatik ; they showed them that it was not an hereditary office ; that the father of Muhammad Ali had been appointed by the Subadar of his day; and that his successors had, on his demise, given the office, originally to Chanda Sahib, and secondly THE NEGOTIATIONS FAIL. 413 to Dupleix: aud they produced several patents granted chap. to the latter, and a letter from the Great Mughal con- firming all that Salabat Jang had granted in favour of 1754. Dupleix. The English to this replied, that Muhammad Ali had received his appointment from Nasir Jang, and afterwards from Gahziu-d-din, but that the patents were at Trichinapalli ; the letter from the Great Mughal they treated as a forgery. Something more was said, but little to any purpose. That meeting was the last held by the conference. Finding it impossible to agree even upon preliminaries, the English commissaries left on February 5 for Madras ; the French, three days later, for Pondichery. Dupleix was the less inclined to abate any of his pre- tensions on this occasion, for whilst the conference was sitting he received from Bussy the intelligence of that gift of the four Sirkars to the French Company, the his- tory of which we have already recorded. 'I he possession of these rich provinces rendered him quite independent of English wishes. Better, he argued, to maintain war than to give up one iota of his just claims. He opposed no obstacle, therefore, to the breaking up of the confer- ence, but throughout the written communications which followed, he adhered, without renouncing a single article, to the rigid programme he had dictated to his agents at that assembly. When Saunders even yielded so far on his side as to concede in substance every claim of the French, with the exception of that which referred to the Nawwabship of the Karnatik ; when even he agreed so to modify his claims in this respect, as to leave that office vacant, on the understanding that Muhammad x\li should be appointed to it, under the protection of the two Companies, by Salabat Jang, whom the English would then acknowledge, Dupleix haughtily rejected the proposal, and insisted only the more strenuously on the validity of his own titles. In the course of our history we have had many occa- 414 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, sions to point to the versatility of intellect, the untiring ^ / ' . energy, the varied resources under all circumstances, the 1751. self-denial, the persistence, the patriotic devotion of this illustrious Frenchman. All these qualities he united indeed to an extent such as is seldom found in one man. But the same candour, which has forced us to admit and to admire these great virtues, compels us to lament the fatal obstinacy which influenced his conduct throughout this memorable negotiation. Too clear it is, alas ! that on this occasion he was guided, not by his genius, but by his passions. His pride would not allow him to take that one retrograde step which he, more than most men, would have known how to make the prelude of a further advance. He had fought so long so openly and so persistently for this empty title, therefore he would not lower himself by giving it up now — now especially, when the influence of Bussy at Haidarabad and the possession of the four Sirkars seemed to make him virtual master of the Dakhan. Blind and fatal reasoning ! His successes in the north ought to have made him more compliant, more yielding, more anxious to conciliate. He should have been con- tent to bide his time. There would not always be a Saunders and a Lawrence at Madras. England had had its Morses, its Floyers, its Copes, and its Gingens, and might have them again. He too, who had influenced every native with whom he had come in contact, who had so bent to his will a Muzaffar Jang, a Chanda Sahib, a Murtiza Ali, as to make them like clay in the hands of the potter, who had won the daring spirit of Murari Rao, was he to despair of gaining a Muhammad Ali I Once independent, free from the clutches of the English, as by this treaty he would have become, and Muhammad Ali would speedily have fallen under the sway of that potent influence, that irrefragable will. Whilst then, as Englishmen, we cannot but rejoice at the unyielding pride which preferred to risk everything rather than to FATAL OBSTINACY OF DUPLEIX. 415 yield one small portion of its pretensions, we cannot but chap. lament, regarding the question abstractedly, that so vast . a genius should have been marred by this one great 1754. failing. In similar circumstances Napoleon acted simi- larly. In 1813-14 he too preferred the risk of the sacrifice of his throne to the certain sacrifice of the smallest of his pretentions. The reason which prompted both these great rulers was the same. It was simply, we repeat, this, that on an occasion requiring peculiarly a cool judgment and clear discrimination, they were both alike influenced by their passions ! Meanwhile, hostilities did not cease in the Karuatik Even before Trichinapalli the temporary success of the French arms seemed almost to justify Dupleix in his policy of haughty persistence. After the failure of his attempt to surprise Trichin- apalli, Mainville had withdrawn his parties within Srirangam, and there awaited reinforcements. These Dupleix, with his usual promptitude, had sent him. On their arrival, Mainville resolved to strike another blow at his enemy. He had observed that the guards Avhich escorted convoys periodically sent in to the city had gradually become smaller. Formerly Lawrence had made a point of attending them with his whole army, but convinced apparently that all the steel had been taken out of the French, he had latterly remained himself in camp, sending only a much smaller party with the convoys. Having noted this, Mainville determined to surprise and attack the next convoy regarding which he might receive tidings. In- telligence having reached him very soon afterwards, that a particularly large convoy, escorted by only 180 Europeans, 800 sipahis, and four guns, would en- deavour to make its way into the city, from Kilakota, a small fort on the south of the Kavari, about twelve miles from Trichinapalli, on the early morning of February 26, he made the following preparations to 416 THE FALL OP DUPLEIX. CHAP, intercept them. Between Kilakota and the village of ^^' Kutapara, a distance of five miles, the ground, covered ^754 with trees and underwood, afforded cover for a large body of men; here accordingly, he sent 12,000 horse under Murari Rao and Innis Khan, with instructions to lay in ambush about two miles beyond Kutapara, and not to attack the convoy until at least half its length should have passed them, and it should have been at- tacked in front by the French. He himself, with 400 French and 6,000 sipahis, took post in front of Kuta- para, at the point where the wood debouches into the plain. These dispositions having been made on the evening of the 25th, he anxiously watched the result. The morning of February 26 had already dawned, and yet no convoy had appeared. Half an hour later, however, a small platoon was seen advancing, followed by the carts and bullocks in single file, the soldiers marching also singly and unsuspicious of danger, on either side. They reached the point where Murari Rao was posted, they passed it even, not making, though they had seen some native horsemen in the woods, any change in their disposition. The French, however, were still two miles off, and Murari Rao, anxious that the surprise should be complete, noting too the negli- gent manner of marching, and fearing lest something might occur to give the alarm before the convoy should reach the French, determined to anticipate his orders. He accordingly sent to the parties he had posted in the wood to hold themselves in readiness to charge. He then gave the signal. The effect was electric. The English, without order or cohesion, their small body stretching along a long line of carts, could offer no effectual resistance. They could only die at their posts. The Marathas, galloping amongst them, attacked all who opposed them. The English still resisted, how- ever, until the French troops arriving offered them quarter. This was accepted ; of the whole force 50 TRAlsrSIENT SUCCESS OF THE FRENCH. 417 were killed, 138 — of whom 100 were wounded — were chap. taken prisoners.* This, however, was bat a transient gleam of success. ^754^ On May 23, a French force, 700 strong, supported by a large body of sipahis and Marathas, was repulsed near the Sugar-loaf Rock by a body of English, much inferior in numbers, on one of those occasions when a victory on the part of the French would have term- inated the war in those parts. Again, however, the tide turned. Mainville, prompted by Dupleix, took the sudden resolution of abandoning his position before Trichinapalli, and of carrying the war into the enemy's country. Moving eastward, accordingly, he attacked and took Kilakota, then possessed himself of Koiladi. Here he caused the waters of the Kavari to be diverted into the channel of the Kolrun, with a view to distress the people of Tanjur. Having seen this done he moved back to Trichinapalli, and took up the position at the Five Rocks, whence he could best intercept the supplies destined for that city. Murari Rao, about the same time, completely defeated the army of the Raja of Tanjur. To cover the capital of that country, Major Lawrence had left his position near Trichinapalli, leaving it feasible for Mainville to make the movement we have recorded. He was, at the time we are writing, wistfully watching from Tanjur the movements of Mainville at the Five Rocks, whilst — such is Oriental diplomacy — the secret agent of Dupleix had more than half succeeded in detaching the Raja whose country he was protecting from the English alliance ! It will be seen then that Dupleix had at least some reason for maintaining his pretensions in his negotiations with the English. Had he been an absolute prince we can scarcely doubt but that in the end his policy would • Amongst these men was the had borne the "brunt of all Lawrence's famous battalion of grenadiers which battles. — Lawrence. EE 418 THE FALL OF DUPLELX. CHAP, have triumphed. The last ally of the English, the ^^ Raja of Tanjur, was ready to abandon them, and not- 1764. withstanding the reverses of 1753, he still, in the middle of 1754, held a stronger position than ever before Trichinapalli. The famous grenadiers, who had borne the brunt of all the victories of Lawrence, had been killed or made prisoners, and his own troops, re- suming the offensive, and victorious in more than one skirmish, were threatening the possessions of the English and their allies on every vulnerable point. It had become, in fact, a question with the latter whether the English alliance was worth maintaining at so great a risk to themselves, at the cost of so heavy a drain on the resources of their country. But when the state of affairs was thus favourable, there came into action those other circumstances upon which Dupleix ought to have, but had not, sufficiently counted. The success of Bussy in the north, of Main- ville and his partisans towards the south-west, were of little moment so long as he did not also possess the con- fidence of his masters in France. In those days, when a communication to the Home Government could not reach France in a less period than six or eight months, Dupleix ought to have been prepared for the effect which the disasters of the previous year would probably have on a corporation in which a large minority was, as he well knew, already hostile to himself It was the consideration of the consequences likely to follow a long record of disasters, all burdensome to the finances of the Company, that should have powerfully influenced him in his dealing with the English Governor. It is the more strange that he should have neglected to allow such a consideration to weigh with him, because he well knew the jealousy to which his proceedings had given birth, and he was aware that by success alone in India he could maintain his position with the Directors in France. Perhaps it was that he INTRIGUES AGAINST DUPTiEIX. 419 felt, as did the illustrious Wellesley of his masters, the ^V^^' scorn of a great genius for men inferior to him in ^ all respects ; perhaps also he did not reckon to its 1754. fullest extent the extreme length to which human meanness and human ingratitude would not hesitate to have recourse. Conscious of his own deserving, he did not fear the result of any scrutiny. He had to deal, however, as we shall see, with men to whom conscious- ness of deserving was but a phrase, when the conduct which accompanied it did not exactly dovetail with their own paltry notions and petty ideas. A party amongst the Direction in France had, indeed, been endeavouring for some time to compass his down- fall. So far back as 1752 the complaints of Governor Saunders and his friends to their own Company, re- garding the boundless ambition and enormous views of Dupleix, had found an echo in the heart of the French Direction. It was in consequence of this that it had that same year despatched M. Duvalaer to London, charged with full powers to negotiate, in concert with the French ambassador at the Court of St. James', with the English Ministers, regarding a basis upon which to settle affiirs in the East. Both parties vehemently declared that they wished for peace ; that their one aspiration was to engage in commercial operations, to abstain from all interference in the affairs of the natives of India. In the course of these negotiations, the English Ministers, instructed by the India House, which again received its inspiration on this point from Governor Saunders and his friends, never ceased to attribute all the evils of which the two Companies complained to the one man who ruled at Pondichery. But for him, they declared, there would have been no contests, no ruinous expenditure, no interference with commercial undertakings. He alone was responsible for all. These complaints, constantly repeated, could not fail to work EE 2 420 THE FALL or dupleix. CHAP, upon the credulity of certain members of the French Company's Direction. These were simple enough to 1754. believe that their most deadly enemies and rivals were capable of giving them purely disinterested advice ; that they wished for the removal of Dupleix as much for the advantage of the French as of their own Com- pany. We need scarcely observe that those tactics ought to have made the French more reluctant to part with the man whom their rivals would have removed. Passion, however, never reasons ; it seeks rather excuses wherewith to a cloak its own darling plans. In this instance it so worked upon the French Directors, that a majority was gradually brought round to the idea that French and English interests would be alike consulted by removing from his post the man who was the firmest supporter of the former, the most determined foe of the latter. It was not, however, all at once that they fell into this snare. For a long time, indeed, Duvalaer con- tinued to defend Dupleix, and to retort against Saunders the accusation which they piled upon the head of the French Governor. But not the less insidiously did the poison work. Not the less did the impression gradually become disseminated that Dupleix was the sole obstacle to a good understanding. The prudent boldness of the English Ministry favoured this view. Without actually declaring that they saw no hope of a cessation of hostilities so long as Dupleix should remain Governor, yet letting it plainly appear that such was their belief, they equipped four ships of war, embarked a full regiment on board, and des- patched them ostentatiously under the orders of Admiral Watson to the East Indies. Well would it have been for Dupleix, well for France herself, if the Company of the Indies had been able to answer this demonstration by an assurance that peace had already been concluded between the two DUPLEIX RECALLED. 421 Governments on the spot ; that there was no need for chap. further negotiations. At any moment from July to ^^' December, 1753, it had been in the power of Dupleix 1754, to have expedited such a message. None however came, and the French Directors were brought at last to the determination to sacrifice this one man for, they professed to believe, the benefit of the whole nation. They accepted, therefore, a proposition made by the English Commissioners, to the effect that both the Governors, English as well as French, should be re- called, and that in their place two Commissaries should be nominated, one by each nation, to proceed direct to India, there to place matters on such a footing that future warfare between the two settlements, so long as their principals remained at peace, should be impossible. In consequence of this resolve, the French Ministry nominated M. Godeheu, at one time member of Council at Chandranagar, to be Commissary of the King to conclude peace, and to verify and examine the accounts of his predecessor. From the Directors the same Godeheu received likewise his commission as Governor-General of the French settlements. The English, more astute, made no fresh nomination, but sent out the necessary powers to Governor Saunders and the members of his Council. The first intelligence received by Dupleix of these proceedings was contained in a letter from Godeheu himself from the Isle of France, announcing his early departure from that place to co-operate with him as Commissary of the King and of the Company in India. The letter was written in a modest and submissive tone, the writer lamenting his own inexperience, and expres- sing his earnest desire to be guided by the advice of his old friend. Whatever may have been the feeling of Dupleix on receiving this communication, it can scarcely be doubted but that its friendly tone and his personal knowledge of the writer must have tended to 422 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, reassure him. He had known Godeheu since his early ^^- youth, and had ever befriended him. He had been his "^54 superior at Chandranagar, where he had ever been treated by the young councillor with marked defer- ence and respect. He had even, on one occasion, been the means of saving his life. After his departure from Chandranagar, Godeheu had become a director of the Company of the Indies, and in that capacity had corresponded closely and intimately with Dupleix. He had ever evinced towards him a devotion and an admiration that were quite unbounded. The appointment of a man so befriended, so devoted, to act — as Dupleix then believed — solely as Commis- sioner to bring about peace, could have in it nothing to alarm the French Governor. He did not know — in fact he had had no opportunity of knowing — that this man, seemingly so devoted, was one of those miserable vermin who seek to raise themselves by fawning on and flattering great men. He did not know that all the time this Godeheu had been writing to him letters full of the most fulsome professions of friendship, he had been intriguing amongst the Directors for his downfall, in the hope to be himself appointed his suc- cessor. He did not know that so far from desiring to aid him, or to profit by his advice, this Godeheu had asked for authority to send him home in disgrace and arrest, but had been overruled by the Directors, who had especially forbidden him to use force or restraint, except in the improbable event of the resistance on the part of Dupleix to laAvful authority. How could he know such things ; how, even, could he divine them 1 A noble and generous nature invariably revolts from the very suspicion of baseness. It ai^pears to him too horrible, too unnatural, a degradation of intellect below the range of even the animal creation 1 Endowed him- self mth a lofty sense of honour and a warm, sympa- thising nature, how could Dupleix imagine that one 1754. BASENESS OF GODEHEU. 423 whom he had treated as a friend and as a confidant, chap. could use that friendship and that conlidence to betray him. But Dupleix was not suffered to remain long in his self-deception. On August 1, the ship, " Due de Bour- gogne," having Godeheu on board, amved in the road- stead of Pondichery. A letter was at once sent off to Dupleix announcing his arrival, and intimating that one otlier ship was accomanying him, and that three more with 2,000 troops on board would follow in a few days. Dupleix at once went to meet his ancient com- rade. His reception, however, was most frigid. Gode- heu declined to become his guest, or even to land until a house should have been fitted up for him. He made over to Dupleix, however, three documents : — the first a letter from himself containing profuse professions of anxiety to make his situation as little painful as pos- sible ; the second a demand for a full report on the state of affairs in French India ; the third an order from the King containing his recall. The first letter was probably written with the intention of diverting Dupleix from offering, as he feared he might, armed resistance to his authority, for on landing the next day in great pomp and splendour, received with all defer- ence by Dupleix on the quay, he curtly informed him that he expected him to sail at once with his family for Europe. He then proceeded to the Council Chamber, and had his commission read out. The silence which followed this reading was interrupted by Dupleix him- self, not indeed by querulous complaints or undignified protests, but by the loyal cry of Vive le Roi ! On August 2, 1754, Dupleix made over to Godeheu the command of that vast extent of territory on Indian soil, which partly in actual tenure, partly by means of the influence he exercised, he had gained for his coun- try. Ten weeks later, October 14, Dupleix and his family bade a last adieu to the laud to which he had 424 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, devoted a lifetime. The public acts by whicli that ^^' interval was distinguished belong to the career of M. 1754 Godeheu, and we shall treat of them under that head. Of the conduct of Dupleix during that period we will merely state that it was distinguished by a loyalty, an abnegation of self, a devotion to the interests of the Company which had cast him off, of which the history of the world gives few examples. It was replied to, on the contrary, on the part of Godeheu, by a spiteful arrogance, an anxious desire to wound and annoy ; a determination, if possible, to ruin and dishonour the ex-Governor, such as could only have emanated from a mean and paltry spirit. Not only did Godeheu, as we shall see when discussing his public acts, reject advice by following which he would have established French domination on a secure basis, but he ordered his com- manders to preserve an inaction which saved the enemy from destruction, simply because action would have jus- tified the long-pursued policy of Dupliex. But it was in s treatment of the pecuniary claims of Dupleix on the Company that he showed the greatest malevolence. Unable to detect a single flaw in his accounts, finding that even the private invitation on his part of accusa- tions against the ex-Governor failed to bring against him a single tenable charge ; disappointed in the hope he had indulged of sending him home in chains, he resolved at all events to ruin him in his private fortune, and to dismiss him a dependent and a beggar. To a man so utterly unscrupulous the means were not want- ing. The examination of the accounts of the Company at Pondichery showed an amount due by it to Dupleix of between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 francs (£240,000 to £280,000). As soon as Godeheu ascertained this fact, he forbade the commissaries he employed to pro- ceed with the question of accounts, compelling them merely to sign a certificate to the effect that the vouchers produced by Dupleix had reference to the HIS EFFORTS TO RUIN DUPLEIX. 425 public accounts. By this subterfuge he avoided placing chap. on record an acknowledgment of the sums due to Dupleix. But this was not all. We have before 1754. stated that Dupleix had been in the habit of advancing to his native allies his own private fortune for the ex- penses of the war. These advances had been made on the security of certain districts in the Karnatik, from the revenues of which they were repayable. In fact, the agent of the native princes, by name Papiapoule, had at this time in his possession an order to make over to Dupliex the revenues of those districts in pay- ment of the sums due to him. At the time of Gode- heu's arrival, some of these advances had been repaid ; others, however, to the amount of 22,000,000 francs (£880,000), were still standing over. At the rate, how- ever, at which they were then being paid in, this sum would have been reimbursed during the following year, 1755. But Godeheu, seeing in this a means of enrich- ing the State at the expense of Dupleix, chose to con- sider these advances as sums irregularly laid out by his predecessor for his own private advantage, and not for the benefit of the State. He, therefore, suddenly seized Papiapoule in his own private house, placed him in confinement* under circumstances most insulting to Dupleix, deprived him of all his papers, and farmed the revenues of the districts to another native for the sole benefit of the Company. In addition to this, he re- fused to allow a bill drawn by the Company itself in favour of Dupleix, to the amount of 422,606 francs (£16,904), to be cashed in Pondichery. Having thus effectually ruined him, having exposed him to the claims of those who were his creditors, solely because on the credit of his character they had lent their money to the State, Godeheu allowed to depart — beggared though not dishonoured, blasted in his fortune, cheated out of the fruits of his then ripening labours — this by * lie remaiued in irons till released by Lally, in 1758. 426 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, far the most illustrious of the illustrious men whom the TV France of Louis XV. produced, only to show how un- 1754. worthy she was, in her then degraded state, of a pro- geny so deserving."* " England," says a recent French writer,-}- " has been much admired and often cited for having solved that great problem of how to govern, at a distance of 4,000 leagues, with some hundreds of civil functionaries and some thousands of military employes, her immense possessions in India. If there is much that is wonder- ful, much that is bold and daring, much political genius in this idea, it must be admitted that the honour of having inaugurated it belongs to Dupleix, and that England, which in the present day reaps from it the profit and the glory, has had but to follow the paths which the genius of France opened out to her." Yes, indeed ! Now that the lapse of more than a century has cleared away the passions and prejudices of that exciting period ; now that from the basis of accom- plished facts we can gaze at the ideas and conceptions of the men who were the pioneers of European conquest on Indian soil, there lives not a candid Englishman who will deny to the great French Governor the credit of having been the first to grasp the necessity of establish- ing European predominance in Southern India — to show practically how that predominance could be established and maintained. The work of Dupleix did not indeed last, because it was his misfortune to be born at a season when his country was sunk in the loAvest abyss of profligacy and misgoveriiment ; when all the offices of the State had become the patronage of a licensed harlot ; when virtue and honour and truth were openly scoff'ed at and derided. It did not last, because the besotted Government he served recalled him at the beck of the immemorial enemies of France, just at the * The account of tlie trtatment of others published by Dupleix. Dupleix by Godeheu is based on the t M. Xavier Raj moud. official report of the auditors and GREAT QUALITIES OF DUPLEIX. 427 moment when his schemes were about to blossom into chap. golden fruit. But the effect of those schemes survived ^^' him. The ground he had so well watered and fertilised, 1754 the capabilities of which he had proved, was almost immediately after his departure occupied by his rivals, and occupied with the immense result which is one of the wonders of the present age. Nor can we doubt that if Dupleix had had but two years more to mature his great schemes, the rich heritage of Beniial would have fallen to him instead of to his rivals. The possession of the Sirkars gave him an excellent basis from which to operate with the Subadar of Bengal, Bihar, and Orisa. Who can doubt but that had Chandranagar been under his control in 1757, he would have hesitated to unite with Siraj-a-daola to crush the English settlement on the Hiigli, or that he would have crushed it '? Clive acted then as Dupleix with the prior opportunity would have acted before him. In this as on many subsequent occasions the spirit of the great Frenchman ruled in the camp of his rivals and successors. It is impossible to deny to Dupleix the possession of some of the greatest qualities with which man has ever been endowed. He was a great administrator, a diplo- matist of the highest order, a splendid organiser, a man who possessed supremely the power of influencing others. He had an intellect quick and subtle, yet large and capable of grasping ; an energy that nothing could abate ; a persistence, a determination, that were proof against every shock of fortune. He possessed a noble, generous, and sympathising nature ; he was utterly incapable of envy or jealousy ; * and was endowed besides witli that * We have placed in its true light subsequent writers had repented, the real reason of th(^ quarrel between "without exnmining them. ^0 one Dupltix and La Bourdonnais, and ever charged liim with being jealous have vindicate i the characttr of the of Bussy ; yet Bussy had a far former Irom all the charg:es which greater influence in India than La the hatred and prejudices of the hour Bourdonnais. had heaped against bim, and which 428 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. CHAP, equanimity of temper that enabled him to bear the . greatest reverses, the most cruel injustice towards him- 17 5^. self, with resignation and composure. He was not indeed a general. He did not possess the taste for leading armies into the field. Y(3t he showed on many occasions — notably on the occasion of the siege of Pondichery by Boscawen — that he could not only stand lire, but could defeat by his unassisted and natural skill all the efforts of the enemy. The character of his government and the influence of his own presence are attested to by the English historian of that epoch, writing, as he was, under the spell of the prejudices of the period. " All his countrymen," writes Mr. Orme, " concurred in thinking that his dismission from the Government ol Pondichery was the greatest detri- ment that could have happened to their interests in India." When we think indeed how much he had accomplished — how he had built up the French power, how he had gained for it an unparalleled influence and an enor- mous extension of territory ; — when we reflect that with half the two thousand men that Godeheu brought out with him, he could have crushed the English, already reduced to extremities at Trichinapalli — we cannot but marvel at the blindness, the infatuation, the madness, that recalled him. The primary cause was, no doubt, as we have stated, the degraded condition of the France of Louis XV. But there was yet, we believe, another reason, not entirely dependent upon the state of his country, for we have seen it act under other rulers than Louis XV., and under other Governments than France. To borrow the words of the French historian,* " Dupleix had against him that crime of genius, which so many men have expiated by misery, by exile, and by death." * Histoirede la Cnnqaf.te del' Imle chou de Peuhoen. %iar V Angleterre, par le Barou Bar- HIS TREATMENT IN FRANCE. 429 It was on October 14, 1754, that Dupleix bade adieu chap. to the country of his greatness. Baffled as he had been ^^ in his large schemes, ruined as lie was known to have Uoi. been by the measures of Godeheu, he was yet, in spite of the declared hostility of that personage, followed to the place of embarkation by the principal officers and employes of Pondichery, and by all the common people. Their generous hearts spoke out in the universal feeling of regret at his departure. Their grief was far more eloquent, infinitely more expressive, than would have been the smiles of a Pompadour ! Very briefly we propose to follow the disgraced Governor to his last hour. Before he had landed in France, the Minister, Machault, fearing, in the then state of European politics, the result in India of the recall of Dupleix, and hoping it might not have been actually accomplished, had sent to Dupleix a despatch in which he affected to treat him as Governor, Godeheu merely as Commissary of the King to make peace. This dispatch reached Pondichery after Dupleix had left it, though it had been expedited by the Minister in the hope that it would prevent his departure. His arrival, therefore, in France was looked upon in the light of a misfortune, and it appeared for some time not improbable that he might even be re-instated in his post. He was, therefore, well received and flattered with hopes of a settlement of his claims. As soon, however, as the intelligence of the disgraceful peace made by Godeheu — to which we shall presently refer — reached France, and the disagreements with England were consequently regarded as settled, the Ministry at once began to treat Dupleix as a man from whom nothing more could be hoped, but who, on his part, would importune them with claims. They, therefore, or rather, acting with them, the Directors of the Com- pany, at once changed their manner towards him, and absolutely refused to take his accounts into considera- 430 THE FALL OP DUPLEIX. ^'^^^- tiou. lu vain did he remonstrate. lu vain did he <^.^^.«.^ point out that he was persecuted by creditors who were 1764. simply creditors, because, on his security, they had advanced their funds to the Government of Pondichery, In vain did he write a memoir, setting forth, in a modest but graphic style, all he had done, the sums of money he had advanced. For seven years he urged and pressed his claims, supporting them by incontestable proofs. He received not even the shadow of redress. Nay, more. Many of those whom he had befriended in his prosperity, and who had advanced sums to the Pondichery Government, sued him for repayment. Even Bussy, who was to have been his stepson, deserted him in his extremity, broke off the marriage, and appeared in the list of claimants against him. To such a state of misery was he reduced, that, three months before he died, his house was in the occupation of bailiffs. Three days before that sad event, he thus wrote in his memoir : " I have sacrificed my youth, my fortune, my life, to enrich my nation in Asia. Unfor- tunate friends, too weak relations, devoted all their property to the success of my projects. They are now in misery and want. I have submitted to all the judi- ciary forms ; I have demanded, as the last of the creditors, that which is due to me. My services are treated as fables ; my demand is denounced as ridicu- lous ; I am treated as the vilest of mankind. I am in the most deplorable indigence ; the little property that remained to me has been seized. I am compelled to ask for decrees for delay in order not to be dragged into prison." Thus wrote, three days before he died, the man who had done for France more than all her Kings, beside whose exploits the deeds of her Conde, her Villars, her Turenne, sink into insignificance. The founder of an empire treated as the vilest of mankind, his just claims unattended to then, unsettled even to HIS PLACE IN HISTOKY, 431 this day* ; the man who acquired for France territories in the East larger than France herself, treated as an importunate imposter ! Not long could even his brave spirit endure such a contest. He died on November 10, 1764. t Not the less will he rank v»dth posterity as one of the i^reatest of Frenchmen ; not the less will even the descendants of his rivals in Southern India place him on the same pedestal as the greatest of their own heroes — on the pedestal of Clive, of Warren Hastings, and of Wellesley I CHAP. IX. 1754. * Strange it is that, considering the mutations France has herself gone through, she should still have allowed these claims to remain un- settled. The Republic, the tirst Em- pire, the E,estoration, the Oileanists, the second Republic, and the second Empire, must divide -with the Bour- bons the shame of tliis great scandal. We append an extract from the letter of the Paris correspondent of the Globe of May 17, 1866, showing that even up to the time of his last desoendant these claims had been neglected : "Another death, which is worthy of record, is that of the last descen- dant of the great ISTabob Dupleix, the celebrated Governor of Pondichery. The coat of arms granted him by Louis XV., for the diplomatic ti-i- umphs gained by him over the Eng- lish in India, glittered for the last time over the portal of Saint Phi- lippe du Roule, as the modest cofiln which contained the remains of the last Dupleix was borne out to the cemetery. Of the great siege of Pondichery, of the ghry and magni- ficence of Dupleix, of his riches and his disgrace, of his humiliation, his poverty and miserable death, nothing is remembered now. Even the Jetc which he had instituted at Pernan. his native place, to celebrate the raising of the siege of Poadicherj% has long been discontinued for want of the funds which he had intended to be amiually devoted to the dower of one of the village maidens. He died in the most abject poverty, after having had at his command whole multitudes of men and millions of rupees ; and the faithless agent charged by him with the settlement of the perpetual fund for the good work of which he had been dream- ing for years beneath the hot scorch- ing sun of India, and amid the strife and bloodshed by which he was sur- rounded, never having sunk the money, the celebration of the one glorious souvenir of his life — that too has passed away, and his very name is now no more. When the Ministere des Finances was entered by the mob in 1830, the last appeal of Dupleix, imploring a settlement of his claim of IB millions against the Govern- ment, was thrown out amongst other papers scattered to the winds. It fell into the hands of the professor of phUosophv at the college Loiiis le Grand, who had it framed and glazed, and hung up in his class-room, where it afterwards served as illustration to many and many a lesson on the vanity of riches and the varied con- formation of the wings they make to them>elves when thej' flee away." t He died in a house in the Rue Neuve des Capucines, on the site till recently occupied by the foreign ofhce, within a few doors of the offi- cial x-esidence of the Company. 432 GODEHEU AND DE LEYKIT. CHAPTER X. GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. ^^^- Before his departure from Poudichery, Dupleix had _^^^«^ laid before his successor a detailed account of the mili- 1754. tary and other operations that had taken place in the Dakhan, in the Karnatik, and before Trichinapalli, and had indicated at great length the measures which he, had he continued at the head of affairs, would have adopted, in order to insure the triumph of the French arms. He advised him to maintain Bussy at the court of the Subadar, Moracin in the ceded districts, Main- ville at the head of the army before Trichinapalli. He counselled that to this last the reinforcements then landing should be sent without delay, and that he should be instructed to use them effectually before Admiral Watson's fleet, then shortly expected, should arrive off Madras. He laid special stress on the reten- tion of Mainville at the head of the army, not only because he had shown energy and capacity, but likewise because he had gained the complete confidence of the French allies — the Dalwai of Maisur and Murari Rao. For some time Godeheu made no sign. To Governor Saunders, indeed, he forwarded proposals of accommo- dation, and as an earnest of his sincerity, restored to him, that they might be used against France, the Swiss soldiers captured by Dupleix during the previous year. But neither to Bussy, to Moracin, nor to Mainville, did he give the smallest indication of his policy. He con- EFFECT OP THE RECALL OF DUPLEIX. 43S tented himself with cutting off from Mainville those chap. supplies of money with which he had been till then - _ ^ ' , _ . liberally furnished by Dupleix for the maintenance of 1751. his army. This policy of negation, if indeed it was a policy at all, and not, as we believe it to have been, the natural inaction of an undecided mind, had the worst possible effect. The air was at once filled with rumours, all injurious to the French. The English, flushed with joy at the recall of Dupleix, made no secret as to the means by which that recall had been obtained, and as to the consequences that were to follow from it. Their stories, spread everywhere by their agents, were univer- sally credited, and their effect exaggerated tenfold. The partisans of the French alliance were everywhere over- whelmed with shame, with mortification, and with fear. At the court of the Subadar these feelings showed themselves in the fullest strength. " Your nation," wrote Salabat Jang * to Bussy, on the arrival of messen- gers from Pondichery informing him of the assumption of authority by Godeheu, " your nation has supported and succoured me till now. I have recognised to the utmost of my power the services it has rendered me. I have given to my uncle, M. Dupleix, the government of the Karnatik, and I have ever hoped that he would gain the upper-hand over his enemies. It is with the greatest chagrin that I have heard of his recall. To the messengers who were intrusted with my letters for him the new Governor said : ' Tell the Subadar, your master, that I am sent here by my sovereign, who has forbidden me to interfere with the Miighal Government, and that he must defend himself as best he can.' They * The correspondence quoted in and of Grant Duff, on the narrative of this chapter has been trausiattd from Colonel Lawrence, and on the Ser the originals appended to the memoir Mutakharin, the other statements of Dupleix. On that correspondence, contained in it are based, on the histories of Orme, of Wilks, FF 434 GODEHEU AND DE LEYEIT. CHAP, have also reported that the prisoners have been restored , to Muhammad Ali, that Murari Rao and the Maisurians 1754. have abandoned you. All this proves to me that the English have gained completely the superiority over your nation/' The Diwan, Shah Nawaz Khan, writing to the Muhammadan governor of Haidarabad, thus ex- pressed himself: "I cannot recover from the surprise which the news of the recall of the Governor Bahadur has caused me. I cannot imagine what the French are at ; but by that act they will lose their honour and their territories. I cannot conceal from you that we can arrange nothing with the new governor, who has not the least knowledge of our affairs. Besides, it appears that the French are neither so powerful nor so generous as they would have us believe, and that the English have the absolute mastery over them. I will not hide from you then that I am about to negotiate with the English and Muhammad Ali." The letters of the French officers themselves were not at all more cheerful. "I foresaw," wrote Moracin to Bussy, from Machhlipatan, " in the same sense as your- self, what would be the effect of the arrival in India of the King's Commissary. I wrote to him a fortnight" ago, and I believe I gave him an opinion similar to your own. It is fit that I should inform you of the contents of the letters from Madras which our native bankers have shown me. In these it is stated that the King of England has forced the King of France to recall M. Dupleix from Pondichery, under a threat of war ; and that the King of France, in sending out the new governor, said to him : ' Go and make peace in India ; restore to the Nawwab the territories which he has given to the Company ; I will not keep them, be- cause to do so would annoy my brother, the King of England.' " Both Bussy and Moracin felt at this time the utter hopelessness of their position so completely, that nothing but the earnest exhortation of Dupleix to OPINION OF BUSSY. 435 them to continue to serve France, no matter by whom chap. she was represented, induced them to remain at their . posts. The answer of Bussy to this earnest exhorta- 1754. tion deserves to be recorded. "I reply," he ^vrote, under date August 23, " to the letter with which you favoured me on the 4th. Your departure for Europe is a thunderbolt which has confounded and alarmed me. You, who are leaving, exhort me to continue to serve the nation, and to support a work which is on the brink of destruction. Do you sincerely believe that I shall not be enveloped in the same disgrace as yourself? The blow is perhaps deferred, or suspended only to be struck with the greater force. But however that may be, I have ever considered it my duty to defer to your counsels, and to follow your reasoning. Under no circumstances shall I ever depart from that respectful and inviolable attachment, which has been till now my happiness and my glory, and which will always remain so. I await M. Godeheu's replies to determine myself, although, like you, I am persuaded that I ought to await in India the replies of M. de Conflans. If, never- theless, in the post which I occupy I am not to be allowed liberty to act, if they shall endeavour to fetter me by the ideas of ignorant people and men without experience, my work will perish in my hands : and it will be concluded, either that I have destroyed it in pique, or that it was neither so splendid nor so well established as you and I have declared it to be. On the one side I declare that if the confidence with which vou have honoured me is continued bv ^l. Godeheu, I shall not refuse to devote myself to the service of the nation and the Company ; it is not that I expect that my services will be recognised or even acknowledged ; but I shall have, like yourself, the advantage of having served my country, without any emolument but the glory of having been useful to it, and the consolation of attributing its neglect and ingratitude only to the 436 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP, factiousness of the envious, themselves too wanting in ^ " . merit not to seek to obscure that of others Do 1754. me the favour to inform me if you can of the views of M. Godeheu regarding the Dakhan. Personally I am disposed to abandon all and to retire to France. But I wait your answer and your advice. I am so over- whelmed that I cannot apply myself to business. The army is crying out from hunger ; — no one pays, — and I am forbidden to act." Such was the state of matters in the Dakhan and in the Sirkars. Before Trichinapalli it was worse. We left the French army under Mainville occupying the Five Rocks, completely shutting in the city ; Lawrence absent at Tanjur, with the king of which country Dupleix continued up to the last to be in secret com- munication. Very shortly after the arrival of Godeheu, the 2,000 troops that sailed with him from France landed at Pondichery. These should have been sent, as Dupleix strongly urged, to reinforce Mainville, who could then have made sure of the city for which the French had been so long struggling. But far from so acting, Godeheu sent only petty reinforcements ; he cut off also from his army the supplies of money it had been in the habit of receiving ; he stopped the trans- port of provisions ; he sent no orders ; the letters and remonstrances of Mainville he left unanswered. The consequence was that a portion of the army mutinied, and the revolt was only suppressed by the loyal exer- tions of the officers. The letter written by Godeheu to Dupleix on hearing of this outbreak serves to illustrate the character of the new Governor, — to show in a striking light the crime committed by the French Government in sending out such a man to supersede Dupleix. " What resources would you have," wrote he, " in the same case ? You were in a position to make advances from your purse and on your credit ; I can do neither one nor the other." POLICY OF GODEHEU. 437 But this was not all. The new Governor seemed chap. determined to sacrifice not only the territories acquired by Dupleix, but even the honour of France to the one 1754 great object of making peace with England. So trans- parent was this intention, so patent to all, that it produced in the French settlement and in the French army, a discouragement and a despondency fatal to the life of a people. It is not too much to affirm that, had Governor Saunders himself been appointed successor to Dupleix he could not have more effectually injured French interests than did this nominee of the French Direction and the French Crown. He begran bv changing the superior command of the army. Main- ville having been recommended by Dupleix as the most capable officer, as the man of all others the most acceptable to his native allies, Godeheu took an early opportunity of superseding him, appointing in his stead M. de Maissin, — a man remarkable for his little capa- city and his want of resolution. Not the less, however, did he suit the purposes of Godeheu. It would not be credited were there not evidence to prove it,* that, at a moment when the English garrison at Trichinapallt was sorely pressed by famine ; when the French army had only to hold the position at the Five Rocks and the dependent posts to prevent the possibility of the ingress of any convoy ; Godeheu instructed his new general to connive at its re-victualment, to offer no real obstacle to the retention by the English of that all-important city. As at this time, as before, the result of the nego- tiations with the English still depended on the fortunes of the campaign, we can easily conceive how the interests of France suffered in the hands of her repre- sentative. To that campaign we purpose now to refer. Mainville made over the command of the French army to Maissin on August 16, 1754. It had long * Mainville's Report, "Letter from Agent at Pondichery." Vide also the Dalwai of Maisur, to his Orme. 438 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRTT. CHAP, been known that the English commander, Major '^" Lawrence, had been waiting only the conclusion of an 1754. arrangement for native assistance with Mafauz Khan, elder brotlier of ^luhammad Ali, to endeavour to escort supplies into Trichinapalli. Of the movements of thic convoy Mainvillc had had the most certain intelligence, and he had made all his arrangements to cut it off. Only three days after he had delivered up his command to Maissin he learned that the convoy, escorted by 1,200 English troops, 3,000 sipahis, and fourteen field- pieces, with a native contingent of 5,500 men and several guns, had arrived at a village six miles to the east of p]lmiseram, and that it would endeavour to force its way the next morning between the Sugar-loaf and the French Rocks. Mainville, who had employed the previous two months in reconnoitring this ground, at once informed his successor of the intended movement, and strongly urged him to move out at once and take possession of a watercourse running out of the Kavari, the near bank of which commanded the country beyond. He indicated to him also the names of two officers, MM. Gaudart and Aumont, who were thoroughly ac- quainted with the country, and to whom Mainville himself, when in command, had confided his intentions. Maissin listened to the communication with apparent pleasure, and set out with the avowed intention of putting it into execution. No sooner, however, had he reached the Sugar-loaf Rock, than, obedient to his secret instructions, he drew up his army close to a tank in front of it, and, leaving the watercourse unguarded, waited the approach of the enemy. When Lawrence did appear, — his convoy defiling on his right, — marching as much at ease as on a field day, and opened fire from a battery he had erected on the high bank of the watercourse, Maissin declined an action, and retired without even firing a shot.* Whilst this was going on, a Maisurian officer, • M. de Mainville says, " il se retira sans qu'il y eut une amorce de fusil RESOLVES 0^^ PRACE AT ANY PRICE. 439 named Haidar Naik (the Haidar Ali afterwards so chap. famous), moving round the English force, fell upon the ^ „ . rear of the convoy, and captured thirty-five carts all 1754. laden with supplies and stores. This attack diverted the attention of Major Lawrence from the French, and offered them a good opportunity to assault with advan- tage. In vain did the Dalwai urge Maissin to use it ; in vain did he point out that one charge would finish the campaign; Maissin was deaf to every representa- tion ; reposing on the secret instructions of his superior, he moved quietly back to his position at the Five Rocks. MeauAvhile, not only Lawrence's convoy, but others from different parts of the country, poured into Trichinapalli. A few days later, Maissin retired to Mutachelinur on the Kavari, abandoning his posts around Trichinapalli. He had not the firmness to remain even here when, some few days later, Lawrence appeared before the place — which nevertheless was strongly fortified — but retreated precipitately into Srirangam. The English, satisfied with this success, proceeded to house them- selves for the rainy season in the AVariiii- pagodas, nearly due west of Trichinapalli. Meanwhile, Godeheu, by his unskilful efforts to bring about peace at any price, had been working the most effectual damage to French interests in the eyes of the native powers. His lieutenants were everywhere left in a state of the most painful uncertainty. After waver- ing long as to whether he should withdraw his support from Salabat Jang, or leave Bussy with diminished influence and restricted powers at his court, he wrote on September 16, that he was convinced of the necessity of not abandoning the Subadar. To Moracin, however, the administrator of the Sirkars, he threw out hints in the same letter regarding his projected renunciation of the territorial acquisitions of the Company, on the ground that " he preferred a safe and extended com- 440 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP, merce to any other advantage."* It was in vain that . Moracin assured him, in reply, that whoever had 1754. persuaded him that the peace and security of one part of the French possessions would be best maintained by the abandonment of another part, could know nothing either of the map of the country, the locality, or the interests of the Company. It was to no purpose that he warned him that such an act would be but the prelude " to our total and proximate expulsion from this part of the Dakhan,"f Godeheu's mind was made up. To undo the work of Dupleix, to make peace with the English, the honour and interests of France were but light sacrifices. Negotiations had, meanwhile, been pending with the government of Madras. Mr. Saunders had indeed been recently reinforced by the arrival of Admiral Watson's fleet, having on board Her Majesty's 49th regiment, and several recruits for the Company. This advantage was, however, to a certain extent counterbalanced in the mind of Mr. Saunders by the fact that Colonel Adiercron, who commanded the 49th, superseded the tried and gallant veteran who had so often led the English forces to victory. As the French had just before received reinforcements certainly not inferior in number, it was still a question as to which of the con- tending parties, in the event of a continuation of the war, would have the advantage. But the folly of Godeheu had given Saunders a moral superiority, of which he did not fail to make the fullest use. The wise forethought, likewise, of the English Government, in despatching a fleet to influence the negotiations for peace, produced a wonderful effect. Saunders was not insensible, however, to the advantages to be derived from the feverish impatience of Godeheu, and he readily acceded, on October 26, to a truce for three months, during which commissioners should meet at Letter to Moracin, September t Reply of Moracin, dated Octo- 16, 1754, ber 9, 1754. TIIS TREATY. 441 Pondicliery to discuss the conditions of a permanent chap. peace. The principal articles of this truce declared, ' , . that, till January 11, 1755, no act of hostility should 1754. ensue between the French and English, or between their allies ; that commerce should be free to both nations in the Karnatik; that there should be a mutual, but ad valorem, exchange of prisoners ; and that commissaries should be appointed on both sides to see that the conditions of the truce were not infringed. Two months later, a treaty of peace was agreed to, so far only provisional, that it required the ratification of the East India Companies of France and England. The first condition of this treaty laid down that the two Companies should " renounce for ever all Mughal dignities and governments, and should never interfere in the differences that might arise among the princes of the country " ; the second and third, that the English should possess Fort St. George, Fort St. David, and Devikota ; the French, Pondichery and a limited settle- ment at Nizampatnam, it being arranged, that to the French should be allotted either a territory between Nizampatnam and the river Gundlakamma, to com- pensate for the inferiority of Karikal to Devikota ; or that the districts of Pondichery should be made equal to those of Fort St. George and Fort St. David, the French in that case abandoning the country about Nizampatnam, The fourth clause abandoned for the French their claims on Machhlipatan and the adjoin- ing districts, it being arranged that equal territories should be there assigned to the rival Companies. The fifth, sixth, and seventh clauses regulated the naviga- tion of certain rivers, and the possession of certain other minor territories, on the same principle. The eighth provided for the prolongation of the truce till the con- firmation of the treaty should arrive from Europe. The ninth, for the non-construction of any ports or obtaining 442 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP, any new grants of territory during the truce. The tenth, - for the principle of uti possidetis till the treaty should 1754. be confirmed from Europe ; and the eleventh, for some future plan of indemnification for the expenses of the war. When we commented on the conditions of peace which the agents of Dupleix submitted to the Confer- ence of Sadras in the autumn of the previous year, we noticed that the French proposals were remarkable more for their omissions tlian for what they contained. The same observation is applicable, in one particular point, to the treaty of which we have here given an outline. No mention is made of Muhammad Ali ; not a single reference to the oflSce of Nawwab of the Karnatik. It was not, however, the less clear from this omission, that the English had gained, in this particular, all for which they had been contending. The clause which forbade either nation to accept office or government from the native authorities was an unmistakable renunciation on the part of Godeheu of all the dignities and govern- ments which the Subadar had conferred upon his pre- decessor. The French competitor for the office of Nawwab having thus resigned his claims, on whom but on the rival competitor, Muhammad Ali, would the vacated government devolve "? For five years had the French and English battled for this single point ; to maintain the French view, Dupleix had risked and lost his semi-regal seat in the Council of Pondichery, he had refused substantial ofiers of territory which did not include this concession. His successor tamely re- nounced it, without, however, obtaining those substantial advantages which alone could make it palatable. But the third and fourth clauses, and especially the fourth, contained concessions not only damaging to French interests but disgraceful to French honour. The third, under the pretext of giving to each nation equal possessions on the Koromandel coast, kept indeed ITS SHAMEFUL PROVISIONS. 443 " the word of promise to the ear," but only " to break chap. it to the hope." Karikal was not the equivalent of Devikota as a place of commerce. But — what was 1754. worse, what was even insulting — to bring about on another part of the coast this declared equality, the English proposed, and the French agreed, to take a district which actually belonged to the French, which was their own, their property, and to give them only a small portion of it, restoring the rest to the native powers. We allude to the agreement to form a settle- ment to be confined rigidly to the country between Nizampatnam and the river Gundlakamma, at a time when the entire coast from Nizampatnam to Jaggannath was French — F'rench by gift, French by actual posses- sion. The alternative proposal, to make the districts of Pondichery equal to those of Fort St. George and Fort St. David together, was even more dishonouring and insidious, for the effect of it would be, to agree to abandon for ever, though without special mention of them, those Sirkars which the genius and policy of Bussy had gained for his country. But of all the clauses, the fourth was the most directly injurious to French interests. This actually proposed that the city of Machhlipatan, with certain districts round it, and the highland of Divi, both actually French property, should be divided between the rival powers. The carrying out of this proposition would alone entail a sacrifice, on the part of the French, of a fixed annual revenue of 4,000,000 francs (£160,000). The fifth, sixth, and seventh articles dealt likewise with French territory to the advantage of their rivals. The remaining articles of the treaty, especially those which referred to the native allies of the two powers, were equally one-sided. The English had but one ally, the Raja of Tanjur ; for Muhammad Ali was but their helpless tool, the puppet in whose name, and under the 444 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP, shadow of whose usurped authority they had endea- . voured to overthrow French influence. The French, on 1764. the contrary, had the Marathas, the Maisurians, and the Subadar. These knew not a word of the treaty. The effect of it, therefore, was to impose English law, not alone upon the French, but upon the independent princes of India ; to force Salabat Jang to accept, as Nawwab of the Karnatik, a man whom he had fre- quently declared to be a rebel and an outlaw ; to compel the Maisurians and Marathas to desist from their views on the city which they already regarded as their own. As a climax to this condition, the French, the allies of these princes, were to guarantee that they would execute it. Such was Godeheu's treaty — a treaty in which he re- nounced all that the French had been contending for. He gave up the office of Nawwab of the Karnatik; he prac- tically renounced the northern Sirkars ; he abandoned his allies ; he surrendered French influence and French honour. Could there have been a greater contrast to Dupleix \ To him the English had offered to guarantee the possession of all his territories, provided he would resign the position and office of Nawwab of the Karna- tik. His successor not only renounced that office, but with it those material advantages which France had secured, the undisputed possession of which would still have left her, under any circumstances, infinitely more powerful than her rival. It is certainly not too severe a sentence, not too extravagant a criticism, to pro- nounce such a treaty to have been, in a French point of view, disgraceful. It was disgraceful to France, dis- graceful to the man who made it. To his timorous love of peace, fostered by the mean and unworthy desire to undo the work of his predecessor, Godeheu sacrificed — and sacrificed knowing what he was sacrific- ing — the very foundations of an Indo-French empire. For, indeed, great as were the material advantages GREAT MERITS OF SAUNDERS. 445 given up, they were less important than the abnegation chap. of moral influence, of the prestige of superiority which ■ their renunciation implied. The treaty, in fact, was an 1701. announcement to the native princes of Southern India that thenceforth France was not strong enough to con- tend with England on the soil of Southern India, that she gave up the struggle ; that she abandoned her allies to their fate. The impression produced by the rival of Godeheu upon the bankers of Machhlipatan has been already quoted Damaging as that was, this confirmation of the views then enter- tained, and declared by Moracin and others to be exag- gerated, was a hundred times more injurious. We shall see, as we proceed, the fatal eflects produced upon the princes of India by this policy of abnegation. In striking contrast to the conduct of the French Governor was the action of the Englishman, Saunders. If the empire of Hindustan is an appanage of which the English have reason to be proud; if the possession of India has brought with it solid advantages to Great Britain, then do his countrymen still owe to the memory of Mr. Saunders a debt which was never fully acknow- ledged to himself It was his constancy and resolution, his determination, when the English fortunes were at their lowest, to support Muhammad Ali, in order that through him he might stop the progress of Dupleix ; that, more than any other circumstances, changed the face of events ; that tended, by a slow but certain pro- cedure, to lower the pride of France, to exalt the for- tunes of England. Never did he despair, never did he hesitate in his determination to oppose those pretensions which, if submitted to, would, he felt, have overwhelmed the English settlement in ruin. True it is that he was fortunate ; true, that he enjoyed the rare advantage of having a Clive and a Lawrence at his disposal. But it is not too much to affirm, that but for his stubborn policy even these advantages would have ultimately 446 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. ^"^^- availed nothing ; that but for his promptitude in recog- ■ nising and employing merit, Clive might even have 17u-i. languished in obscurity. Nor was his tact inferior to his determination. He would have treated with Dupleix, — Dupleix being absolute master of his Presidency — on better terms than he offered Godeheu ; for he could not but feel that if France were to support Dupleix, a pro- longation of hostilities must end in an increase of French territory. He was prepared, therefore, to give up every- thing but that one point he considered necessary to the safety of the English, viz. : that the Nawwab of the Karnatik should not be a French nominee. But with Godeheu he pursued a different treatment : he saw that from the fear and malice of such a man he could wring almost anything ; he squeezed him, therefore, to an extent that left him powerless and exhausted. That, whilst doing justice to the merits of Saunders, and vindicating the policy of Dupleix, we have not wronged the memory of Godeheu, is clear from the re- corded sentiments of that functionary. What, indeed, but a feverish desire for peace at any price, and a mean jealousy of Dupleix, could have prompted him, on January 11, to sign the ignominious treaty to which we have referred, when, on December 17 preceding, the terms of the treaty having been virtually settled, and the truce still existing, he had written these words to Moracin at Machhlipatan : " Prepare everything with all promptitude to the extent of your ability, so as to make yourself safe from a GOiip-de-inaiu, for it is quite possible you may be attacked before the end of January. It is by such sudden enterprises that the English begin to de- clare war ! "* He thus prepared Moracin for an attack on the Sirkars at the end of December ; and yet, on January 11 following, virtually resigned them up to the English. Not long did he remain in India to watch the working * This correspondeuce is attached to the memoir of Dupleix. CHARACTER OP DE LEYRIT 447 of his treaty. On February 16, 170-5, after holding chap. office little more than six months, he embarked for " , _. Europe, leaving the affairs of the French settlement to 1755. be administered by a secret committee, composed of MM. Barthelemy, Boileau, and Guillard, until the arrival of the officer nominated to be his successor, M. Duval de Leyrit. His departure was hailed by the colony as a national benefit. That alone, of all his acts, produced a good effect for French interests throughout Southern India, for it gave rise to the rumour, artfully encouraged by Bussy, that it was but the prelude to the return of Dupleix. But the recall of that statesman had had more than a transient effect. The members of the secret committee, having befoi-e them his example, and ignorant of the political views of M. de Leyrit, would do nothing. Writing to Bussy, who pressed the Pondichery govern- ment for instructions as to the course of conduct he should adopt in the difficult circumstances we shall have to record, they could only reply that tliey had received all the letters he had addressed to M. Godeheu ; that they had not answered them, because certain points in them were of too delicate a nature to allow them to arrive at a fixed decision ; but that M. de Leyrit, on his arrival, would probably explain himself fully upon all the questions at issue.* The same conduct was pur- sued in every other subject of importance, the conse- quence being, that from February 16, the date of the departure of Godeheu, to the arrival of de Leyrit on March 25 of the same year, the government of French India was but a blank. De Leyrit, though a very ordinary man, was an im- provement on the secret committee. He too had been trained in India in the civil branch of the service, and had been a contemporary of Dupleix. At the time of the expedition of La Bourdonnais, he had been the • M. Barthelemy to Bussy, February 28, 1755. 448 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP. French agent at Mahe, and he had succeeded Dupleix -_».^^«^ as Director-General of Chandranagar in 1741. He 1755. would have made probably an excellent head of a purely trading corporation, for he was well versed in mercantile operations ; but he was most unfit for the conduct of the delicate policy by which the relations of Pondichery with the native chiefs required to be guided ; equally was he wanting in the firmness of purpose and deter- mination of will by which alone the aggressive policy of the English could be stayed. In a word, though well-meaning and laborious, he was slow, undecided, wanting in forethought and energy. Yet at that time, if at any, French India required other qualities in her chief ruler. Godeheu had not even quitted the scene of his inglorious labours, scarcely dry was the ink with which he and the English Com- missioners had signed the treaty, — one clause of which provided that the English and French " should never interfere in any difference that might arise between the princes of the country," — when the English began to equip a force to assist their ally, Muhammad Ali, in his endeavours to coerce the petty rulers of Madura and Tinivelli, his right over whom was simply the right of the strongest. Although the English were actuated in this policy by purely mercenary motives, hoping to obtain from those districts the means of re-couping themselves for the expenses of the war just closed, there can be no doubt but that it was a glaring in- fraction of the treaty. That it was attempted is a clear proof of the contempt with which the power of the French on the Koromandel coast had come to be regarded. In the beginning of February, under orders received from Madras, an English force under Colonel Heron, of H.M.'s 49th foot, was detached from Trichinapalli on this service. Whatever might have been the apparent success of this enterprise — and Colonel Heron did STRAINED RELATIONS BETWEEN THE TWO COUNTRIES. 44^ succeed in occupying both Madura and Tinivelli — chap. it must not the less be regarded as a failure. The Eng- . lish soldiers, commanded by an officer ignorant of the 1755. country, were allowed to insult the religion and to deride the prejudices of the people ; the money gained in the foray was not sufficient to pay the expenses of the expedition ;* and, worse than all, an example was given of the little respect entertained by the government of Fort St. George for the most solemn engagements when its own interests were concerned. De Leyrit had not been an inattentive spectator of this action on the part of the English. No sooner had he landed than he ad- dressed to the Madras Government a strong remonstance on the infraction of the treaty. It was replied to him, however, that Colonel Heron's expedition was not an act of war in any sense of the word ; that the Nawwab was simply engaged in the collection of his rents. However specious this reply might have appeared, de Leyrit was for the moment forced to be content with it ; for Admiral Watson was on the coast, and de Leyrit, new to the scene, felt that it would be impolitic to in- augurate his career as Governor by a renewal of hostili- ties. He determined, therefore, to rest satisfied with his protest, inwardly resolving, however, to follow the example so imprudently set him. Accordingly when, some few weeks later, he found that the rents due from the lands west of Utatur and south of the Valaru river, known by the name of Tirur, and in which the French had been empowered to act as agents of the Raja of Maisur, were not paid into the Pondichery treasury, he sent Maissin at the head of 500 Europeans and 1,000 sipahis to make arrangements which should be satis- factory for the future. The English made no opposi- tion to this movement. But when the French, succeed- ing in Tirur, were tempted to move against the more * Colonel Heron, on his return to Madras, tried there by a court mar- Trichinapalli in June, was ordered to tial and found guilty oi' malversation. G Q 450 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. cHAi'. eastern lands nearer Palamkota, stretchin<^ almost from ^ the Valaru to the Kolrun, and which the English chose jygg to Tcgdrd as feudally dependent on the Nawwab, orders were sent to Calliaud to oppose the movement, if neces- sary, by force. If the French had persisted in their pretensions, war was then inevitable. But de Leyrit, still unprepared, yielded and withdrew his troops. Nevertheless, a precedent of interference had been es- tablished on both sides, and before Godeheu reached Europe, the treaty which he carried with him had been violated in that part which was alike its main principle and its only possible justification — by the English in acting as allies of Muhammad Ali, by the French as agents of the Maisurians, De Leyrit indeed had not been long at Pondichery before he became convinced that the theory of non- interference, on which Godeheu had based his policy, was, in the actual state of India, simply impossible. Both the rival powers on the Koromandel coast having armies and strong places, both brought constantly into contact with possessors of territory whose weakness they had proved, and who were continually tempting them with offers, it was impossible that either should have the virtue on every occasion to abstain, always to restrain its hands. Excuses were found to justify, at least to their Directors in Europe, every infraction of the treaty. It is clear from the correspondence of de Leyrit with Bussy and with Dupleix,* that this feeling on his part grew stronger every day, and that he became more and more convinced of the insensate folly of Godeheu in consenting to divide a portion of the Sirkars with the English. Of these, however, the French still held possession, and were empowered to hold possession, till the ratification of the treaty should arrive, that is, till about the middle of 1756. As de * De Leyrit to Bussy, July 29 and August 17, 1755 ; to Dupleix, October 16, and other letters. CAUTIOUS POLICY OF DE LEYRIT. 4.51 Leyrit saw clearly that war would then be inevitable, all cuaj?. his foreign policy was directed to nurse the resources of s,_^^^__^ Pondichery, to avoid committing himself to a contest, u^r^ until his own private knowledge of the confirmation of the treaty should render it advisable for him to provoke hostilities on other grounds. Should the treaty not be confirmed, war would naturally ensue. This exposition of the views of de Leyrit will enable us to comprehend and account for the cautious policy he continued for some time to follow. We shall under- stand why it was he continued to support Bussy at Haidarabad, why, when the English again infringed the treaty, he confined himself to threats and to pro- tests, until, learning that the treaty had been confirmed by his Directors, he made the aggression of the English a pretext for renewing hostilities, endeavouring thus to retain for France permanent possession of the ceded Sirkars. It was undoubtedly, in theory, a sagacious and able policy, but to succeed it required the pos- session of greater energy and vigour in action than de Leyrit and his subordinates, always excepting Bussy, possessed. Opportunities for protesting were never wanting to either party. In the autumn of the same year, 1755, the French having taken possession of some lands con- tiguous to Sadras, midway nearly between Pondichery and Fort St. George, the English remonstrated, and the dispute only terminated by an equal division of the contested territory.* But in the following year affairs took a turn which could not fail to embroil the two nations. The English had always been jealous of the position held by Bussy at the court of the Subadar. The in- fluence which thus accrued to the French could not fail to make itself felt on both shores of Southern * A truly European mode of set- having belonged to native princes tling a dispute, the lands in question who were parties to the treaty. GG 2 452 GODEHEU AI^D DE LEYRIT. CHAP. India, at the court of the Peshwa, as well as with ^" the various petty chieftains in the Karndtik. In the 11 ^Q^ treaty concluded with Godeheu, no special mention had been made of Bussy, and there had been a tacit under- standing that it had no reference to the affairs of the Subadar, who indeed had never committed hostilities against the English. Unable, then, to demand as a right the expulsion of Bussy, the English were yet de- sirous to weaken the influence he was able to exercise by his position at Haidarabad, either by undermining him with the Subadar, or by gaining new possessions for themselves on the western coast. The manner in which the first was attempted, and how it succeeded, will be related when we have to refer to the operations of Bussy. But, before that, the return to India of Clive, with the commission of Lieutenant-Colonel and Governor of Fort St. David, gave the English an op- portunity of trying the second. Clive, under orders from the Court of Directors, had been sent in the first instance to Bombay, in order that he might be ready to co-operate in an expedition which they contem- plated in concert with the Peshwa against the northern parts of the Dakhan. Colonel Scott, the officer ap- pointed to command the English contingent, dying in Bombay, his place was at once occupied by Clive, and it needed but the orders of the Bombay Government to enter upon the contemplated movement. The members of that Government, however, regarding Godeheu's treaty as prohibitory of any such undertaking, hesitated to embark in it, until at least they should have re- ceived the opinion on that point of the Madras authorities. These had no such scruple. And, although they were ignorant of the views of the Home Govern- ment regarding the disposal of Clive's force ; although, indeed, they were not destined, at the time, to be enlightened — the ship which conveyed the despatches of the Bombay Government having been wrecked — yet TRAGIC NEWS FROM BENGAL. 453 no sooner had they heard of the arrival of Clive at chap. Bombay, than they sent to suggest the mode in which ^' his force could be best used — a mode almost identical j-^g with the plan of the Court of Directors. But before their despatch could reach Bombay, the Government of that Presidency, more cautious than that of Madras, had determined to employ Clive's force and Admiral Watson's fleet for the reduction, in conjunction with the Marathas, of the Fort of Gheriah, the principal stronghold of the famous pirate Angria. It forms no part of this history to give the details of this expedition, unconnected as it was with French interests. It will suffice to say that it was attended with complete success ; that Gheriah was taken, Angria's fleet destroyed, and the ten lakhs of prize-money captured divided on the spot amongst the English — the Marathas being excluded* from all participation therein, notwithstanding that it was to them, and not to the English, that Angria surrendered. This expedition terminated, Clive and Watson re- turned to the coast of Koromandel, the former taking up his Government at Fort St. David, the latter repairing to Madras. He reached this place on the 16th May, and began at once to concert with Governor Pjgottf a scheme which the expulsion of Bussy by Salabat Jang seemed to facilitate for replacing French by English influence in the Dakhan. But just two months after his arrival, accounts were received of the capture of Kasim-bazar, and, three weeks later, of the taking of Calcutta by the Subadar of Bengal. Clive was instantly summoned from Fort St. David to take part in the deliberations having for their object the * Before the expeclition left Bom- the Mar5.tMs, the English deter- bay, the EntiUsh hada?reed amongst mined to keep it. This was not per- themselves that the Marathas were haps the most effectual mode of to be «xcluded from all participation inducing a hearty co-operation in the prize-money; nay more, al- against the Subadar. — Grant Duff. though It had been prcTiously agreed t Governor Pigott succeeded Go- that Gb6iiah should be given up to vernor Saunders at Madras in 1755. 454 GODEHEU AKD DE LETRIT. CHAP, recovery of the English settlement in that province. In ^' the presence of such a calamity it appeared advisable to 1756 §^^® ^P ^^® projected expedition into the Dakhan, even to allow Madras to shift for herself, in order to concen- trate the undivided energies of the Presidency on the recovery of Calcutta and the punishment of the Subadar. After some discussion, Clive was appointed to the land command, subordinate to the commander of the naval operations. Admiral Watson. On the 16th October they sailed, taking with them 900 Europeans and 1,500 sipahis, on that enterprise to which, in so far as relates to its connexion with Chandranagar, we shall have presently to refer. Meanwhile the English had not been idle in the Karnatik. Their protege, the Nawwab, being still in want of funds, and being thus unable to settle the claims they had against him, it was determined at Madras to make another attempt to extract money from some of the subordinate princes of the Karnatik. Murtiza Ali, Governor of Vellur, was selected for this purpose. It will be recollected that Murtiza Ali had been set up by Dupleix, on the death of Chanda Sahib, as Nawwab of the Karnatik. As soon, however, as the fall of Dupleix appeared imminent, Murtiza Ali had hastened to disclaim all pretensions to the title, and had made his submission to Muhammad Ali. By this means he hoped to be allowed to remain unmolested in his possessions. But it was not to be. He suffered under the great misfortune of passing for the richest man in the Karnatik, a crime that could only be atoned for by the surrender of his property. It was easy to find a pretext to attack him. Some old story about arrears of tribute was raked up ; and, almost without warning, a force of 500 Europeans and 1,500 sipahis, under Major Kilpatrick, appeared before Vellur on the 30th of January. Vellur had the reputation of being the strongest THE ENGLISH COERCE MURTIZ ALL 455 fortress in the upper Karuatik. Its walls were built of chap. large stones, and were strengthened by bastions and . towers. It was surrounded by a deep and wide ditch 175c. cut out of the rock, and always filled with water swarming with alligators. It commanded the high road to Maisur, and was in other respects a very im- portant position. De Leyrit would have been weak indeed had he allowed such a place to fall into the hands of the English. Nor did he. No sooner then had he heard of the movements of Kilpatrick than he despatched a messenger to Madras to intimate that he would regard an attack upon Vellur as an infraction of the treaty, and that he should oppose it with all his- available force. Not content with that, he ordered 300 Europeans and 300 sipahis to march instantly in the direction of that fortress, supporting them two days later by a reinforcement of 400 of the former and 1,200 of the latter, the whole taking up a position between Jinji and Chittapet. This demonstration so far succeeded that it prevented an attack upon Vellur. There was no Dupleix, however, at Pondichery to im- prove the occasion to the advantage of France ; no persuasive eloquence to induce Murtiza Ali to admit French troops into Vellur. That chieftain feared his allies probably as much as his enemies; and after a negotiation of three weeks, he was glad to purchase the retirement of the latter by the payment of 400,000 rupees. The departure in October of the English armament for Bengal, following that of 320 French to aid Bussy in the July preceding — the circumstances relating to which belong properly to the account of that officer's proceedings — left the rival powers in the Karnatik almost too powerless to cause one another effectual injury. The English, however, experienced to its fullest extent the inconvenience of having placed at the head of the affairs of the Karnatik a man such as Muhammad 456 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRlT, ci^p. ^\[^ without personal resources and without ability. In ■ January, 1757, they found themselves once more com- 1757. pelled to levy contributions from Madura and Tinivelli; and Calliaud, who then commanded at Trichinapalli, was directed to proceed with the greater part of the garrison into those districts. He accordingly marched at the head of 180 Europeans, and 1,000 sipahis, and six pieces of cannon to Tanjur, to endeavour to obtain from the Raja succours for his purpose. The Raja, however, and his ministers, tired of contributing to successes which brought only advantage to their allies, practically refused his aid ; whereupon Calliaud, hear- ing that some petty insurgent chieftains were ravaging the district, moved without delay to Tinivelli. Here he was detained for some time by difficulties regarding supplies and money, and it was not till April 10 that he was able to march towards Madura. At three o'clock on the morning of May 1 he attempted to take this city by surprise, but, being repulsed, took up a position on the south-east face of the town, there to await the arrival of two 18-pounders he had sent for from Trichinapalli. Instead of these guns, however, he received at three o'clock in the afternoon of the 11th the startling intelligence that the whole French army, taking advantage of his absence, was attempting Tri- chinapalli ! Intelligence of the same nature recalled to Madras Colonel Forde, who at the head of 100 Euro- peans, 56 Africans, 300 sipahis, and 10,000 auxiliaries, had, till then unsuccessfully, been attempting the reduction of Nellor, held against Muhammad Ali by his brother The time had indeed arrived when de Leyrit felt himself empowered to put into execution the schemes he had been long meditating. On May 17, 1756, war, which for two years previously had been impending between France and England, was formally declared. Intelligence of this event reached de Leyrit at the end HOSTILITIES RECOMMENCE. 457 of 1766, accompanied, however, by the intimation that chap. France was about to make a tremendous effort to ^ recover her waning influence in India, and that he was 1757. to attempt nothing till the armament then fitting out should arrive. But de Leyrit, knowing that the few English troops in the Presidency were occupied before Madura and Nellor, having himself, too, just welcomed the annual detachment from Europe, under the com- mand of the veteran d'Auteuil, thought the moment too opportune to be neglected. On the 6th April, therefore, he despatched 200 Europeans and 1,000 sipahis into the interior, having given secret instructions to their com- mander, d'Auteuil, to feign to be entirely occupied by an attack upon the fort of Elvasanur — a few miles north of the river Panar, and on the high road between Jinji and Trichinapalli — and other strongholds in its vicinity, whilst he should secretly collect all his forces for a combined attack upon the city which had so long bid defiance to French arms. De Leyrit justly argued that the English, engaged with their own plans, would care little about so unimportant a place as Elvasanur ; that they would the rather on that account believe that no intention existed to attack Trichinapalli. It turned out as de Leyrit had imagined. D'Auteuil was allowed, unmolested, even unsuspected, to capture Elvasanur and other places in its vicinity. His action there tended, as de Leyrit had hoped, to make the English feel all the more secure regarding Trichinapalli. Suddenly, however, d'Auteuil massed his forces, amounting to 1,150 Europeans, 3,000 sipahis, and ten field-pieces, and on the 12th May occupied the island of Srirangam. To enable him to collect so large a force of Europeans not a single soldier fit for duty had been left in Pondichery. The garrison of Trichinapalli at this time consisted of but 165 Europeans, 700 sipahis, and 1,000 native auxiliaries, the whole commanded by Captain Joseph 458 GODEHEtJ AND DE LEYEIT?. CHAP. Smith. But eiiarded within the walls were 500 French prisoners, and d'Auteuil naturally hoped that these, if 1767. they could not openly aid him, would, at all events, draw off the attention of a great part of the garrison. On the morning of the 14th, the French leader, crossing the river, took up a position at the Wariur pagodas, nearly three miles west of the city ; from this place he opened a fire of shot and shell, and continued it to the 20th, when he sent a summons to Smith to surrender. This summons was, however, answered by defiance. It had been the intention of d'Auteuil to attempt an assault on the morning of the 21st, but he received during the day intimation that Calliaud, at the head of 120 Europeans and 1,200 sipahis, was in full march from Madura to relieve Trichinapalli. He deemed it, therefore, advisable to defer his attack in order the better to intercept this force. Instead, however, of massing the greater portion of his troops, leaving a few only to watch Smith, and moving out to crush Calliaud on the road, he resolved to follow the old plan, — dear, we must suppose, from its repeated failure, — of occupying the strong places to the south and east of the town.. Like Astruc and Brennier before him, he marched to take up a position stretching from the Five Rocks to the French Rock, occupying, besides those two, in considerable force, the Fakir's Tope and the Golden and Sugar-loaf Rocks. He thus shut out CaUiaud from Trichinapalli on the only side on which he could hope to gain it ; should the English attempt to force in their way between any of the rocks indicated, it would, he calculated, be in his power to crush them at a blow. The better to acquaint himself with the movements of the enemy, he had arranged that several spies should join them, and with these he had settled an efficient mode of communication. But this was, after all, but a gouty mode of carrying on war. To sit still, and to depend on spies for in- CALLIAUD OUT-MAN(EUTRES DAUTEUIL. 459 formation, was to give full play to the activity of an chap. enemy who had hitherto shown himself not wanting in . expedients. If d'Auteuil thought at all on the subject, 1757. he could not have believed that Calliaud was so wanting in ordinary perception as to run his head against the positions he occupied. A strong reconnaissance on the Madura road would have compelled Calliaud to fight. But if governments will intrust the command of their armies to gouty octogenarians, they must refrain from expecting that activity of movement, that watchful and daring vigour, which are almost synonymous with success. DAuteuil, well satisfied with his arrangements, received information early on the evening of the 25th, that Calliaud had just reached Aour, a village ten miles south-east of Trichinapalli, and that he intended, a few hours later, to force his Avay between the Five Rocks and the Sugar-loaf Rock under cover of the darkness of the night. He instantly massed his forces about half a mile in front of the Golden Rock, denuding even the other positions in order to concentrate every available man against the enemy. All night long he remained in a state of anxious expectation ; day dawned, yet there was no appearance of an enemy ; at last, the sun itself appeared gilding the horizon ; still not a soldier was to be seen; but scarcely had the entire disk become visible to the still expectant d'Auteuil, when a triumphant feu de joie from the walls of Trichinapalli announced to him the terrible fact, that he had been out-witted and out- manoeuvred, and that Trichinapalli had been relieved ! It was too true. Fortunately for the English, their commander was still young, hale, and active, fully im- pressed with the necessity of using all his faculties, mental and bodily, when he had a great end to pursue. Breaking up from Madura on the 11th, Calliaud had marched at the head of the small force we have indi- 460 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP, cated, without tents, baggage, or artillery. On the ^" morning of the 25th, arriving at Eliapur, nineteen 1757^ miles from Trichinapalli, he had learned from Captain Smith the disposition made by d'Auteuil. The same evening he marched, as truly reported by the spies, to Aour. Here he halted, giving out that he intended in half an hour to force his way through the space between the Five Rocks and the Sugar-loaf Rock. The time fixed for this march being so close, the spies instantly made their way to the French camp, and reported it to d'Auteuil, with the result we have seen. Calliaud, half an hour later, did actually commence his march, but on arriving within two miles of the Five Rocks, he struck oft to the right till he came opposite Elmiseram. The ground here being entirely under water on account of the rice cultivation, the French had supposed it impas- sable tor troops, and had neglected to guard it. It was indeed heavy and swampy ; but it was Calliaud's best chance, and, strictly enjoining silence, he attempted it. The distance was about nine miles. In seven hours he had accomplished only seven. But by this time the day had dawned, and the sight of the city inspired the gallant band to new efforts. Still struggling on, Calliaud himself supported by two grenadiers, they entered Tri- chinapalli in time to be welcomed by the rising sun. A salute was at once fired to convey to the Frenchman the notification of the defeat of his plans. We will not stop to dwell on the mortification of dAuteuil. So badly had his position been taken, all his troops concentrated upon one narrow point, that it would have been possible, as it turned out, for Calliaud to have marched in under the very shadow of the Sugar-loaf Rock. A body of sipahis he had sent to make a false march in that direction, in the hope to persuade the French that he himself was moving that way, were able to convert it into a real one, advancing under the lee of the rock without once having been GENERAL FAILURE OF THE FRENCH. 461 challeuged. The course followed by d'Auteuil after chap. this check was not inspired by greater wisdom than his previous strategy. It is, however, always useless to en- 1757. deavour to analyse the motives of a man who is himself incapable of thinking. Had he been other than he was, d'Auteuil would have recollected that notwith- standing the reinforcement brought by Calliaud, he still outnumbered the English with his Frenchmen by four to one. But it would not appear that such a thought occurred to him. Utterly discouraged, he crossed the Kavari the same evening, and proceeded next day to Pondichery.* Meanwhile the Madras authorities, not trusting en- tirely to the efforts of Calliaud, had ordered every avail- able man into the field. These, forming a force of 430 Europeans and 800 sepahis under Colonel Adlercron, had already reached and captured Uttamatur when they heard of the relief of Trichinapalli. As the French garrison of Uttamatur had thrown itself into Wandi- wash, one of the most important towns in the Karnatik, sixty-four miles south-west of Madras, Colonel Adler- cron marched forward with the apparent intention of besieging that also. Meanwhile, de Leyrit had been neither unskilfully nor unsuccessfully employed in other parts of the coast. No sooner had the news of the fall of Chandranagar — the account of which will appear in its proper place — reached him, than he ordered Moracin to take possession of the English factories on the Godavari, and sent instructions to Bussy to attack that of Vizagapatam. Both these offi- cers acquitted themselves of this service without any difficulty — the garrison of Vizagapatam surrendering to Bussy on June 25. Whilst thus satisfying himself regard- ing his territories in the north, by a policy which gave him uninterrupted possession of the coast from Ganjam to * Vide Orme and Lawrence. 462 GODEHETJ AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP. Machhlipatan, de Leyrit was not neglectful of the south. _I_,_^ He had hoped to avenge the fall of Chandranagar by the 1757. capture of Trichinapalli ; and though disappointed of that by d'Auteuil's unaccountable strategy, he still en- deavoured to use the troops he commanded to some satisfactory purpose. On the return of d'Auteuil to Pondichery, therefore, he removed him from the com- mand, and replaced him by M. Saubinet, reputed to be a man of capacity. To him he gave instruc- tions at once to concentrate his army, which lay scat- tered at Jinji, at Tiruvadi, and at Pondichery, and to march to the relief of Wandiwash, then threatened by Adlercron. When Saabinet, at the head of 600 Europeans and about 200 sipdhis, arrived before this place on June 1, he found Adlercron in possession of the town, and pre- paring to batter the fort. The approach of the French, however, combined with orders he received from his own Presidency to return, induced Adlercron at once to quit this enterprise and to retreat towards Madras. Before doing this he very barbarously and very unnecessarily set fire to the town, thereby injuring only the unoffend- ing inhabitants. Saubinet instantly followed him upon the Chengalpat road, whilst he despatched 200 Europeans and 500 sipahis to attack Kanchipiiram, a most impor- tant town with a strongly fortified pagoda, only forty-six miles from Madras. This detachment was, however, repulsed from Kanchipiiram, and retired, after following the example of the English, by burning the town. The main body, after recapturing Uttamatiir, retired to Wandiwash, and intrenched themselves about a mile in front of that town. Here they were followed to within four miles by Adlercron, under whom Lawrence, now a lieutenant-colonel, had consented to serve as a volunteer. For six weeks the two armies, nearly equal in numbers, remained facing one another, the English anxious for a decisive action before the expected reinforcements of the THE ADVANTAGE VEEKS TO THE FRENCH. 463 French should arrive, the French on that account desirous chap. to avoid it. Finding their efforts to force a battle unavail- . ing, the English army broke up on July 26, retiring, the 1757, greater part towards Kanchipuram, the remainder to Chengalpat and Karangoli. Saubinet, thus left master of the campaign, remained at Wandiwash till the middle of September. Learning then that a considerable squadron, having on board the Chevalier de Soupire with the regi- ment of Lorraine, fifty artillerymen and twenty siege guns, — the advanced guard of the force destined for the conquest of India under the Count de Lally — had reached Pondichery, Saubinet made a sudden attack upon Chitta- pett. Capturing this after a desperate resistance, he moved against Trinomali. Not this only, but several other forts in the Karnatik fell into the possession of the French, who were thus enabled to collect contribu- 11 oS. tions from all parts of the province. It was not, however, until the arrival of Count Lally, on April 28 in the following year, that the French ventured to carry out the scheme originally intended to be commenced by de Soupire — a scheme beginning with the intended capture of Fort St. David, as a preliminary to the entire rooting out of the English from the Karnatik. We shall see, when we come to that exciting portion of our history, how it was that de Soupire delayed this attack ; we shall notice likewise the prompt and energetic action inaugu- rated by Lally himself. We leave the Karnatik, on the eve of his arrival, overrun by French troops; all its strong places, with the exception of Arkat, Vellur, Kanchi- puram, Chengalpat, and the two English seats of govern- ment on the coast, in their hands ; the English shut up in Madras and Trichinapalli, sensible of the storm about to burst over their heads, and conscious of having no efficient means to protect themselves against its down- pouring. We leave them thus, whilst we proceed to trace, on the one side, the fate of the French settle- 464 GODEHEU AND DE LEYRIT. CHAP, ment in Bengal ; on the other, the still eventful action of Bussy, ever gathering new triumphs, till recalled by J 753 the new Lieutenant-General of the armies of France from the scene of his brilliant successes to take part in the enterprise which, he fondly hoped, was to sweep the English into the sea. 465 CHAPTER XI. CHANDRANAGAR AND THE DAKHAN. Chandranagar, after the departure of Dupleix in 1741 to take up the Governor-Generalship of French India, chap had not long continued under the influence of the im- , pulse which he had given to it. Whether it was that 1756. his successors were restricted in their powers, or were too indolent ; that the duties on commercial enterprise amounted almost to a prohibition of trade ; that it was neglected by the Home Government ; or, more pro- bably, from a combination of all these causes ; it is certain that its once flourishing trade had decreased, that it was burdened with debts, and that it was being maintained at a loss. In 1756, the Chief of the settle- ment was M. Renault de St. Germain, whilst the de- pendent factory of Kasim-bazar came early in the year under the charge of M. Law. The garrison in the former place consisted of 146 Europeans and 300 sipahis.* Law had with him about a score of European and sixty native soldiers. The calamity which had overwhelmed Calcutta in * All the Eu!-oments for supplies. At Pondichery, however, Lally found nought but apathy and indifference. To every request that he preferred he was answered by an " impossible." He did not find there, although he had sent 100,000 francs to make preparations, resources that were worth 100 pence.* It can scarcely be wondered at if Lally attributed this conduct to something more than indo- lence or apathy. He says himself, in his memoirs, that he saw very clearly how ill-will lay at the bottom of it all. It is little marvellous then, if he, ignorant of India, knowing nothing of the distinction between castes, left to himself by those who should have aided him, and whose duty it was to have prevented this necessity, should, rather than abandon his enterprise, have insisted on a wholesale conscription of the native inhabitants to carry the loads necessary for his army. True it is that such a course was a fatal blunder ; true it is that it would have been wiser far to have aban- * The extent to which Lally felt money at your disposal in prepara- thisis shown by the following extract tions for an enterprise ot which you of a letter he addressed to de Leyrit, had had ei^ht months' warning. I dated the 15th May, and which runs sent you 100,000 francs of my money thus: — " The Minister (at Paris) will to aid in the necessary expenses; I hud it difficult to believe that you have not found on my arrival re- awaited the disembarkation of the sources of 100 pence in your purse troops on board the tirst vessel of our or in that of your Council."— Official squadron, before you employed the Correspondence in Lally s Memoirs. 522 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^^^^- cloned his enterprise, to have re-embarked even for . ' ^'. . Europe, than to adopt a line of action so repugnant to 1758. the feehngs and the ideas of the class without whose hearty co-operation nothing of permanent importance could be achieved ; but whilst we blame him for that, let us not forget the wilful neglect of the Pondichery authorities, his own ignorance of Indian customs, the grounds he had for disbelieving all the assertions of the Franco-Indians. He was doubtless culpable, but they were ten thousand times more so. Some sort of a system having been established by these unwise means, and by others, more legitimate, to which the employment of these compelled de Leyrit and his colleagues to have recourse, Lally returned to Gudalur, and on May 16 opened fire on Fort St. David. This fort is situated at the southern angle of an island nearly three quarters of a mile long and about half the breadth. On two sides of that angle it was guarded by the backwater connecting the Gaddilam and Paravanar rivers. On the base it was protected by four small masonry forts, nearly a quarter of a mile from the covered way, each supporting the other. It was neces- sary to take these before trenches could be opened. The garrison of the fort consisted of 619 Europeans,* of whom 83 were pensioners, and of about 1,600 sipahis and lascars. The fortifications, especially those of the two exterior forts, had been repaired and greatly strengthened during the eight months that had inter- vened between the arrival of de Soupire and the invest- ment. The troops under the command of Lally con- sisted of 1,600 Europeans and 600 natives of all arms. The four forts already alluded to were the first objects of Ijally's attack. These were stormed — notwithstand- ing that the guns and mortars sent him from Pondichery, and on which he depended for success, unaccountably failed him — sword in hand, on the night of the 17th. * Of these 250 were sailors. — Orme, LALLY INVESTS FORT ST. DAVID. 523 On the evening of the following day trenches were chap. opened at a distance of less than 400 yards from the ^^^' glacis. From this date to Jimo 2 the siege continued, i7,58_ under great difficulties on both sides. In the French camp there was a scarcity of money, of provisions, of guns, of ammunition, and of carriage ; the most angry letters passed between Lally and de Leyrit, the one accusing and threatening, the other constantly asserting that his resources were exhausted. In the fort, on the other hand, discipline was relaxed, desertions were frequent, and defence had become hopeless, unless it were from the English fleet. Under these circum- stances the feelings of Lally may be imagined when on May 28th he received intimation that the English fleet had appeared before Pondichery, making apparently for Fort St. David, whilst the French sailors had unani- mously refused to embark on board their ships, on the pretext that faith had not been kept with them regard- ing their pay, and that d'Ache had thereupon announced his intention to moor his ships in the roadstead of Pon- dichery under the protection of the place. However much Lally felt that his presence before Fort St. David was necessary for the carrying on of the siege, this intelligence of the determination to yield the sea to the English forced him to return at once to Pon- dichery, taking with him 400 Europeans and 200 sipahis. Assembling, on arrival, a council, he ordered 60,000 francs to be paid out of his own funds to the sailors, embarked them and the 600 men he had brought with him on board the ships of the fleet, and persuaded d'Ache to proceed at once to sea. He then returned to his post before Fort St. David. The result corresponded to his anticipations. The French fleet, putting to sea, efl'ectually prevented any communication between the English Admiral and the besieged fort ; the latter, thus left to itself, and hardly pushed by I.ially, capitulated on June 2, the garrison sunendering 524 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, as ])risoners of war. The fortifications were immediately ^ _^^ razed to the ground. 1758. Thus, in less than live weeks after his landing, had Lally, notwithstanding difficulties unheard of and almost inconceivable, certainly entirely unexpected, carried out one part of his programme. lie had driven the English from one of their principal settlements — from that one indeed which for a long time had remained their seat of government, which had defied the efforts of Dupleix, and whence Lawrence and Clive had sallied to baffle the French arms at Trichinapalli. But he did not stop here. The very day of the surrender, the Count d'Estaing was detached to Uevikota, which the English garrison, counting only 30 Europeans and 600 sipahis abandoned on his approach. Whilst this expedition was in course of progress, d'Ache landed at Fort St. David, and dined with Lally, who seized the occasion to open to him his new designs. Now was the time, he said, to attack Madras. The place was unfortified, the garrison weak, the Council discouraged by the captui'e of Fort St. David. Let but d'Ache agree to act with him, to take his army on board, and to land it either at Madras itself or at least on the high land of Alumparva, already occupied by the French, and success, he said, was certain. But, to his chagrin, d'Ache refused him his support. Acting in the same spirit which had animated him when he had delayed his voyage to India in order to keep and dispose of the little merchant ship which he had captured, d'Ache alleged that it devolved upon him to cruise off Ceylon to intercept the stray merchant ships of England. To all the remonstrances of Lally he replied only by urging the deficiency of provisions and the sickness of his crews — reasons which appeared equally to apply to their cruising off Ceylon. Unable to shake his resolution, Lally, rejoined by the detachment under d'Estaing, returned to Pondichery, into which he made a triumphant entry — a Te Leum DIFFICULTIES OF THE FRENCH. 62 being celebrated in honour of the capture of Fort St. ^hap. David. Still, however, bent more than ever on the . ^ "_ practical, he lost no time in vain rejoicing, but sum- 1758. moned a council to which he invited d'Ache. Ao:ain he urged his reasons for instant action against Madras, but again was he met by the dogged and obstinate refusal of his naval colleague. It was a hard trial to see the fruits of his victory thus snatched from his grasp by the stolid stupidity of the man whose indecision and delays had already cost him so much, and who happened to be the only official not subjected to his orders. But hard as it was, Lally was forced to bear it, and to see the fleet that might, he believed, have car- ried him in triumph to Madras, leave the roadstead of Pondichery, on an uncertain and profitless cruise, carrying with it the 600 troops he had lent its com- mander. Still, notwithstanding the defection of d'Ache, Lally was very unwilling to renounce his designs on Madras. With the coup d'oeil of a real soldier he saw, as La Bourdonnais had seen before him, that there the de- cisive blow was to be struck. Yet he was helpless. He had not the money to equip his army, and de Leyrit and his colleagues persisted in declaring that it was im- possible for them to raise it. Out of this difficulty, the local chief of the Jesuits, by name Father Lavaur, one of the most influential of the residents at Pondichery, suggested an escape. It so happened that amongst the prisoners taken at Fort St. David was that same Sahiiji, ex-king of Tanjur, who had been twice expelled from that country in 1739, and who, taken up by the Eng- lish for their own purposes, in 1749, and thrown aside when no longer of use to them, had continued ever since a pensioner on their bounty.* The arrival of Sahuji in Pondichery suggested to the mind of the * Chapters III. ami VI. 526 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP. Jesuit that he might be made use of to frighten the ■^^^* ftaja of Tanjiir, his nephew, upon whom the French 175g had a claim for fifty-five lakhs of rupees in consequence of a bond given to Chanda Sahib, and made over by his son, Rajii Sahib, to Dupleix, " Thus," added Lavaur, to Lally, " you will obtain, at easy cost, the means of equipping your force for Madras, and gaining at the same time a considerable augmentation of influence." Lally did not like the plan. His mind was bent upon Madras. Any object that would delay the movement against that place was to him unpalatable. The Tanjur expedition was a diversion from the direct line he had marked out for himself, and of which he never once lost sight — the expulsion of the English from India. But he was helpless. Unsupported by the authorities of Pondichery and by d'Ache he could not march to- wards Madras. Unwillingly, therefore, and solely as a means whereby he could eventually carry out his own plans, he consented to move upon Tanjur. Meanwhile d'Ache had sailed on his projected cruise, and had arrived on the 16th (June) off Karikal, which it had been his intention to leave the next day. But a curious fatality attended all the counsels of the French at this epoch. Had d'Ache left Karikal, as he inten- ded, on June 17, he would almost certainly have inter- cepted two English ships which were conveying to Madras a portion of the annual supplies of specie from England. This supply would have been more than sufficient to enable Lally to equip his army and to march to Madras. Unfortunately for him, however, and for the French cause, the members of the Council of Pondi- chery were so alarmed at the idea of being left exposed by the contemplated absence of Lally, to an attack from the English fleet, that they sent a pressing message to d'Ache to return. This message reached him on the 16th. More pliable to the wishes of the Council than to those of Lally, he suftered himself to be persuaded, PATALITT ATTENDING d'aCHE. 627 renounced his intended cruise, and returned to Pondi- ^5"^^- chery. The two English vessels, which could not have ^ '^. escaped him had he proceeded in a southerly direction, 1758. arrived safely at Madras. On the following day Lally started for Tanjur, at the head of 1,600 European troops and a proportion of sipahis, leaving 600 Europeans and 200 sipahis under de Soupire in an intrenched camp between Alumparva and Pondichery, So powerful a force in point of num- bers had never before invaded the dominions of a native prince, but it was wanting in every particular which tends to make an army useful and efficient. It marched without organised carriage, without pro- visions, without money, without even a sufficiency of am- munition. All these supplies, even the ammunition, were to be obtained on the road, an arrangement which could not be carried into effect without relaxing to a dangerous extent the discipline of the army, and, what was of even more importance, alienating the people of the country. It is difficult to exaggerate the sufferings the soldiers endured.* At Devikota they had nothing to eat but rice in the husk, and it was not till they reached Karikal, 100 miles by the road from Pondichery, that they really had a meal. Even here Lally found only twenty-eight oxen and a small quantity of meal, the remainder of the supplies having been consumed by the squadron. But he received the next day from the Dutch at Tranquebar and Nagapatan both ammu- nition and food. The difficulties of his march, the suffering of his * From Devikota, which they la raqiie a (iiielqiie prix quecesoit: reached on the second day, without voila, a Ui lettre, I'horreiir de la sit- finding wherewith to satisfy their nation dans laquelle vous nous avez hunger, Lally wrote thus to de Ley- mis, et le danger auquel vous ex- rit: " J'attends dans la nuit les posez une armee, que je ne serais boeufs qui traincnt rartillerieafiude point siu-pris de voir passer a I'en- les faire tuer J'ai envoye a uemi pour chereher i\ mauger."— Tranquebar pour y acheter tous les Lalli/'s Correspondence ivith Pondi- chiens-marrons (dog-tish) et boeufs chery. que Ton puurra rencontrer, ainsi que 528 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^xf^^" ti'oopSj ^11^ the obstacles thrown in his way upon every ^ occasion, had affected the disposition of Lally to such 1758. an extent, that, from the moment of his entering into the Tanjiir territory, he began to indulge in acts of harsh and unreasoning severity, most detrimental to his cause. He plundered the town of Nagar, ransacked all the Brahman temples he met with on his route, and finding six l]rahmans lingering about his camp, he blew them away from guns. Such was the license he al- lowed his army, and so wide was the terror caused by his approach, that we cannot wonder that he should have written that he met with scarcely an inhabitant on his route, and that the country through which he marched was "like a barren desert."* At length, on July 18th, the French army found itself close to Tanjiir. Lally had previously sent a re- quisition to the rajti requiring payment of the fifty- live lakhs of rupees, but to this he had received an evasive reply, it being the object of the raja to delay him until assistance could be obtained from the Eng- lish. In the negotiations that followed it is probable that Lally might eventually have reaped some advan- tage had he conducted himself with ordinary prudence. But the violence of his temper ruined him. When he had brought the raja to an undertaking to pay five lakhs and the value of three or four lakhs in the shape of supplies, his suspicions induced him to regard an accidental failure in the fulfilment of one of the stipulations into a deliberate breach of faith. Com- pletely carried away by his violence, he at once sent the raja a message in which ho threatened to transport him and all his family as slaves to the Isle of France. This was too great an indignity to be endured, and the raja, supported by the promises of the English and some trained sipahis sent him by Captain Calliaud from Trichinapalli, bade defiance to his enemy. Lally upon * Memoire pour Lally page 67. LALLT BAFFLED AT TANJtJR. 529 this determined to try the effect of an assault. Two ^^(t^- batteries were opened on August 2nd, a breach was ■ effected on the 7th. and the attack ordered for the 8th. 1758. On the morning of that day, however, intelligence reached the camp that d'Ache had been attacked by the English, been beaten and driven off the coast, and that the English were threatening Karikal, which formed the base of the French operations against Tanjur. At the same time advices were received from de Soupire to the effect that Pondichery was threatened by a corps of 800 English from Madras, and that he, having only 600, was preparing to evacuate his position. When this intelligence reached Lally, he had in camp supplies for but two days, and the Tanjurian cavalry effectually prevented him from procuring any more ; his small arm ammunition was almost entirely exhausted, and for cannon-shot he depended on those fired by the enemy. Still the breach had been effected, and both d'Estaing and Saubinet were eager that the assault should be delivered. But the consideration that after the fort was taken it would be necessary to attack the town, which was itself strongly defended, that the attack upon the fort would exhaust all his ammunition, and, if that attack were unsuccessful, his men would be, as it were, an unarmed multitude, determined Lally, on the advice of the council of war he assembled, to retreat. Instead, therefore, of delivering the assault on the 8th, he sent off a detachment of 1 50 men, escorting the sick, the wounded, and the siege stores, in the direction of Karikal, on the 9th, intending to follow himself with the main body on the evening of the 10th. Early on that morning, however, the Tanjurians, gaining courage from the reported intentions of Lally, attacked his camp suddenly. They were repulsed, indeed, with considerable loss on their side, but, meanwhile, a Jamadar and fifty horsemen had ridden up to the pagoda in which Lally was sleeping, giving out that they were MM 530 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^xn^ deserters. Lally, who was still in his night-dress, went, • on hearing of their approach, to the door of the pagoda, 1758. but they had no sooner come up, than their leader, instead of making his submission, struck at Lally with his sabre. The French general warded off the blow with a stick, but it was about to be repeated, when the Jamadar was shot dead by one of Lally's followers. The conspirators then made successive charges on the French guard, which had turned out on witnessing these events, but they were each time repulsed, twenty-eight of their number being killed. Disheartened by this loss, the remainder en- deavoured to escape, but galloping by mistake into a tank, they were destroyed to a man. The general attack made on the other part of the camp was, as we have said, easily repulsed. That night Lally broke up from before Tanjiir, having subsisted for two months on the country. Of sijecie, his great want, he had succeeded in wringing from the raja but little. The three pieces of heavy cannon which had constituted his siege battery he spiked, breaking up their carriages for want of cattle to drag them. He then marched in two columns, the baggage and carriage for the sick being in the interval between them, two pieces of artillery preceding and two being in rear of the force. The retreat was executed in the finest order. Lally left nothing behind him but the three spiked guns. Unfor- tunately, however, hunger was the constant attendant of his camp. He had exhausted all his supplies, and the Tanjurian cavalry effectually prevented him from gaining any from the country. Arriving at his first halting-place, after marching from midnight till nine o'clock in the morning, he could serve out to his soldiers nothing bat water. Hungry and faint, they marched on to Trivalur, twenty-four miles, where provisions had been sent for them from Karikal. From this place the enemy, abandoning the pursuit, returned to Tanjiir ; from here, too, Count d'Estaing was sent to Pondichery to endeavour RETURNS TO PONDICHERY. 531 once more to persuade d'Ache, who had signified his chap. intention of returning to the Isle of France, to make a \ i . combined attack on Madras. After a halt of three days i758. at Trivalur, the army continued its retreat, and arrived ou the 18th at Karikal, which they found blockaded by the English fleet. A few days later Lally marched with part of his force to Pondichery, arriving there on the 28th. Meanwhile d'Ache, leaving the Pondichery roadstead on July 28th, had encountered the English Heet off Tranquebar on August 1st, and after a severe engagement of about two hours, in which he lost many men and was himself wounded, had been completely worsted, and had saved himself only by the superior sailing qualities of his ships. Bearing up for Pondichery he arrived there the next day, and learning that the Dutch at Nagapatan had allowed a French ship to be captured in their roadstead by the English squadron, he seized in reprisal a Dutch vessel lying in the Pondichery roads, on board of which were three lakhs of rupees in gold and merchandise. Apprehensive of an attack from the English, he then brought to his squadron under the guns of the town. He was in this position when Lally, on August 28th, arrived. Great was the indignation of the French general at what he considered the pusillanimous position taken up by his naval colleague ; greater still his fury, when he found that all the remonstrances of d'Estaing had availed nothing, and that d'Ache was resolute, not only to decline all further contests with the English, but to abandon the coast. In vain did Lally offer to strengthen his fleet with as many of his soldiers as he might require, with a view to his again encountering the English, whilst Lally himself should marcli upon Madras : in vain did the Council, for once unanimous, urge upon him the necessity of at least remaining some time longer on the coast. He was obstinate to run no further risk ; the utmost he would do, and that he did, was to land 500 of M Ji 2 532 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, his sailors to augmeut the land forces of the settlement. Xll ' . He then — on September 2nd — sailed for the Isle of 1768. France. The English squadron, now without an oppon- ent, remained for three weeks longer before Pondichery, and then sailed for Bombay. The capture of the Dutch vessel, however indefensible in itself, had at least supplied Lally with money. He employed the time, therefore, after his return to Pon- dichery in making preparations for his darling design upon Madras. As a preliminary to this expedition he despatched Saubinet to retake Trinomali — which had been recaptured by the adherents of the English — ; de Soupire against Karanguli ; de Crillon against Trivatur ; appointing all these detachments to meet him at Wandi- wash. Here, too, Bussy, to whom, as we have seen, he had written on June loth,* joined him, having preceded his troops left under the orders of Moracin. The three expeditions having been successful, and the troops having reunited, Lally marched towards Arkat, which the native commandant, who had been gained over, surrendered to him at once. There now remained between the French and Madras, in occupation of the English, the posts of Chengalpat and Kanchipuram, neither of them adequately garrisoned, and both almost inviting attack. Upon these, more especially upon Chengalpat, the position of which on the Palar made it of great importance to the English, it was his obvious duty to march without delay. He himself declares that he could not move because his money was exhausted, and the sipahis refused to march unless they were paid. But it is difficult to believe that he could not have detached the divisions of Saubinet or d'Estaing to besiege a place which, at the time of his entry * In that letter Lally had opened either by land or by sea. ... I his whole heart to Bussy. After confine myself now to indicate to you statins: his designs upon Madras he mypolicyin these five words; tiomore had added — " I will not conceal from English in India" {plus cP Anglais you, that, Madras once taken, I am dans le Peninsule). determined to proceed to the Ganges, RESOLVES TO ATTACK MADRAS. 533 into Arkat (October 4th), was guarded only by two chap. companies of sipahis, and the capture of which would . ' ' . have ensured him at least supplies. It would appear that 1758. it was not until the English had strengtheued the place considerably, and supplied it with an adequate garrison, that he became sensible of its importance. But it was just at that moment that, in the view of the chance of a protracted siege, the absolute necessity for a further supply of money came home to him. Unable to procure that supply by means of a letter to the Council, he left his army in cantonments, and proceeded with Bussy and other of his officers to Pondichery, in the hope to be able to come to some definite arrangcMnent by means of whicli the expedition, not only against Chengalpat, but against Madras itself, might be made feasible. The deliberations at Pondichery succeeded better than Lally had dared to hope. At a meeting of a mixed council the expedition against Madras was resolved upon, the military and some of the civil members expressing their opinion that it was better to encounter the risk of dying from a musket-ball on the glacis of Madras than of hunger in Pondichery. De Leyrit alone dissented, alleging that he had no money whatever. But this article was not altogetlier wanting. Moracin had brought with him not only 250 European troops and 500 sipahis, but 100,000 rupees ; the superior officers and members of Council, instigated by the example of Lally himself,* added contributions from their private purses. Still notwithstanding the con- siderable sum thus raised, it was very much reduced by the necessary preparations, and when, on November 2nd, Lally started to join his army, his treasure-chest contained but 94,000 rupees, whilst the monthly ex- penses of the army alone were not less than 40,000. The meeting between Lally and Bussy had been ap- * Lally subscribed 144,000 livi'es, livres ia plate. According to Lally, Couut d'Estaing and others 80,000 Bussy gave nothing. 534 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, parently friendly. Lally had not only expressed his ^ ■ sense of the advantage he would derive from the great ;^75^ Indian experience of his subordinate, but on their arrival at Pondichery, had paid him the compliment of inviting him to a seat in the Supreme Council. Never- theless the secret feelings of the two men for one another were far from cordial. Lally, whose one great idea was the expulsion of the English, could not enter into the plan of a French Empire in the heart of the Dakhan, dependent on English weakness and English forbearance. Aware besides that Bussy, whilst maintain- ing the fortunes of France at Haidarabad, had gained not only a great name but an enormous fortune, he could not forbear from connecting the one circumstance with the other, nor from secretly including Bussy amongst the self-seekers* whom he had found so numerous at Pondichery. On the other hand, Bussy, distrusting Lally's capacity from the first, and noticing the dislike which the other could not conceal, bound too by ties of friendship and long service with the de Leyrits and Desvaux and other councillors of Pondichery, gradually and insensibly fell into opposition. Nor were his first proceedings calculated to make matters better. He used every effort in his power to induce Lally to send him back to the Dakhan with increased forces ; every day he presented to him letters from the Subadar to the same effect. This was the course best calculated to confirm the suspicions and sharpen the indignation of Lally. A mind constituted as was his, bent eagerly upon one point, could not tolerate a proposition, which so far from tending to aid him, went precisely in the opposite direction, and instead of strengthening, would have weakened, his force. He came therefore to regard the requests of Bussy and Moracin as part of the general * The Jesuit, Father Lavam-, had something more than the glory of more than once impr- ssed upon Lally, the King-, that in India, the officials worked for OPPOSITE OPINIONS OF BUSSY. 535 plan to thwart him, as sure and certain proofs that they *^',^y^^- too regarded only their own interests and not the ^ ' / ■ interests of France. So far from giving in to them, he 1758. the more hrmly insisted that Bussy should accompany him. All this time he treated him with outward polite- ness, but in reality he regarded him as a most ordinary and over-rated man.* But if Lally had this opinion of Bussy, far different was the impression made by the trusted lieutenant of Dupleix on the officers under his command. They were not slow in recognising his ability, his large views, his acquaintance with the country and the true mode of managing the people. To such an extent did they dis- play their confidence in his talents and his devotedness, that on the eve of the expedition to Madras, six of their number,f including the chivalrous d'Estaing, who had ah'eady made a reputation, signed a request to the Commander-in-chief, that Bussy, the Company's general, might be placed over their heads, and occupy the position next to de Soupire. Lally was unwilling to comply ; he attributed even this request to the effect of Bussy's money; if but he could not well refuse, and the order was issued accordingly. At length, in the beginning of November, I^ally col- lected his forces, amounting to 2,000 European infantry, 300 cavalry, and 5,000 sipahis, and marched upon Madras. These were divided into ft)ur brigades, com- manded by de Soupire, d'Estaing, Crillon, and Saubinet. Bussy held no actual command, but he was present with * The memoirs of Lally and Bussy d'Estaina-, 100,000 crowns; to the aliouud with proofs of the little esti- Chevalier de Crillou, 2,000 louis d'or. mation la which each, in his heart, Crillon, however, refused them, held the other. Lally adds that Bussy offered hini t These were MM. d'Estain?, 460,000 liyres to he sent hack to the Ciillon,delaFare,Verdiere, Brctetiil, Dakhan, and stated that he was and de Landivisiau. ready to advance 240,000 livres for X Lally asserts that to secure the the service of the Companv, provided frood offices of some of these noble- Lally would be his security. Lally men Bussy lent or gave or otiered to states that iie declineti both oilers.— thim thefoilowiii,? sums: to Count Memoire pour LnU;/. 636 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, the force as Brigadier, with an authority superior to ^^^' that of all the other officers, de Soupire and Lally 1758. excepted. Taking possession of Kanchipiiram on the 27th, the army marched from there on the 29th, and reached the plain in front of Madras on December 12. The strong position of Chengalpat, which, two months before, Lally might have taken with little loss, he now, with regret, left in his rear. Retaining that, the Eng- lish had been, and were still, able to procure abun- dant supplies from the surrounding country. The English garrison of Madras consisted of 1,758 Europeans, 2,220 sipahis, and 200 horse ; there were besides within the walls 150 Europeans, w^ho were like- wise employed in various ways in the defence. The Governor was Mr. George Pigot, afterwards Lord Pigot, a man of ability and discrimination, and who had the good sense to make over all the arrangements of the defence to the veteran Colonel Lawrence, who found himself within the walls. Under Lawrence were Lieutenant-Colonel Draper, the conqueror of Manilla,* Major Calliaud of Trichinapalli renown, Major Brereton, and other good officers. Chengalpat was garrisoned by 100 Europeans and 1,200 sipahis, commanded by an active leader, Captain Preston. It will thus be seen that in the number of Europeans — the backbone of an army in India — the French did not possess a very over- whelming advantage over the enemy that they had come to besiege. The defence was confined mainly to Fort St. George, although three fortified posts were left in the Black Town. Lally, as we have seen, reached the plain in front of Madras on the 12th. The van of his little force was commanded by the chivalrous d'Estaiug, and consisted of 300 European infantry, 300 cavalry and two guns, he himself following with the main body. On the 13th the army encamped in the plain, whilst Lally employed • Tlie same who engaged ia a controversy with Junius. THE BLACK TOWN CAPTURED. 537 the day in reconnoitring the Fort and the Black Town. ^^^^^ Having done this to his satisfaction, he detached the - Chevalier de Crillon with the regiment of Lally to take 1758. possession of the Black Town, an enterprise which suc- ceeded with but little loss on the side of the French, the posts being evacuated as they advanced. The conquest, however, gave rise to great relaxation of discipline, for the town was rich, and the camp-followers, of whom there were 10,000, would not be restrained, nor had Lally a sufficient number of troops to enforce obedience, in this respect, to his orders. An indiscriminate pillage was consequently the result ; the value of the pro- perty seized being computed at 15,000,000 of francs (£600,000).* To the military chest, however, there resulted from the capture of the town a gain of bnt 92,000 francs or less than £3,700, being the contribu- tions of an Armenian whom Lally had saved from plunder, and of the Hindii chief of Arni. The town having been occupied, the Lorraine brigade and the brigade of Company's troops were posted on its right near the sea, the brigade of Lally and the sailor brigade establishing themselves in some buildings be- longing to the Capuchins on the rising gi'onnd on the left of the town. About ten o'clock on the follow- ing morning, whilst Lally, accompanied by Bussy and d'Estaing, was engaged in reconnoitring on the left of the Black Town, intimation was brought him that the English were making a strong demonstration against his right — an intimation quickly confirmed by the firing of small arms. Though separated from the brigades which formed the right by a marshy plain about 200 yards in width and by a little stream, d'Estaing at once started in full haste to join in the combat. He had ap- proached the scene of action, when, noticing some troops dressed in scarlet, he rode up to put himself at their head, believing them to be the volunteers of * Memoire pour Lally. 538 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^xn^' I^ourbon, who wore a uniform of that colour. It was not —- Y— ' until he found himself a prisoner amongst them that he 17 66. discovered them to be English. Bussy, who had fol- lowed him, returned, on noticing his misfortune, to the regiment of Lally, whilst the general, accompanied by his aide-de-camp and orderly officer, succeeded in gain- ing the scene of action. They found that the officers of the regiment of Lorraine had duly noticed the approach of a body of 500 men under Colonel Draper, supported by 150 under Major Brereton, with two guns, but, mistaking them, as d'Estaing afterwards did, for their OAvn men, had made no dispositions to oppose them. They had only become aware of their error when the English guns opened on their left flank. Completely surprised, they had fallen into confusion, and, abandon- ing their guns, had sought refuge under cover of some houses that were near. Had the English then advanced the guns might have been carried ofl" and the siege ended that very day. But their troops likewise fell into confusion amongst the houses, and their native buglers having run away, a part of the force became separated from the rest. Two officers of the regiment of Lorraine, Captains Guillermin and Secati, noticing this, rallied their men with great spirit, and advanced with fixed bayonets to support their guns. It was now the turn of the English to fall back. Their position was a dangerous one ; not only were they in the presence of a superior force, recovered from its surprise, but to regain the fort they had to cross the marshy plain and the small bridge of which we have spoken, and to w^liich the regiment of Lally, burning for action, w^as nearer than they were. It will thus be seen that the fate of the English depended on the conduct of the officer of that regiment. There are some critical moments decisive of the fate and fortunes of individuals and nations ; moments which oft'er golden opportunities not to be flirted with, but to BUSSY MISSES AX OPPORTUNITi'. 539 be seized at once if success is to be achieved. This cttap. was one of them. The regiment of Lally had but to , \ ^_ - advance, and the fate of Madras would have been sealed. i7o8. For not only would these 650 men have been slain or captured, but the effect upon their comrades within the walls would, according to tlie testimony of their com- mandant, have been decisive.* It was a great oppor- tunity — let us see how the French used it. We have said that after the capture of d'Estaing, Lally had proceeded to the right of the position, where the action was going on, whilst Bussy galloped back to his post on the left. Lally arrived at the scene of action after Guillermin and Secati had rallied their men, and the English in their turn had begun to retreat. He at once directed a movement whereby eighty of the latter were cut off from their comrades and made prisoners, at the same time that he ordered a vigorous pursuit of the remainder ; on the other side the Cheva- lier de Crillon, who commanded the Lally brigade, saw the English retreating towards the bridge, in disorder, and pursued by the Lorraine and Indian brigades. The thought at once came into his mind that by occupying the bridge on which that detachment was retreating, he might cut it off to a man. As, however, he did not command in that part ot the field, Bussy being on the spot, he went up to that officer, and asked his permis- sion to make the movement with his corps. To his intense mortification Bussy refused. In vain did other officers crowd round him ; he was obstinate and obdurate.f So sensible, however, was Crillon of the * Colonrl Lawrence states in his parly been killed or taken, it would Memoirs that the previous retrograde undoubtedly have tended to the siill movements of ttie English had funher discouragement of those re- gre^tly discoui-agcd his men, and m.iining within the walls, that this soi tie had been determined t The conduct of Bussy on this upon, because " It appeared necessary occasion has been hotly contested, to do something imtuediately lo re- The following points, however, are store the spirits of the garrison." clear: 1st: — That if the bridge had Hdd the men composing the sortie- been occupied by the regiment of 540 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^^A^' immense value of the opportunity, that he started for- s^^^^,-!.^ ward himself with fifty volunteers and f^ained the bridge. 1758. Such a force was not, however, sufficiently strong to prevent the passage of the enemy, which soon became an accomplished fact, though with a loss at the bridge itself of several killed and thirty-three prisoners. Thus was the opportunity suffered to escape, and the remains of the English party succeeded in regaining the fort. Their loss, however, was heavy It amounted, by their own statement, to more than 200 men and six officers, 103 of whom were taken prisoners. The loss of the French was, however, even more severe. It is true that in actual killed and wounded they did not lose more than 200 men ; but two of their best officers were placed hors de combat. One of these, as we have seen, was the gallant d'Estaing, the other the no less daring Saubinet, who was mortally wounded. He was an officer in the service of the Company of the Indies, of great and improving talents, ever foremost in danger. Lallv, the retreat of the English The statement of Biissy seems, would have been cut off; 2nd, that however, inconsistent with the facts the regiment of Lnlly could easily that he had rank in the army next have occupied the bridge ; 3rd, that to de Soupire, that rank having been Bussy was with that regiment or conferred upon him before leaving near it at the time. We have adopted Pondiehery ; that having that rank, in the text the account given by it became his duty to exercise its Lally himself. To this account Bussy, functions; that the statement of in his lifetime, demurred, stating, Lally was confirmed, on his trial, by 1st, that he had no command, being the Chevalier de Crillon, the witness a simple volunteer ; 2ndly, that he who was best qualified to speak. In was thanked for his conduct by the the state of teeling between Lally Pondiehery Government ; 3rdly, that and the Pondiehery Council the on the field of battle Lally conferred thanks of the latter are of little on him the command of the Lorraine weight ; whereas the conferring the brigade vacant by the capture of command of the regiment on the field d'listaing. He also added that of battle may be accounted for on he remembered on passing by the other grounds. Certainly the balance Lally brigade after the capture of of evidence is against Bussy. d'Estaing, he recommended them to Mr. Onne states that Bussy gave bring up two pieces of field artillery, other reasons for his conduct. Bussy as the enemy had none, that he then does not, however, state them in his passed on to the brigade commanded Memoirs. Mr. Orme gives them, by the Chevalier de POete, to whom They are, however, so little satisfac- he said that having neither rank nor tory, that were they really Bussy's command, he had come to fight with they would but confirm our opinion him ; further that lie had never of his conduct on this occasion, heard of the story until after he had left India. THE SIEGE BEGUN. 541 The loss of these two able officers far outweighed in ^^n^" importance the loss of the rank and file. . ^ ^ ' . The same day Lally established his headquarters in 1768. the Black Town, and waited impatiently for his heavy guns. But before they arrived the expenses of the cam- paign had begun to exhaust the sums raised by the cap- ture of the town. At this crisis, however, the frigate " La Fidele " arrived at Pondichery having on board one million of francs (£40,000). She ought to have brought to Pondichery two millions, but, having touched at the Isle of France about the time of the arrival there of d'Ache from Pondichery, that unpatriotic and inefficient officer had appropriated one million for the service of his squadron, sending the frigate on with the remainder. She arrived at her destination on December 21st, just in time to determine Lally, not merely to content him- self with devastating the country round Madras, but to besiege that place in form. The arrival of his heavy guns about the same time enabled him to complete his arrangements. His artillery then consisted of twenty pieces of 12, 18, and 24-pounders, and of ten mortars, 8 and 12-pounders. These were soon placed in position and a fresh parallel opened at a distance of 500 yards from the place. He had decided to attack the fort on the side immediately opposite the position he had taken up, although in appearance it was the strongest. He satisfied himself partly on the ground that thougli the fort might be the stronger on that side, the ap- roaches to it could be more easily made ; and partly, because, as had been proved on the 14th, the in- tricacies of the Black Town afforded a means of de- fence against sorties, such as bade defiance to an enemy. But Lally soon found how impossible it was to effect anything great with officers the majority of whom were bad, and with an army disorganised and disaffected. The difficulties and obstacles which he had to encounter 542 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. c"AP. during the first twenty days of the siege were sufficient ^ 1 - to break the spirit of any ordinary man. Very many of 1758. the soldiers, instead of working in the trenches, em- ployed themselves in searching for treasure in the de- serted houses of the Black Town and in making them- selves drunk with the proceeds. Several of the officers, far from checking their men, or doing their duty in the field, were themselves engaged in guarding the contents of the shops which they had appropriated. Multitudes from Pondichery swarmed into the Black Town, many of them forging the general's signature in order to obtain boats wherewith to carry off their plunder. Even the artillery cattle were employed by some officers in conveying furniture and property to Pondichery. It was impossible for Lally alone to put a stop to this state of things. In fact, the paucity of skilled officers rendered it necessary for him to be always in the trenches. Of five engineer officers who had come out with him from France but two remained ; one of these, the senior, was idle and useless ; the other had, under Lally, the charge of the trenches. Of six officers of artillery, three were killed in the first three weeks of the siege ; of the others, two were with the artillery park, and the third was a boy. The superior officers of the army were engaged ^vith their several brigades. Upon Lally, therefore, devolved the main charge of dii'ecting the operations of the siege, and he devoted himself to it with a zeal and energy that could not have been surpassed. For he had, it must be remembered, other matters to attract and engage his attention. The English had not been slow to use the advantages ofi^ered to them by the possession of Chengalpat. The force that guarded that post issued frequently into the field to attack the French in their flanks and rear, and to disturb their communications with Pondichery ; and not only this, but Major Calliaud, sent to Tanjur, succeeded in obtaining from the Raja, and bringing into the field lally's difficulties. 543 600 men, one half of whom were cavalry. Muhammad ^^^^' Isuf, a partisan, brought 2,000 more. These various ._ ^ parties, hovering about Lally's position, kept him in a 1758. continual state of alarm. They might be driven away, but, like wasps, they returned to annoy. Lally's diffi- culties were still further increased by the fact that even the powder necessary for carrying on the siege had to be brought from Pondichery, through a country swarming with partisans, who carried their depredations to the verv gates of that city. Besides these outer enemies there were within the walls of Madras 200 French deserters. These constantly mounted the ramparts, holding in the one hand a bottle of wine, and in the other a purse, and calling out to the French soldiers to follow their ex- ample. Scarcely a day passed but missives from these men were discharged by arrows into the besieging camp, all tempting the soldiers to desert. At length, on Janu- ary 2nd, after overcoming innumerable trials and con- quering difficulties seemingly insuperable, two batteries. called, from the brigades to which they belonged, the Lally and the Lorraine, opened their fire. This they continued almost incessantly for forty-two days, a great portion of the army being at the same time engaged with varying success almost daily with the enemy's partisans, with the troops under Calliaud from Tanjui and under Preston from Chengalpat, and with the nu- merous sorties from the garrison. At length the crisis approached. The garrison received intimation, early in February, that Admiral Pocock's fleet was on its way from Bombay, and would infallibly arrive off Madras in a few days. On the other hand, a breach had been effected in the walls, and Lally, who knew how much depended on the promptitude of his proceedings, de- termined to deliver the assault. At this moment, how- ever, he found all his designs shattered by the back- wardness of his officers. Those of the engineers and artillery declared that although the breach was quite 544 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, practicable, yet that, " having regard to the situation of . things, to our force compared with that of the enemy," 1758. an assault would cause the destruction of a great many soldiers, and would end in nothing. These officers, not content with writing this to the general, made no secret of their opinion in the camp, intimating that to try an assault would be to march to certain death. But Lally, though disappointed at this opinion, sensible how great was the responsibility of acting on such an occasion against the written advice of his scientific officers, yet feeling persuaded that they were wrong, and that his soldiers would follow him, did not renounce his deter- mination. He waited only for the wane of the moon to deliver the assault, and had intimated to Crillon, charged with the chief attack, that he was to hold himself in readiness to make it on the evening of February 16th, when to his intense disappointment, he saw Admiral Pocock's squadron sail into the roadstead on the after- noon of that very day. The situation of the besieging army was now des- perate. For the past twenty days the troops had had no pay, and the officers had been on soldier's rations ; there remained but 20,0001bs. of powder in the artil- lery park, and only a similar supply at Pondichery. For three weeks not a single bomb had been fired, that species of ammunition having been exhausted ; the native troops, unpaid, had melted away, and even the European cavalry threatened to go over to the enemy. Pondichery, too, had but 300 invalids left to guard it. Under these circumstances, the arrival of the English fleet, at once relieving Madras and threatening Pondi- chery, made the raising of the siege inevitable. On the night of February 17th, this operation took place. Sending all the wounded who could be moved from St. Thome by sea, and burying his cannon-shot, he left in the trenches, from want of cattle to take them away, five pieces of cannon, and in the pagoda, FORCED TO RAISE THE SIEGE. 545 used as a hospital, thirty-three wounded incapable of t;HAP. being moved, and a surgeon in charge of them. These - he commended in a letter to the care of the Governor 1759. of Madras ; then, taking with him all his baggage, he retired umolested, but full of rage * and mortification, by way of St. Thome to Kanchipiiram. Thus fiiiled the great enterprise on which Lally had set his heart — to which he had devoted every energy of mind and body. It has been said, indeed, that that failure was owing as much to his own infirmities of temper, to the manner in which he trampled on the cherished feelings of others, as to any other cause. But, after a careful examination of the facts of the case as shown in the correspondence between himself and de Leyrit, we cannot resist the conclusion that, great as were those infirmities of temper, violent and excitable as was his manner towards others, those who allowed themselves to be betrayed by that behaviour on his part into a neglect of their duty towards France were, infinitely more than Lally, the authors of the failure. Lally, at least, behaved like a soldier ; he gave every thought, every exertion to his country. But the Council of Pondichery did the reverse. Mortified and enraged at the rough hand with which Lally had un- veiled and exposed abuses, as well as at the style in which he had pointed out to them that their first duty was to their country, they gave him no assistance ; * The rage of Lally was directed Pondichery, laden with sugar, pepper against those whose self-seekin? and and other sfoods ; as for the coolies, corruption, by hindering and alto- they have been employed on the fjether keeping back the suijplies of sameaccountever since we hive been which he stood in need, had con- here." In concluding the letter he tributed to the unfortunate result of renounced all interference with the his expedition. In a letter to de civil administration of Pondichery, Leyrit, d-ited February 14. he thus "for," he added, "I would rather go recounted some of the iniquities that and command tht:» Kafars of M.ida- were taking place under his eyes, and g-ascar, than to remain in that Sodom forcibly expressed his own opinion of (Pondichery), which the fire of the the conduct of some of his officers : English, in default of the fire of "Of 1,500 &ip^his,"he said, "who are Heaven, will, sooner or later, inevi- with our army, I calculate that nearly tably destroy." 800 are employed on the road to 546 TliE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. *" xtr ^^^^ money seut out to them for the purpose of the war ^ '. . _ . they often squandered on themselves. More than that, 1759, they took a pleasure, which they scarcely attempted to conceal, in thwarting his designs. To such an extent did they carry their ill-feeling, that they allowed their hatred of the individual so far to conquer the remnants of their patriotism, that the retreat from Madras was the signal for the manifestation in Pondichery of the most indecent joy. Is it credible that men who thus rejoiced over the reverses of the French arms, because those reverses humiliated Lally, would have made the smallest self-sacrifice to attain an opposite result '? On them, therefore, mainly, and not on Lally, must rest the responsibility of the failure of the siege. Meanwhile, in another part of the coast reverses had likewise attended the French arms. We have seen how Lally, immediately after his arrival in Pondichery, had recalled Bussy and Moracin from the Dakhan and the Sirkars, and how these two, unwillingly obeying, had made over the government of Machhlipatan and the ceded provinces to the Marquis de Conflans in the month of August, 1758. The troops left with Conflans consisted of about 500 men, a number which, under a commander so experienced as Bussy would have been sufficient to keep the entire country in subjection. But Conflans had neither the ability, the tact, nor the knowledge of his predecessor. He was ignorant of the country, the language, of the mode of dealing with its feudal lords. Many of these latter, no longer sensible of a master's hand, noting the diminution in the number of European troops, determined to strike a blow to rid themselves of the French yoke, not cal- culating that by so doing they would in all probability exchange it for the English. It is possible, indeed, that looking at the balanced state of both powers in the Karnatik, they deemed it miglit not be an impracticable policy to play one against the other. However this clive's darixg genius. 547 may have been, it is certain that, three months after chap. the departure of Bussy from the Dakhan, Rajd Anan- . daraj, ruler of the Srikakolam and Rajamahendri, 1768. raising the standard of revolt, took possession of Vizagapatara, plundered the factory, confined the French agent, hoisted English colours, and wrote to Madras for assistance. Threatened as Madras then was by Lally, aid from it was impossible ; whereupon the Raja appealed in despair to Clive. No one knew better than Clive how to seize an opportunity, no one was more acquainted than he with the advantages which the possession of the Sirkars would infallibly bring in its train. Overruling the advice of the Calcutta Council, who regarded interference in that quarter as little short of madness, he wrote to the Raja promis- ing speedy support, and despatched by sea on October 12, Colonel Forde at the head of 500 Europeans, 2,000 sipahis, and eighteen guns. The fact that, by the despatch of this force, he left himself in Bengal with little more than 300 Europeans at a time when a hostile feeling had risen in the mind of Mir Jafar, and when Bihar was threatened by the united forces of the son of the Emperor of Delhi, and by the Nawwab Wazir of Oudh, testifies in no slight degree to the strong, fearless, and intrepid character of the founder of the British Empire in India. Meanwhile, Conflans was acting in such a manner as to facilitate the plans of the English. Instead of march- ing rapidly upon Vizagapatam and crushing the rebel- lion in its bud, before the rebels could receive assistance from outside, he contented himself with sending repeated applications to Lally for support, whilst he moved leisurely against Rajamahendri. He occupied that town, and was still encamped on the northern bank of the river of the same name, when intelligence reached him that an English force had, on October 20, landed at Vizagapatam. To him intelligence of that nature V v O 548 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^'^f^- ought liut to have beeu very alarming. The troops ' , - under his command were the most seasoned and the 1758. best disciplined of all who served the French Company in Southern India. They were the men before whom the famed Maratha cavalry had been scattered, and who, but a short year before, had forced their way through opposing hosts to relieve Bussy at Haidarabad. They had never yet shown their backs to a foe, and they might well liave been counted upon, under efficient leadership, to defend the ceded provinces against even a larger force than that which then threatened it. Under these circumstances, and as they were supported by about 4,000 trained sipahis, and by some of the native princes of the country, it would seem that it should have been the policy of Conflans to advance, to give to his men that spirit of self-confidence which a movement to the front always inspii'es ; by that he would undoubtedly also have encouraged his native allies. It is the more strange that he did not do this, as a rumour had reached him, in which he entirely believed, that Colonel Forde's force was composed of raw troops, whom, therefore, it would be good policy to attack. He preferred, however, to adopt the course, which, in India, has but rarely proved successful — of waiting the attack of the enemy in the position he had chosen. He accordingly moved his force to the village of Kundiir, forty miles north of Rajamahendri. Near this he was encountered, on December 8, by Colonel Forde, enticed out of his strong position, out-manoeuvred, and completely defeated — losing his camp, his guns, and several of his men. He himself, fleeing on horseback, found refuge in Machhlipatan that same night.* Forde, pursuing his victory, occupied Rajamahendri with a part of his force on the 10th. * A detailed account of this battle Decisive Battles of India " 3rd (new] and of all the actions of the carapaigrn edition, pp. 77-1 15. ia to be found in the author's " The forde's splendid audacity. 549 His difticulties, however, were not over. The long cftap. connexion of the French with Salabat Jang, the intelli- ■^'^' geuce that the principal settlement of the English was 1759 being besieged, combined to render the position of Forde dangerous and difficult. To the incapacity of his adversary was it alone due that it was not made fatal. Though virtually abandoned by his native allies, Forde, who thoroughly understood the conditions of Indian warfare, continued to advance towards Conflans, and notwithstanding that the French leader was enabled, by recalling troops from his garrisons, to bring a superior force of Europeans into the field, he actually besieged him in Machhlipatan. Rightly judging of the importance of moral force in war, he would not allow himself to be moved from this position even by the re- capture of Rajamahendri, nor by the intelligence that Salabat Jang was marching with 15,000 horse and 20,000 foot to overwhelm him. Nevertheless, as time advanced, his position became such as would have triec the nerves of the strongest leader. In the beginning of April it even seemed desperate. Before him was Con- fians with a superior force, occupying Machhlipatan, which he was himself besieging ; on his right, at Bez- wada, forty miles distant, was the army of the Subadar ready to overwhelm him; on his right rear, a French corps of 200 men under M. du Rocher, prepared to cut off his communications. Under such circumstances, a weak leader Avould probably have endeavoured to re- treat, though retreat would have been disgraceful and fatal ; but Forde, being a strong man, preferred the chance of death in the attempt at assault to such a movement. Not knowing even that the breaches were practicable, but only in the hope that they might be so, he ordered his troops under arms at 10 o'clock on the night of the 7th, and delivered the assault in three divi- sions at midnight. He met with the success which a daiing dashing leader can ahvays look forward to over 550 THE LAST STEUGGLE FOR EMPIUE. CHAP, an unenterprising and hesitating adversary, for, after a fierce struggle, he not only captured the fort, but forced 1759. Conflans with his whole army to surrender. The consequences of this unsurpassed act of cool and resolute daring were most important. Less than a week after, Moracin,* ordered to Machhlipatan by Lally on receiving the first message from Conflans, arrived with three hundred troops off" the place. Finding it occupied by the English, he proceeded to Ganjam. There, however, he effected nothing : indeed, the place was abandoned, and his whole party dispersed by the end of the year. But the most important result was the treaty concluded with Salabat Jang. Struck by the unexpected defeat of the French, and annoyed at the time by the pretensions of Nizam Ali, the Subadar hastened to conclude with Forde a treaty whereby he renounced the French alliance, agreed never to allow a French contingent in the Dakhan, and ceded to the English a territory yielding an annual revenue of four lakhs of rupees. Before the end of the year, those dis- tricts, the possession of which constituted one of the triumphs of the administration of Dupleix, passed entirely into the hands of the English, and thenceforth the fate of French India was sealed. Meanwhile Lally, retreating from Madras, had taken post at Kanchipuram. Thence, leaving his troops under the command of de Soupire, he set out for Arkat to ari'ange for the provisioning of the army. At Arkat he received a strange account of the proceedings of de Leyrit. Profiting by the absence of Lally with the army, de Leyrit had summarily, and against the protest of four members of his Council, f put a stop to an * Moracin was indeed at once endeavoured for a long: time to evade ordered to Machhlipatan, and had he the order, and did actually delay so obeyed, he would have arrived in long, that he only arrived in time to time to have placed Forde in a posi- share in the ruin in which the force tion from which even his skill and of Conflans was involved, iaring could with difficulty have ex- t The names of the protestors were traoted his force ; but, the ally of the MM. Barthelemy, Boileau, La Sello, French intriguers at Pondichcry, he and Nicholas. i)E SOUPIRE OUT-MAN(EUVRED. 551 inquiry ordered to be instituted by Lally into the chap. accounts of M. Desvaux, the head of the department of excise at Pondichery, and who had been accused of em- 1759. bezzlement. Other abuses, tending to the individual profit of the servants of the Company,* to the great detriment of the Company itself, which Lally had ordered to be abolished, had been restored. On March 8, therefore, Lally left Arkat for Pondichery, with a view to put a stop to these disorders, as well as to make new plans for a campaign. During his absence, the French army under de Soupire had been followed to Kanchipuram by an English force of about equal numbers, under Major Brereton, who had succeeded to the command which the gallant Lawrence had but then resigned. De Soupire's orders restricted him to fight only if attacked, and as he occupied a strong position, the English leader was careful not to risk a defeat by assailing him at a disadvantage. For three weeks the armies remained in face of one another, when Brereton, rightly conjecturing that to threaten his com- munications would be the surest mode of dislodging the enemy, broke up from before Kanchipuram, and, passing it, moved on Wandiwash, and opened ground before it. De Soupire, pressed for money and supplies, marched then to Arkat, twenty miles from Wandiwash, and took up a position on the Palar. This was the opportunity Brereton had wished for. He hastily decamped from Wandiwash, marched rapidly on Kanchipuram, and stormed it before de Soupire had any idea that it was in danger. This was the intelligence that reached Lally, whilst, •For instance: the members of for 20 francs in cash. The members the administration were in the habit of the administration, after payini;: of issuing treasury bills, instead of the troops and the subordinate f uuc- cash in payment of their liabilities ; tionaries in these notes, set to work but they purposely issued these in to buy them up for their own protit, such numbers, that they became thus realising more tliun eighty ikv greatly depreciated in value, and a cent. — Mrmoire pour Lal/i/. bill for 100 francs was pnrchaseable 552 THE LAST STRUGGLE i*OR EMPIRE. CHAP, after a stormy altercation with the Council of Pondichery, ' ' . he was on his way at the head of 350 men, to rejoin j^jycj his army. It was his desire to proceed at once to re- take Kanchipuram,but the low state of his military chest, the absolute want of all resources, and the bad spirit evinced by many of his officers, would not permit him to attempt any forward movement. He was compelled, therefore, to place his army in cantonments on the Palar, until the arrival of d'Ache, then shortly expected with supplies of money and stores, should place him in a position to resume the offensive. The English army followed his example. Lally himself returned to Pondi- chery, but he had scarcely arrived there, when the fatigue and excitement to which he had been exposed combined, with the disappointment he had suffered, to bring on a serious illness. This, however, did not prevent him from carrying out an enterprise which he had designed against Elmiseram ; succeeding in this, the leader of the party, M. Mariol, moved suddenly against Thiagar, a strong fortress about fifteen miles distant. The English guard- ing this were surprised, and the fort was captured on July 14. Amongst the prisoners were forty English soldiers. But although planning such enterprises as these, Lally was unable from the state of his army to undertake any- thing really great. No doubt his soldiers had to submit to very great hardships, but these they would readily have borne, had they been left alone. The spirit of personal dislike to Lally, however, which prevailed in the Council Chamber of Pondichery, had penetrated to the Franco-Indian section of his forces — those in the immediate service of the Company of the Indies — and the example set by these had not been without its effect on the royal trooi:)s. Matters were brought to a very dangerous crisis by a measure which in itself was a matter of the most ordinary detail. It happened, that after the raising of the siege of Madras, the English and French BAD SPIRIT AiMONG THE FRENCH. 553 Governments agreed uiDon an exchanj^e of 500 soldiers chap. . . Xll on each side. Most of" those received by the French, in ' . virtue of this agreement, were the men belonging to the i769. French Company's forces, who had been taken before Trichinapalli when serving under Astruc, Brennier, Main- ville, and Maissin. Some of these had been five years in confinement, well fed and well cared for. To fill up the gaps in the re^^iment bearing his name, Lally transferred to it two hundred of these men. But, by them, the scanty fare, the rigorous discipline, and the hard work of camp- life, were, after their five years of idleness and inaction, scarcely to be borne. They made no secret of their dis- content, and even endeavoured to spread it among their comrades. The first result of this baneful influence ap- peared on eJuly 7, when the small French force occupy- ing the fort of Kavaripak, well capable of being de- fended, evacuated it on the first summons of the English army. But, four weeks later, the grand explosion took place. Instigated by the two hundred ransomed prisoners, the regiment de Lally, with the exception of its officers, its sergeants and corporals, and about fifty old soldiers, suddenly mutinied, and marching out of Chita pet, declared that they were going over to the English. On hearing this, their officers instantly went after them, and by threats, entreaties, by the payment of some of their arrears, and the promise of more, persuaded all but sixty to returu to their allegiance. These sixty, all belonging to the Trichinapalli prisoners, persisted in going over to the enemy.* Lally, meanwhile, was making every possible exertion to collect provisions and stores. Despairing of every other means, he had despatched one of the Pondi- chery councillors to Karikal with 36,000 francs belong- ing to himself to purchase rice for the troops. When, however, his hopes were at the lowest, his spirits were cheered by the arrival of the frigate, " La Gracieuse," • We have preferred Lilly's own aoc)unt of this luuliuy to that given by Orrae. 554 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EAlPIRtl. CHAP, conveying the hopeful intelligence that she was but the . herald of the arrival of Count d'Ache's fleet, reinforced 1759. by three ships which had joined him at the Isle of France. The frigate also brought instructions to the French com- mander to exercise a still tighter hand over the financial administration of Pondichery — instructions which had the ill effect of still more embittering the feeling between himself on the one side, and de Leyrit and the other members of the Council on the other. At length, on September 10, d'Ache arrived. Since leaving the coast on September 3 of the previous year, this officer had been to the Isle of France, had there met the three ships under M. d'Egville, from whom, as we have seen, he had taken, for the service of his own squadron, one million of the two million francs d'Egville was bringing out for the colony. The rest of the time d'Ache had employed in refitting, re-arming, and re-victualling the ships of his squadron. Having accomplished this, he sailed from the Isle of France on July 17, and arriving on September 10 off Fort St. David, found himself suddenly in sight of the English fleet, which likewise had been strengthened and re- inforced. D'Ache, who possessed at least the merit of physical courage, showed no inclination to decline the combat which Admiral Pocock at once offered him. He had eleven ships, though but four of them belonged to the French navy, whilst Pocock had nine ships of the Royal navy, two Company's vessels, and a fire-ship.* * The English squadron consisted of : The Yarmouth 66 guns Capt. Harrison \ The Grafton 68 „ ,, Kempenfelt 1 The Elizabeth 64 „ ,, Tiddeman I The Tiger 60 ,, ,, Brereton I iii -r-- _.♦_ The Sunderland 60 ,, „ Colville / ,1,^^"^ ^ The Weymouth 60 ,. „ Sir W. Baird I ^'^^P^' The Cumberland 66 ,, ,, Somerset 1 The Newcastle 50 ,, „ Michie ] The Salisbury 50 ., ,, Dent ' And two Company's ships, the number of whose guns is not given. The French had — THE FRENCH BEATEiV AT SEA. 555 About a quarter past two o'clock in the afternoon, the chap. action took place, the crews of both fleets standing . manfully to their guns and cannonading one another 1769, -with great fury. For two hours the battle was un- decided. By that time several of the ships on both sides were greatly crippled, and some of those of the French leaving the line for the purpose of refitting, the officer who commanded the "Zodiaque," her captain having been killed, put his helm up to follow them. D'Ache, running to reverse the order, was struck in the thigh by a grape shot and fell senseless. There was no one left to correct the error, and the other ships of the French squadron, following what they believed to be their Admiral's order, hauled out of action, and made sail to join their consorts, the English being too crippled to follow them. On the 16th, d'Ache anchored in the Pondichery roadstead. He had brought with him a seasonable supply of between three and four lakhs of rupees in diamonds and piastres, but he sensibly diminished the pleasure which his arrival had caused by the startling announcement of his intention to return at once to the Isle of France. Knowing well what must result from such a desertion, the English fleet being still on the coast, Lally, unable from sickness to move himself, sent MM. de Leyrit, de Bussy, and de Landivisiau, accompanied by other councillors, to remonstrate with the admiral. But d'Ache, brave in action, had neither moral courage nor strength of character. He could not dismiss from his Le Zodiaqiio 74 guns (Xame unknown, killed) ^ M. de Ruis I French L'lUustre 64 L'Actif 64 La Fortune 64 Le Centaur 74 Le Cerate de Provence 74 Le Veiigeur 54 Le Due d'Orleans 50 Le Saint Louis 50 Le Due de Bciursfoo'ne fiO Le Minotaur 74 'SI. Beauchaire j Royal Navy. M. Lobry J M. Surville M. La Chaise M. Palliere M. Surville, Jr. ,- ,- il. Johanne i ''"^'^ M. Beuvet :\L (rEgviiio V, Company's 556 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^xn^' ^^^^^ ^^^® ^^^^'^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ been beaten in the late __^^,^__ action, and that he would infallibly be beaten again. 1769. He had done, he believed, his duty by bringing to Pondichery the supplies of which it stood in need, and he would do no more. It was in vain that the com- missioners in person, and that Lally in writing, pointed out to him that the English fleet had suffered more than his, and that his departure would inevitably lead to the fall of Pondichery ; in vain did they beg him to stay at least till the movements then going on in the neigh- bourhood of Wandiwash should have been concluded ; in vain did the Council send to him a protest signed by every one of its members, fixing upon him the re- sponsibility for the loss of Pondichery, and threatening to make his conduct the subject of a special repre- sentation to the Crown, In vain. D'Ache, usually so irresolute and doubting, was firm on this point, and despite their representations, sailed, never to return.* Meanwhile, the English, reinforced by the arrival of 300 men belonging to the battalion of Colonel Eyre Coote, then being conveyed out in four ships com- manded by Rear-Admiral Cornish, determined to beat up the French cantonments on the Palar. With this object Major Brereton, massing about 2,000 Europeans, made a dash on vSeptember 16 at Tripatur, captured in it thirty men, and then moved quickly on Wandiwash. M. Geoghegan, an officer of Irish extraction who com- manded there, on learning the first movements of Brereton, hastily collected 1,100 men, and posted them in such a manner as best to meet any attack that might be delivered. On the night of the 29th, Brereton, bringing up his men, made a gallant attempt to carry * He sailed, as he said he would, Lally mentions that the day after his on the 17th, but the protest was sent return, the English fleet passed Pon- alter him, and reached him at sea. dichery in disorder, ofave d'Ach6 a Upon this he returned to Pondichery, good opportunity of attacking it, but hut after staying there five days, he that he abstained, again set otf as stated in the text. BUSSY SENT TO CALAT JANG. 557 the place, and had at tirst some success. Soon, how- ^vf^' ever, as Geoghegaii had anticipated, his troops became ^ entangled in the narrow streets which lay between the ]7o9. town and the fort, and were exposed to a heavy fire from the latter, as well as from the French troops under cover. They being thus checked, Geoghegan deter- mined to turn the repulse into a defeat. At daybreak, therefore, he assaulted the English in the positions they had gained in the night-time, and after a fight of two hours' duration, drove them completely out, with a loss of eleven officers and 200 men. The French loss was scarcely less severe in point of numbers; amongst their dead was M. de Mainville, the whilom commander before Trichinapalli. The victory might have had im- portant results, but the illness of Lally, the indiscipline of the army, the absence of d'Ache, not less than the early arrival of Colonel Coote with the remainder of his regiment, combined to render it abortive. After the repulse, the English cantoned themselves in the neigh- bourhood of Kanchipuram, there to wait the expected reinforcements. Meanwhile Lally, hopeless of aid from any other source, had felt himself impelled to seek alliances in the quarter in which he had at first laughed them to scorn. Ever since the departure of Bussy from the Dakhan, affairs had taken a turn in that locality most unfavourable to French interests. In the first instance, Nizam Ali, the brother next in order to Salabat Jang, had once more resumed his pretensions, and was again grasping at supreme power. Salabat Jang, faithful, so long as the French possessed the ability to aid him, to his old alliances, had, as we have seen, marched into the Sirkars to assist them, only on their defeat to transfer the right to those provinces to the English, and to conclude with them a solid treaty. Nizam Ali, having ever shown himself a hater of the French, was not to be thought of; and Salabat 558 THE LAST STEUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP. Jaut;* had, as we have seen, thrown over the French. "Y'TT ^ ' . These circumstances presented to Lally the importance 1759. o^ endeavouring to attach the third surviving brother, Basalat Jang, to French interests. Bussy, therefore, who by the recent orders from Europe had received a commission as second in command of the army, pro- posed to Lally to tempt Basalat by the offer of the office of Nawwabship of the Karnatik. Lally was at first un- willing, as he had already conferred the appointment on the son of Chanda Sahib, but, very desirous not to lose a chance in his then distressed circumstances, he directed Bussy to proceed at once to Wandiwash, and to make the best arrangement in his power with Basalat Jang. Ever since the siege of Madras, Bussy had remained at Pondichery, suffering from various disorders. On receiving, however, Lally's instructions, he started for Wandiwash, where he arrived the day after the repulse of the English. His orders were to cause himself to be received at Wandiwash as second in command of the forces, to remain there only four-and-twenty hours, then, taking with him all the European cavalry and three companies of infantry, to go to the camp of Basalat Jang, there to arrange with him the terms of an alhance. But the account of the repulse of the English reached him on arrival, and caused him to deviate somewhat from these instructions. He thought that the English might possibly be disposed to meet him in the open plain, and he hailed the prospect of thus operating against them on his own account. Collecting, then, all his forces, he marched, the third day after his arrival, on Tripatur, and took it. But as he soon discovered that the English had retired to Kanchipuram, he sent back the army to Wandiwash, and proceeded with his appointed escort to Arkat. But here the rains and * It may be interesting to those ment of the French alliance. He who have so far followed the for- was imprisoned by Nizara Ali in tunes of Salabat Jang, to know that 1761, and murdered by his order in he did not long survive the abandon- 1763. MUTINY OF THE PREXCH ARMY. 559 other causes detained him another week, and when, at chap. last, he did set out for the camp of Basalat Jang, who ^^^' all this time had been anxiously awaiting his arrival, it 1759 was only to be recalled by the distressing intelligence that the army at Wandiwash had mutinied. It was too true. At daybreak, on October 17, the European por- tion of the French army, at a given signal, took pos- session of the field artillery, and, leaving their officers and colours, marched six miles in the direction of Madras, Here they halted, and elected officers from amongst their sergeants, in the place of those they had abandoned, one La Joie, Sergeant-Major of the regiment of Lorraine, being appointed Commander-in-chief. The new officers, having first made every disposition for the order and defence of the camp, then drew up and des- patched a letter to Lally, in which they expressed their willingness to allow him four days for reflection, and for the payment of the arrears due to them ; on the ex- piration of that time, should these demands not be complied with, they would proceed to extremities. The fact was that the soldiers, themselves ten months in arrear, had been deceived by the reports, industri- ously circulated, as to the amount hoarded by Lally himself, and despatched by him in a frigate to France. It fortunately happened, however, that the Sergeant- Major La Joie, thoroughly well-disposed towards his general, had only accepted the office with a view to bring the revolters promptly to their duty. His endea- vours in this respect were seconded by the prudent conduct of Lally. As soon as the intelligence of the revolt reached him he assembled the Council, and appealed to the patriotism of its members to assist him in this urgent need by their subscriptions, he himself heading the list with a donation of 20,000 rupees. Many of those present, including Father Lavaur, M. Boileau, and the Chevalier de Crillon, responded heartily to the call. De Leyrit, not content with O60 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. ^^^^- holding back himself", atftrmed that the public funds - could supply nothing, because the diamonds and 1759. piastres, brought by d'Ache, had not then been con- verted into silver. Nevertheless, a sufficient sum to distribute six months' pay was collected, and with this sum the Adjutant-General of the army, Viscount de Fumel, was sent to negotiate with the troops. As, however the revolted soldiers would not listen to this officer, Lally sent Crillon, whose influence over them had always been very great, in his place. After some conversation, the soldiers agreed to accept six months' pay down, and the balance on November 10; they demanded at the same time a complete amnesty for the past, and requested that their officers would come and place themselves once again at their head ; they added that " they were one and all imbued with sentiments entirely French, and that they were ever ready to fight for their country and for the honour of their king and to submit to their superiors." * Thus did the troops return to their duty. Their revolt, however, had had the effect of dissipating any hopes that might have been formed from the combined action of Basalat Jang. For this chieftain, already impatient of waiting for Bussy, retreated, on hearing of the revolt, in the direc- tion whence he had come. Bussy indeed followed him, after appeasing the discontent which had already arisen amongst his own troops, but, by the time he arrived in his camp, the turn French affairs had taken had entirely indisposed Basalat Jang to the alliance. Bussy there- fore contented himself with raising money and troops amongst his former friends, and with these he returned on December 10 to xlrkat, with what effect will be seen. Meanwhile Lally, on the mutiny being quelled, deter- mined to put in force a project which nothing but the direst necessity could have justified. This was to divide his force and to send a portion of it to alarm the Eng- * Memoire pour Lally, p. 142. THE LAST CAMPAIGN. 661 lish for Trichinapalli. It seemed, indeed, a rash mea- chap. sure to weaken the force with which he would have to ^^^" encounter, in the then ensuing cold weather, the re- 1759, inforced army of the English, and as such it was con- sidered by de Leyrit and others of the Council. But Lally was in very great perplexity. He had not money enough to pay all his troops, and he had a very strong idea that a certain portion of them — the Europeans in the ser- vice of the Company — were not worth paying. He conceived, then, that he would facilitate his own move- ments by sending away troops in whom he had no con- fidence, at the same time that he alarmed the English for the safety of a city they had held so long, and con- fined their garrison within its walls. Taking advantage of a repulse sustained by the English before Devikota, he despatched Crillon at the head of the battalion of India, and three companies of grenadiers, to Sriran- gam. Crillon carried this island by assault on November 21, then leaving the battalion of India to keep the garrison in alarm, he rejoined Lally with his' grenadiers. Whilst Crillon was engaged on this expedition, Lally, recovered from his illness, had proceeded to Wandiwash, and had marched thence with his army to Arkat. Here, on December 10, he was joined by Bussy, at the head of 350 Europeans and 2,000 native irregulars. The com- mandant of these last had, however, fortified himself with claims upon the French Government for consider- able sums of arrears of pay. These he had lost no opportunity of presenting, and did so to such an extent, that, to use the expression of Lally, he and his fol- lowers resembled more a troop of creditors than a troop of auxiliaries. To provide himself with native cavalry indispensable to his campaign, Lally succeeded, after some negotiation, in making an arrangement with Murari Rao for 2,000 horse.* * These men were engaged at the rate of 25 rupees each per measem. 562 I'HE LAST STRUGGLE FOK ilMPlRti. CHAP. The campaigu on wliich the rival nations were now . ^ \_ , about to enter, promised to decide for a time the pos- 1769. session of the Karnatik. A defeat in the field would be fraught with disaster to either, but more especially to the French, who had not the command of the sea, and whose resources were almost exhausted, whilst it was in the power of the English to fall back upon Bengal, or at all events to await the certain return of their fieet after the monsoon. Under these circumstances, it would have seemed to be the policy of Lally to wait ; to avoid an engagement ; and to harass the communications of the English, compelling them, if they were determined to fight, to light at a disadvantage. This at least was the opinion of Bussy. But Lally was scarcely in cir- cumstances to act according to the rules of war Owing to the absence of many of his men at Srirangam, he had been compelled to witness, without being able to prevent it, the capture of Karangoli and Wandiwash by the English. This inaction had produced its natural effect on the minds of his men. To follow, too, the other course, it was necessary that he should have supplies and money, and he had neither. It was absolutely indis- pensable, it appeared to him, that he should act with 1760. decision and vigour. No sooner then had he been joined by Crillon from Srirangam, on January 10, than feigning a retiring movement in the direction of Pondi- chery, he divided his army into two columns. Placing himself at the head of one, he changed its direction during the night, crossed the Palar, and moved rapidly upon Kanchipiiram. Without attempting the pagoda, he plundered the town, captured 2,000 bullocks and other stores, and rejoining the other column, which had moved to support him, marched the next day to Tripatiir. Having by this movement drawn Colonel Coote and a portion of his army to Kanchipiiram, and obtained supplies for his men, he set out on the 14th at the head of 600 Europeans and some native troops to re- LALLY ATTEMPTS WANDIWASH. 561 cover Wcindiwash, leaving the bulk of the army under chap. Bussy at Inpatiir. The fort of AVandiwash was surrounded by the town ^^q of the same name, and this was protected by a wall flanked by small towers, and bordered by a hedge, a great part of it being further protected by a ditch. It was Lally's plan to surprise and gain the town, then, under cover of the narrow streets, to plant a battery within a short distance of the fort, so that it might be breached and carried before the English, whom he had lured off to Kanchipiiram could come up. It was a plan, bold, well-considered, and feasible, but it required in its execution the utmost promptitude and daring. These qualities, it will be seen, were not exhibited. On the night of the 12th he divided his troops into two columns, one under M. de Genlis to make a false attack, whilst he should make a real one. But de Genlis's party, consisting mostly of sailors, having been seized with a panic, fell back upon the other column, the soldiers of which, mistaking them for enemies, fired into them. The night attack thus failed. Its failure, however, only made Lally more furious. " Since," he said, " they had failed in the night, he would teach them to carry it by day." Re-placing de Genlis by de Verdiere, he ordered the same dispositions as on the previous evening. One party he despatched close to the wall, and made them lie on their faces, whilst Colonels de Crillon and de Poete ran in front to fathom the water in the ditch. The lire, however, was so hot, that the men of the column hesitated to follow them, until Lally, who came up at the moment, waving his sword, and telling them that now was the time to show their good will towards him, dashed forward into the ditch. His soldiers fol- lowed him and carried the town. Now was the time for despatch. To establish a bat- tery en barbette, and to open a fire as soon as it should be constructed — this was Lally's design. But his chief 00 2 564 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, engineer, M. DuiTe, insisted on proceeding as if he had been engaged in a regular siege. " The soldiers," wrote 176Q Lally, '*said openly, that it seemed as though they were about to attack Luxemburg." It resulted from these methodical tactics, that four days were wasted in the construction of batteries ; two more in rectifying its defects ; on the seventh day, the English appeared advancing to the relief of the place. The great blow, well contrived, having thus failed in consequence of the absence of the two qualities essen- tial to its success, there but remained now to Lally the chances of a battle. By the arrival of Bussy, who joined him on the evening of the 20th, he was able, after leaving 150 Europeans and 800 sipahis in the batteries, to bring into the field 1,350 European infantry, about 200 of whom were sailors, and 150 cavalry. He had besides about 1,800 sipahis, and 2,000 Maratha cavalry ; but of the former, all but 300 refused to be led into the field, whilst but 60 of the Marathas were present, the remainder being engaged in foraging for the army. The force led by Colonel Coote, on the other hand, consisted of 1,900 Europeans, of whom 80 only were cavalry, and 3,350 natives.* On hear- ing from the Maratha scouts that the English Avere approaching, Lally hastened to draw up his men in a single line. His left, thrown forward, resting on a tank, and, supported by an intrenchment on the other side of it, formed an obtuse angle with his line, and commanded the ground over Avhich the enemy must pass. This intrenchment was manned by the sailors and armed with a couple of guns. His centre rested on nothing, but about 400 yards in its rear were two defiles, protected by a dyke, and guarded by fifty men and two guns. These fifty men were drawn up in front of the head of the defiles, so as to have the appearance * The number of the French here reports: that of the English has been given has been adopted from Lally's taken from Orme. BATTLE OF WAXDHVASII. 565 of a reserve destined to support the first line. Between chap. the intervals of the regiments were posted the guns, ^'' sixteen in number. The cavalry were on the right. 1700. Lally himself commanded in the centre, and Bussy on the left. Meanwhile Coote, who by a series of able manoeuvres had obtained a position which enabled him to force an action, no sooner beheld the disposition made by the French than he drew up his men in order of battle and advanced. He himself led the first line, consistinsf of his own regiment and a battalion of sipahis ; the two Company's regiments came next, Colonel Draper's regi- ment on the left. As he approached the French, to whose position his own was oblique, the guns from the intrenchment near the tank opened upon him, and Lally, thinking he noticed some confusion in the Eng- lish left, in consequence of this fire, deemed the moment opportune to charge with his cavalry. He galloped up, therefore, to the [right of the line, and placing himself at the head of his horse, gave the order to charge. Not a man, however, stirred. Attributing this to the ill-feel- ing of the commanding officer, Lally displaced him on the spot, and ordered the second in command, M. d'Aumont, to follow him. But d'Aumont having likewise refused, Lally placed him under arrest, and addressing himself to the men in a body, ordered them to charge. M, d'Heguerty with the left squadron at once advanced, and Cornet Bonnessay calling out that it would be shameful thus to abandon their general, the others fol- lowed. Lally, having thus induced them to move, made a detour so as to sweep down on the left flank of the English force. He had already arrived within 100 yards of it, driving the English horse before him, when Draper, whom the delay caused by the refusal of the French cavalry to charge had warned of the danger, brought up two pieces of cannon loaded with grape, and opened them on the French horse. The fire was so well )G6 THE LiVST STRUGGLE FOR EMriRE. CHAP, directed, that about lifteen men in the front lino were XII • ___^__^ disabled, and, althougli had the French persisted, the 1700. English would not have had time to reload, the effect was to cause a panic amongst them. They, therefore, fled, leaving their leader alone. Lally, thus deserted, galloped towards the infantry in the centre, upon which the English guns in the other part of their line had already opened. He found them eager for an advance. Placing himself at their head, he formed them in column and marched against the English line. Re- gardless of the fire wdiich thinned its rank as it ad- vanced, the French column charged, and by its superior weight broke that part of the English line which it attacked. The unbroken part of the English line, how- ever, immediately formed up on its flank, and threw the column into disorder. The men on both sides becoming then mingled together, a hand-to-hand contest ensued, which was yet undecided, when a fatal occurrence on the left of the French line determined the fate of the day. The extreme left of the French constituted the poi7it d'appui of Lally's position. It rested, as we have said, on a tank, in front of which and forming an obtuse angle with his line, was an intrenchment, from which two pieces of cannon played on the advancing English. So long as Lally held this firmly, the occurrences in the other part of the line were of secondary importance, for the English, even if successful, could not follow up an advance without exposing their flank. But it happened, unfortunately for him, that whilst his centre was en- gaged in desperate conflict with the English centre, a shot from the artillery on the enemy's right blew up a tumbril in the intrenchment, killing the Chevalier de Poete, and placing eighty men hors de combat. JSTor was this the extent of the damage it occasioned ; for such was the panic caused by the explosion, that the sailors ran out of the intrenchment, abandoning the THE FRENCH DEFEATED AT WANDIWASII. 567 guns, and not stopping till they had taken retnge be- chap. hind the right. Coote, noticing this, ordered Brereton '^' to carry the intrenchment. But, before he could reach ui^ju it, Bussy, who commanded on the French left, hastily collected some fifty or sixty men of Lally's regiment, and led them into the intrenchment. They reached it just in time to fire a volley at the advancing English, which mortally wounded Brereton, but did not stop his men, who, coming on with a rush, carried the post. Whilst the key of the French position was thus carried, the English left, freed from the hostile cavalry, had marched to the aid of its centre and fallen on the right of the Lorraine brigade. This body, attacked in front and on both flanks, noticed the loss on the left of the position, and fell back in disorder, not, however, till it had lost its commandant and many officers, and had covered itself with glory. Bussy, meanwhile, after the loss of the intrenchment, had brought up the Lally bri- gade to recover it, and if possible to restore the battle. But whilst leading on his men to a bayonet charge, his horse was shot, and he, falling to the ground, was taken prisoner. The brigade having thus lost its leader, opposed in front by a superior force, whose artillery then played upon it, threatened also on its right flank by the victorious centre and left of the enemy, fell back in its turn, and abandoned the field. At this conjunc- ture, the cavalry, recovered from its panic, advanced to the front, and interposing itself between the retiring infantry and the advancing English, effectually put a stop to pursuit. The French were thus enabled to rally at a distance of less than a mile from the field of battle, and to carry ofl" also the party they had left before the fort of Wandiwash. Such was the battle of Wandiwash — a battle which, though the numbers on each side were comparatively small, must yet be regarded as a decisive battle, for it dealt a fatal and decisive blow to French domination in 568 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP. India. It sliattered to the ground the mighty fabric ' ■ which Martin, Dumas, and Dupleix had contributed to 1760. erect ; it dissipated all the hopes of Lally ; it sealed the fate of Pondichery. By it, the superiority in the field, which during that war had rested mainly with the French in the Karnatik, was transferred entirely to the English. It was the proximate cause why Lally, who had himself acted as besieger before Madras, should, in liis turn, suffer the misfortune of being himself besieged in Pondichery. The conduct of Lally in this action, the dispositions that he made, the fact of his fighting a battle at all, have been severely condemned by his enemies. The candid military critic is, however, bound to do him justice on all these points. His plan was the best he could have adopted. Drawing Coote by a skilful manoeuvre from the line of the Palar, he assaulted Wandiwash, took the town, and had he been well served, would have taken the fort also. Baffled in this, he determined to accept a battle on ground which he had reconnoitred and chosen. No doubt to deliver a battle, defeat in which must be ruin, is very dangerous policy. But with Lally it was unavoidable. He had not the means of attempting a war of manoeuvres. Straitened as were his resources, such a policy must have resulted in a retreat to Pondichery to be followed by a siege there. This result being unavoidable, he was surely right in attempting to ward it off by a direct blow. Then, again, as to his conduct in the action. He, at least, is not to be blamed for the behaviour of his cavalry. Had they followed him, he would, he says, have thrown the left of the English force into disorder so great that an advance of the infantry must have changed it into an overthrow. He is not to be blamed, for, he could not have foreseen, the accident in the in- trenchment which caused its evacuation, and lost him DIFFICULT POSITION OF LALLY. 569 the battle. His dispositions were good. The intrench- ohap. ment served as the pivot whereon to move his army ; ^ ' had that been held, he could not have been beaten, nco Accidents not very dissimilar have before this decided the fate of greater battles, without that prejudice and passion have fixed the blame on the commander. The remainder of the campaign may be told in a few words. The next day Lally fell back to Chitapet, taking with him all his wounded ; thence, sending the Marathas and native troops to Arkat, he retreated to Jinji, but as at that point the English were nearer than himself to Pondichery, he made a cross-march to Val- davur, fifteen miles from that city. In this position he was able to cover Pondichery, and to receive supplies from the south. He was fortunate in being able to do so much, for had the English only followed up their victory with vigour, they would have reached Pondi- chery before Lally, and that place, destitute of pro- visions and of troops, would probably have surrendered on the first summons. The English leader, however, preferred the slower method of reducing the subordinate places held by the French — a policy which the absence of d'Ache and the utter abandonment of Pondichery by the mother-country allowed him to carry out unmolested. In pursuance of this resolution, Coote carried Chitapet on January 28 and Arkat on the 9th of the following month. Tiraeri, Devikota, Trinomali, and Alamparva fell about the same time ; Karikal surrendered on April 5 ; on the 1 5th, Lally was constrained to retreat from Valdavur to witliin the hedge that bounded Pondichery ; and on the 20th, Chelambram, and a few days later Giidalur — the last important place except Thiagar and Jinji held by the French in the Karnatik — fell into the hands of the English. It is not to be supposed that all these places were lightly given up. Some of them, indeed, Lally would have done well to evacuate, so as to carry with him the garrisons ; but Karikal, so long 570 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAT, in the possession of the French, their second seaport, '^^^' he made a great effort to preserve.* But what could l~^Q he do ] He found the enemies he met with inside the walls of Pondichery worse than those he had to combat without ; he found self-interest everywhere, patriotism nowhere. The inhabitants refused even to don the soldiers' uniform, though only for the purpose of making a show before the enemy. Sedition, cabals, and in- trigues — everyone striving to cast upon Lally the dis- credit of the inevitable ruin that awaited them — every- one thwarting his wishes, and secretly counteracting his orders — each man still bent on saving for himself what he could out of the wreck — this was the internal condition of Pondichery — these the men with respect to whom it might be said that an appeal to patriotism was an appeal to a feeling that, long deadened, had now ceased entirely to exist. "From this time," says Lally, " Pondichery, without money, without ships, and with- out even provisions, might be given up for lost." Yet though he could not be blind to the impending result, Lally himself used every effort to avert the catastrophe. He treated with the famous Haidar Ali, then com- mander of the Maisur armies, for the services of 10,000 men, one half of them horse, transferring at once to Haidar the fortress of Thiagar, and promising him, in case of a favourable issue of the war, to make over to him Trichinapalli, Madura, Tinivelli, and all the places he might conquer in the Kamatik. In pursuance of this agreement, Makhdum Ali arrived at Thiagar on June 4, and at Pondichery a few days later. The in- trigues of the councillors rendered this treaty partially abortive, but this did not prevent Makhdum Ali from attacking, on July 18, a corps of 180 English infantry, * The commandant at Karikal was poor and faint a resistance, that he M. Renault de St. Germain, the same was brought to trial, and sentenced who had surrendered Chandranagar to be cashiered. Lally says he de- to Clive. At Karikal he made so served death. LALLY DIKS TIArxD. 571 50 hussars, aud nearly 8,(JUU native troops, iiiHictiiij^- <-^fAi'. upon them a severe defeat, and forcing the survivors to \- , . take refuge in Trivadi.* But it was not alone by such Ktjo. attempts at native alliances that Lally endeavoured to turn the tide of misfortune setting in so strongly against him. Weak as he was in European infantry, he de- termined to make one bold stroke to rid himself of the besieging enemy. To understand the plan he adopted it will be necessary to state that, after the retirement of the French within the bound-hedge which forms the limits of Pondichery, the English had taken up a posi- tion, their right resting on the fort of Villaniir, and their left at the base of the hill of Perimbe, the space between covering an extent of about a mile and a half. In front of Perimbe they had, moreover, thrown up a redoubt, armed with three pieces of cannon, whilst the centre was covered by a house in a garden su_iOunded by a hedge, connected by a tree-avenue with the town. The plan which Lally arranged, and which was so skil- fully devised as to deserve success, provided that, whilst his right column should surprise the redoubt in front of Perimbe, and the centre the hedge-bound house, the left, which was stationed on the other side of the river Ariakupum, should cross that river, and fall upon the rear of the enemy, who, it was calculated, Avould be thrown into utter confusion by the diversity of the attacks. To guard against mistakes, Lally the day previous accompanied the commander of the left column, M. d'Arambure, over the ground he was to take, indi- cating the point at which he was to cross the river, and the exact direction he was then to pursue. But a fatality seemed to attend all the operations of ^^P- ^^' Lally. The surprise indeed was complete — for having given no intimation of the intended movement to his councillors they were unable to betray him : the right assault completely succeeded, the redoubt being quickly * Wiiiis ; Oruie, 572 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, carried ; the centre attack was desperately contested . The French never fought better. Colonel Coote, on 1760. his side, seeing the importance of the place, brought up ills best troops to defend it. But notwithstanding all his efforts, the French, though in the regiment of Lally alone they had lost eight sergeants besides several privates, still persisted, hoping to hear every minute the sounds of the assault on the enemy's rear. Just as these hopes were at their highest, d'Arambure and his men appeared, not in ths rear of the enemy, but between the assaulting columns and the town ! This officer, who on other occasions had behaved so well, would appear to have lost his head ; he crossed the river at a far lower point than had been poined out to him, and brought his men to the attack in exactly the opposite direction to that indicated by Lally. By this false move, he rendered impossible a success which, if attained, would have deferred, if it had not altogether prevented, the catastrophe that was to follow. The end was now near at hand. On September 16, Monson, who had succeeded Coote in the command of the English force, delivered an assault on the Ulgaral post, and compelled the French to quit the defence of the bound-hedge, and to retire under the walls of the place. This attack, however, cost the English many men, and Monson was so severely wounded, that Colonel Coote returned to take up his command. Notwith- standing this movement, which shut out all supplies from Pondichery, Lally determined to continue the defence, and prohibited all mention of surrender. Every measure that could be adopted to procure sustenance for the troops was taken ; contributions were levied ; grain was dug out of places where it had been buried for concealment; taxes were imposed;* the idle sections of the native inhabitants were turned adrift : no pre- * From the operation of these lat- town were specially exenrpted by the ter the European inhabitants of the Council, de Leyrit presiding. THE GREAT STORM OFF PONDICHERY. 573 caution in fact was neglected to prolong the defence of chap. the town till the arrival of d'Ache, whose squadron was ^^^" even then daily expected. ^^g^^ But, on December 24, there remained in the maga- zines but eight days' full rations for the soldiers. It had become necessary to reconsider the position. Under these circumstances, Lally, who for the three weeks preceding had been confined to his bed by sickness, directed the assembly of a mixed council to take into consideration the terms which should be offered to the English. The members of the party opposed to Lally, unwilling to take upon themselves any share in the re- sponsibility of a capitulation, evaded this order. But an event occurred which rendered their evasion of the less consequence. On the 31st the roadstead of Pondi- chery was visited by one of those storms not uncommon at that season on the Koromandel coast. The effect of this on the English fleet was most disastrous. Three large ships were driven on shore two miles below Pondi- chery ; three others, having on board 1,100 Europeans, foundered ; all the remainder were severely injured. Nor did the siege works escape. All the batteries and redoubts raised by the besiegers were destroyed. Soldiers, unable to carry their muskets, had thrown them away in despair ; all the ammunition, except that in store, was rendered useless ; every tent had been blown down ; so great was the confusion that had a sortie been made by the garrison, not a hundred men could have been collected to resist it. The question of a sortie was indeed mooted in Pondichery, and though such a move- ment would, owing to the still raging wind and the in- undation caused by the storm, have been attended with great difficulties, it ought certainly, even as a last despairing blow, to have been attempted. But who was there to organise such a movement ? Lally lay helpless in his bed ; his orders canvassed and cavilled at rather than obeyed. With the enemy at their gates, 574 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. *^xn^" ^^^^ citizens of Poiidichery thought more of combining - to thwart the general they hated, than of effectually 1760. opposing the foe, who threatened them with destruction. No sortie, therefore, was made. 1761. Nevertheless, the storm had at least the effect of re- opening the door of hope to Lally and the garrison. If d'Achc or, failing d'Ache, if even five French ships were to arrive, the damaged English fleet could be des- troyed. With the destruction of that fleet, deliverance, and with it the command of the seas for at least twelve months could be obtained.* It became, therefore, an object with Lally to provide subsistence for his men for another fortnight longer. To effect this, he sent to the Jesuit, Lavaur, and informed him of his intention to search his convent for grain, which he had reason to believe was stored there. The reply to this was an agreement on the part of Lavaur to subsist the garrison till January 13. How terribly each day passed, how the expectation of the arrival of d'Ache, eager and stimulating to action at the outset, became gradually more and more faint, till it finally disappeared, can be better imagined than de- scribed. The English, on their part, were not idle. One week after the storm they had nine ships in the road- stead ready for action, and they had erected new batteries in the place of those that had been destroyed. Further defence was then impossible. The French had but one day's supply of food remaining. On January 14. therefore, Lally summoned a council of war, to debate regarding the terms of surrender ; whilst de • There is no stronger proof of tlie instantly. Thus, on the strength of incapacity of the Government of a mere rumour, the French Ministry Louis XV., tlian that offered by the did not hesitate deliberately to sacri- idleness of d'Ache at this conjunc- lice India. They withheld the fleet ture. On the mere rumour that the from the point threatened by an army English Government were debating and ships of war, to keep it in the a plan for an attack upon Bourbon, quarter that was menaced only by the Cabinet of Versailles sent orders report —Memoirs nf Count Lally; to d'Ache not to leave that island, or Voltaire's Fragments. fchould lie have left it, to return to it SURRENDER UF PUNDICHERY. 575 Leyrit, though mvited to that council, assembled in chap. opposition the Council of Pondichery to draw up ^^^' articles of capitulation for the inhabitants. j^^. On the following day, the 15th, a deputation from Pondichery was sent to the English camp. The terms proposed by Lally were virtually terms of unconditional surrender, for although he declined to give up the town, as not having authority to do so, and because arrange- ments between the two Crowns placed Pondichery, as he pretended, out of risk of capture, yet he declined further to defend it, and agreed to yield himself and his troops as prisoners of war, stipulating only for the proper treatment of the inhabitants, the religious hjuses, and for the safety of the mother and sister of Raju Sahib. In reply to these propositions. Colonel Coote, declining to discuss the question of the agreement between the two Crowns, offered the French commander terms identical with those offered by Admiral Watson to M. Renault at Chandranagar, and by Lally himself to the commandant of Fort St. David. These provided that the garrison and inhabitants should surrender, unconditionally, as prisoners of war. Coote would only promise, in addition, to give the family of Raju Sahib a safe escort to Madras, and to treat the garrison favourably. On the following morning the English troops entered the Villanur gate of the town, and in the e^'ening took possession of the fortifications. The scene immediately preceding that last act is thus described by the English historian of the war, himself a contemporary, and a mem- ber of the Madras Council. " In the afternoon," writes Mr. Orme, " the garrison drew up under arms on the parade before the citadel, the English troops facing them. Colonel Coote then reviewed the line, which, exclusive of commissioned officers, invalids, and others who had hid themselves, amounted to 1,100, all wearing the face of famine, fatigue, or disease. The grenadiers of Lally and Lorraine, once the ablest-bodied men in the army, 576 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, appeared the most impaired, having constantly put them- . " ' . selves forward to every service ; and it was recollected 1761 . that from their first landing, throughout all the services of the field, and all the distresses of the blockade, not a man of them had ever deserted to the English army. The victor soldier gave his sigh (which none but banditti could refuse) to this solemn contemplation of the fate of war, which might have been his own." The scenes that followed the surrender were little creditable to the Franco-Indian officials of Pondichery. When Lally, directed by the victorious General to pro- ceed under an escort of English soldiers to Madras, was leaving the town in a palanquin, he was insulted by a mob of some eighty of the principal adherents of de Leyrit, two of them members of his Council. These ruffians, who had openly avowed their wish to despatch him, were only prevented from executing their design by the presence of the escort. But when, two minutes later, Dubois, the intendant of the French General, and who had in his possession some most valuable documents, proving the corruption that had reigned within the town, attempted to follow his chief, he was assailed with the most furious menaces. Dubois, who, though almost seventy years old and nearly blind, was a man of spirit, turned round to reply to these invectives, drawing his sword as he did so. He was immediately attacked by one Defer, and run through the body. His papers were at once secured by the conspirators. Well might the French historian,* relating this incident — this crossing of the two French swords on the threshold of the city that had been lost to France by French dissensions — forcibly describe it as " a fit image and striking resume of the history of the last three years of the French in India." We may be pardoned if for a few short sentences we leave the direct thread of our history to follow Lally to his last end. Sent from Madras to England, he found * M. Xavier Raymond. TREATMENT OF LALLY. 577 on arrival there, that the hatred aud fury with which he chap. had been regarded in India had followed him to France. . Allowed by the English Government to proceed to Paris 1761. on his parole, he attempted to bring home against de Leyrit and his Councillors the charges with which he had threatened them in India. This movement on his part had the effect of uniting against him all the different parties criminated by his statement. Bussy and d'Ache, de Leyrit and Moracin, Father Lavaur and the Councillors of Pondichery — all made common cause against him. So great was the effect of the converging assertions of these different partisans, that even the Duke of Choiseul, one of the most powerful noblemen in France, advised Lally to seek safety in flight. But he, conscious of innocence, preferred to meet all the charges against him before the tribunals of his country. The proceedings were yet lan- guishing, when, in 1763, Father Lavaur died. This intriguing monk, to make sure of his own position, had written two memoirs of the events that had happened at Pondichery, the one favourable, the other inveterately hostile, to Lally. His papers, however, having fallen into the hands of the promoters of the accusation against the General, the favourable memoir was suppressed, and the other given to the world.* Strange as it may seem in the present day, this memoir was actually received by the Parlement of Paris as evidence against Lally, and was mainly decisive of his fate. Refused all legal aid by his judges, he was, after three years of lingering agony — fit sequel to his struggles in India — convicted, by a majority, of having betrayed the interests of the King aud of the Company, and sentenced to be beheaded. A request, made by Marshal de Soubise " in the name of the Army," for commutation of the sentence, was coldly refused, and on May 9, 1766, transferred from his prison to a dung- cart, gagged and guarded, Lally was led forth to the scaffold — a striking example of the fate which, in the * Voltaire : Orme. PP 578 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP. France of Louis XV., awaited those who, though they ^ ' ■ had given all their energies to their country,* and whose 1761. faults were faults natural to humanity, had the misfortune to be unsuccessful. Revolutionary France annulled the sentence which the France of the Bourbons passed upon Lally, and restored his place in the annals of his country. Whilst there are few, who, whilst they regret a fate so untimely and so undeserved, do not recognise the justice of the reversal of the sentence pronounced upon Lally, none care to inquire after those whose combined in- capacity, corruption, and malevolence forged the bolt by which he was struck down. No memoir records the last hours of the palsied de Leyrit, or of the irresolute, mindless d'Ache. Of Bussy — Bussy who promised so well, whose performances up to a certain point were so splendid — yet who deserted Dupleix in his misfortunes, and who joined in the cabal against Lally — of Bussy it is only known that, after living luxuriously f on the enormous wealth he had acquired in India, he returned twenty years later, at the head of a fine army, to the Karnatik, there to lose his reputation and to die ! The very Company which had connived at his fate — which had shown itself on every occasion timorous, narrow-minded, and unjust — which had ruined and per- secuted to death the most illustrious of the proconsuls it had sent out to India — the Company did not long survive the execution of Lally. It died in 1769 ! * "No one," wi'ote Colonel Coote fence in a place where he was held in after the capture, "has a higher universal detestation.'' opinion of Lally than myself. He t Not only Bussy, but de Leyrit has fought against obstacles which I and all the Councillors of Pondichery, believed invincible, and he has con- took home with them large fortunes, quered them. There is not another Even that arch-intriguer, the Jesuit man in all India, who coidd have Lavaur, carried off with him 1,250,000 kept on foot for the same length of francs, besides diamonds and bills of time an army without pay, and re- exchange to a large amount. Yet ceiving no assistance from any quar- to such an extent did he carry his ter." duplicity, that he pretended poverty Another English officer wrote at and actually petitioned to the Go- th e time from Madras : — "It is a con- vernment for a small pension for his vincing proof of his abilities, the subsistence. — Voltaire, Orme. managing so long and vigorous a de- FINAL COLLAPSE OF THE FRENCH. 579 The fall of Pondichery was the natural precursor of ^^n^" the capture of the other places yet remaining to the ^ French in Southern India. On February 4, Thiagar 17G1. surrendered to Major Preston, and on the 13th, Mahe to Major Munro. Jinji presented greater difficulties than either of those places to an attacking force, but on April 5, the garrison, seeing the helplessness of its con- dition, surrendered on favourable terms to Captain Stephen Smith. Of the French troops in the service of the Company, 300 who were on detached duty at the time of the siege, under MM. Alain and Hugel, took service with Haidar Ali ; 100 were embodied in the English army, in which, liowever, they showed them- selves as mutinously disposed as when commanded by their own countrymen ; the remainder became prisoners of war. We have now brought to a conclusion the history of that stirring episode, adorned with so many brilliant names, and boasting of some of the most original and striking achievements ever performed on Eastern soil. Beginning with small means, then suddenly astonishing the world by its dazzling promise, the venture of the French in India was destined to end thus early, in humiliation and failure. It was the sad fate of France, in this, the most unfortunate of her wars, to be dis- graced on the Continent, and to lose simultaneously her possessions in the East and in the West. First, in en- deavouring to save Canada, she lost the best chance she ever had of conquering Southern India, for it cannot be doubted, but that the troops, the ships, and the money, which the French Government diverted at the last moment from Lally's expedition, would have sufficed to make him victorious everywhere on the Koromandel coast, might possibly even have enabled him to carry out his meditated designs upon Bengal. The diversion, whilst it caused the failure of the blow struck at English India, did not save Canada. After Canada FP 2 580 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, had fallen, sound policy would have dictated the • , strengthening of Lally's hands in the Karnatik, but 17G1. the troops and the money which might still have enabled him to carry out his original designs, were frittered upon the armies of the nominees of Madame de Pompadour — the Soubises, the Richelieus, the Con- tades, and the Broglios, with their legions of opera- dancers and hair-dressers.* To keep up those costly armies — which nevertheless were barely able to make head against a lieutenant of the King of Prussia — and their more costly contingents, French India was left without money sufficient to carry on a campaign, with- out reinforcements, without even the few ships that might have sufficed to save her. However much, then, the candid Frenchman of the present day may lament the corruption that was rampant amongst the officials of Pondichery — however he may mourn over the want of unanimity in her Council, and the intrigues of her Councillors — however much he may condemn the absence of patriotic devotion that contributed to her fall — he will still be forced to lay the chief blame at the door of France, on the shoulders of the sensual monarch under whose rule the resources of the king- dom were so lavishly wasted and misdirected. Whilst English India received plentiful supplies of men and ships in abundance, and thought herself hardly-used, because, in the last year of the war, she did not also receive her annual supply of money, French India, after the arrival of Lally's troops, received from the mother-country scarcely more than two millions of francs ! There could be but one result to such a mode of supporting a colony, and that result appeared on January 16, 1761. We do not hesitate thus to fix the date of the final * The reader is referred to Carlyle's lieu, given in his Frederick the graphic description of the followers Great. of tne armies of Soubise and Riche- CAUSES OF THE FAILURE OF THE FRENCH. 581 failure to establish a French Empire in India, because chap. up to the moment of the actual capitulation, it was ._^"' always possible that the fall of Pondichery might be ^ei. delayed, and a chance afforded to the French of again asserting their supremacy. United counsels and ener- getic action so late even as January 1, 1761, might have caused the annihilation of the besieging army ; the arrival of d'Ache up to the 6th would have forced the English to raise the siege, and might even have insured the destruction of their fleet. But the events of January 16 made French supremacy in the Karnatik for ever impossible. It is true that the Peace of Paris restored to France, in 1763, Pondichery and her other dependencies in Southern India ; but they were restored dismantled and defenceless, with their trade annihilated, with their influence gone, with the curse of defeat and failure stamped upon their habitations ; they were restored at a time when England, using well the precious moments, had rooted herself firmly in the soil. The difl'erence in the power and position of the rival settlements was shown clearly in 1778, when on the breaking out of war between France and England, Pon- dichery was at once invested and captured by a British army.* It is true, indeed that during that war, the French made a desperate efl'ort to profit by the misfor- tunes of England in America, by sending out 3,000 men under Bussy and a fleet under Suffren to assist Haidar Ali, then alone almost a match for the few English in Madras. But whilst, on sea, the splendid achievements of the greatest of French admirals covered with a halo of glory this last effort on the part of France to expel the English from the Kamatik, on land the campaign was productive of little but disaster.^ * Pondichery was restored to and 1815. France by the Peace of 1783, cap- t For an accoTint of this war the tured again in 1793, restored by the reader is referred to the supplemen- Peace of Amiens, captured again in tary work of the author, entitled 1803, and finally restored in 1814 "Final French Struggles in India." 682 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOB EMPIRE. CHAP. Thenceforth the attempt was renounced, and partisans . _' ' , and adventurers represented France at the courts of 17t)l, native princes, and endeavoured, though in vain, to accomplish by their means the result, which at the period we have described, had been indeed possible, but which, after January 16, 1761, was for ever illusory and hopeless. But was there not, it may be asked, something due to the different characters of the rival nations, that con- tributed to a result so disastrous to France ? Much, very much, in our opinion. England, doubtless, in the greater wealth of her East India Company, in the greater influence of its Directors with the government, and in her free parliamentary system, possessed advan- tages which were denied to France. We believe that the fact that the Directors of the East India Company were often members of parliament, and as such pos- sessed considerable influence with the Ministry of the day, tended not a little to that prompt action of the latter, to that despatch of royal fleets to defend the Company's possessions, which acted so favourably for English interests. Under the despotic system of France such action was but seldom taken ; the Com- pany was, except in rare instances, left to defend its possessions with its own ships alone. Whilst England, working in unison with its East India Company, saw clearly that imperial interests required her to use im- perial means to defend the settlements of the Company, the France of Louis XV., throughout the epoch of which we have written, but once raised herself to the height of regarding India from an imperial point of view, and then, as we have seen, displayed a want of a resolute and decided policy, which rendered success im- possible. But, though this circumstance mainly caused the fall of French India, there were other circumstances dependent on the character of the agents on the spot, DIVERSE CHAEACTER OF THE TWO NATIONS. 583 that contributed much to the same result. We confess chap. that before we had studied the public documents which . form the basis of this history, we could not understand hgi. how it was that characters so brilliant, so energetic, so enterprising, as Dupleix, La Bourdonnais, Bussy, and Lally, should have failed, opposed as they were by mep, who, with the exception of Clive and Lawrence, must be regarded as inferior to them in capacity. But the solution of the question becomes after examination easy. Those four French names shine out as bright lights among a crowd of flickering satellites. It is they, or rather — for he stands out far above the others — it is Dupleix, the lustre of whose great name reflects the struggles of his countrymen for empire in the East. He did it all. He was unsupported except by Bussy. He it was who caused the fame of the French nation to re- sound in the palaces of Delhi, who carved out a policy which his rivals seized and followed. He did not suc- ceed, because he was not properly supported at home, because he was alone amongst his countrymen in Lidia. Those contests for the possession of Trichinapalli showed that, even under the most favourable circum- stances, his soldiers would not win battles. He could do everything but imbue them with his own spirit. He was in fact alone — in everything supreme, except as a soldier in a field. If we examine, on the other hand, the conduct of the English, we shall see numberless instances of the per- tinacious character of her people. Not counting Clive, who was but for a limited period on the scene, there was not a man in the English settlements equal in genius to Dupleix. But, again, there were many, very many among them, far superior to any of the subor- dinates of Dupleix, Bussy alone excepted. The daring of Lawrence, the dogged pertinacity of Saunders and his Council, the vigour and ability of Calliaud, of Forde, 684 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. CHAP, of Joseph Smith, of Dalton, and of many others, stand ^ ■ out in striking contrast to the feebleness, the incapacity, 1761. the indecision, of the Laws, the d'Auteuils, the Bren- niers, the Maissins, and others whom Dupleix was forced to employ. Never was England better served than during that struggle. Never was there more apparent, alike amongst her civil and military agents, that patriotic devotion to duty, which ought to be the highest aim of every servant of his country. In the French settlement this feeling burned far less brightly. The efforts of the greatest amongst her leaders were marred and thwarted by the bickerings and jealousies of subordinates. We see La Bourdonnais sacrificing the best interests of France to his greed for money and to his jealousy of Dupleix ; Godeheu, owing to the last named feeling, undoing the brilliant work of his predecessor ; Maissin refusing to annihilate the English at Trichinapalli ; de Leyrit and his Council thwarting Lally ; the very Coun- cillors scrambling for illegal gains, and dabbling in peculation ; those energies which should have been united against a common enemy employed to ruin one another. Under such circumstances the result could not have been long deferred. Sooner or later it was inevitable. But for one man the stake for which the two countries played would never have been so great. It was Dupleix who made French India, it was France who lost it. If, in the present day, there exist amongst her citizens regrets at the loss of an Empire so vast, so powerful, so important, inhabited by a people who were civilised when we were naked savages, and who possess so many claims to the sympathy and attachment of every intelligent European, it will be impossible for France herself — however much she may condemn the action of her Government of those days, and lament the infatua- tion and misconduct of her countrymen — to suppress a glow of pride at the recollection that it was a child of THE CREDIT DUE TO DUPLEIX. 585 her soil who dared first to aspire to that great dominion, chap. and that by means of the impulse which he gave the ^^^ inhabitants of Hindustan have become permanently 17^2^ united to their long-parted kinsmen — the members of the great family of Europe. THE END. APPENDIX A. PKOOFS OF THE BRIBING OF LA BOURDONNAIS. I. In the first edition of this work I appended a note to the page referi'ing to the bribing of La Bourdonnais, which ran as follows : " It was charged against La Bourdonnais in his lifetime, that he had accepted a present from the English of 100,000 pagodas (about four lakhs of rupees) as the price of the ransom-treaty made with the English. " The charge was brought forward separately by M. Depr^mesnil and M. de Kerjean. The first said that he had heard M. Dupleix affirm that an Englishman had told him that 100,000 pagodas had been given to La Bourdonnais for the ransom. He added that he had done his best to ascertain the truth of the fact, but had been able to learn nothing. " The second, M. de Kerjean, asserted that he had heai'd a Jew, retired to Pondichery, affirm, that the English had given M. de La Bourdonnais 100,000 pagodas, as an acknowledgment of the good treat- ment they had received at his hands, and that he, the Jew, a.s his share of this payment, had been taxed at 7,000 pagodas, which amount he had not paid. " Le Bourdonnais's reply to these assertions, was, in substance, that they emanated from two men, one the nephew, the other the son-in-law, of Dupleix, that he had avoided the last farewell to the English- governor because he heard that he intended to offer him a present ; that had he received such a present, he would not have placed himself in the position of being obliged to restore it, by deferring the evacua- tion of Madras from October to January ; that it was not probable he would have been received with such distinction in London by two members of the Madras Council, if they had known as if it had been true they must have known, that the ransom had been the result of a bribe. " Here the matter dropped for a time, it being considered that the 588 APPENDIX A. charge had fallen through. It was revived, however, in 1772, by an English gentleman, Mr. Grose, who wrote an account of his voyage to, and residence in, the East Indies. He states as follows : — ' The gov- ernor and Council settled the price of the ransom with the French commodore (La Bourdonnais) at 1,100,000 pagodas, or £421,666 sterling, besides a very valuable present to the commodore, who was willing to evactuite his conquest upon these terms, and leave the English in full possession of their Presidency.' " Grose's " East Indies," vol 2, p. 29. " In ' Mill's India,' 6th edition, vol. 3, pp. 37, 38, we have evidence to the same efiect. Professor H. H. Wilson aflSrms that ' a letter to a proprietor of East India Stock, published in 1850, by a person who was evidently concerned in the Government of Madras at the time, describes discussions which took place at home, in regard to the payment of certain bonds given by the Government of Madras to raise money to the extent of 100,000 pagodas, which, it is intimated, were presented to the French commander as the price of his moderation.' But there exists proof of the fact, far more clear and positive. Papers, now in the India House (Law case. No. 31, dated March 3, 1752), show that the Directors of that day were convinced, on the testimony of Madras members of the Council, that La Bourdonnais was promised by bond, 100,000 pagodas (about £40,000) over and above the 1,100,000 pagodas stipulated in the bond given him for public use, in consideration of restoring Madras to the EngUsh. This, we think, is conclusive. " The evidence of this Law Case was first made known to the writer by Sir Walter Morgan, Chief Justice of the High Court of Agra. The nature of its contents was subsequently verified on the spot by his friend. Professor Fitz-Edward Hall, librarian of the India House." II. For twenty-three years, so far as I am aware, this note remained un- noticed. Its conclusions were accepted by all the reviewers, even in France, in which country a translation of the work was published in 1871. I had heard that Sir George Birdwood had not accepted my conclusions, and had threatened to publish a refutation of them, but I had seen nothing of his actually published on the subject until at the end of 1891 I stumbled upon a work of his entitled. Report of the old Records of the India Office, with supplementary note and appendices, second rejyrint, 1891. In one of the notes to that work I read a long statement challenging the conclusions I had arrived at twenty-three years before. The note seemed to me to be the work of a man who had bent all his energies to make a bad cause appear a good one. Apart from its facts, every one of which told against the writer, APPENDIX A. 589 it indulged mainly in conjecture, and went so far as to lecture me for unearthing a story which told against the fame of La Bourdonnais. That I may not be accused of exaggeration I append Sir George Bird- wood's note in full detail. In the next section of this appendix I shall submit it to a cruical examination. The note (page 242 of Sir George Birdwood's book) runs as follows : — " The subject of La Bourdonnais's (Bernard Francois Mah4 de la Bourdonnais, b, at St. Malo, 1699) bribery has always had an interest for minds given to searching out mean and sordid causes for the great results of history. Having carefully read through the * Law Case, No. 31, of 3rd March, 1752,' the only original document in this country, I believe, in the matter, and cited by Colonel Malleson, History of the French in India, page 157, note, I have been led to the opinion that it affords no conclusive evidence of the truth of the charge. The capture of Madras by La Bourdonnais, its abortive ransom by Governor Morse and his Council which, according to the charge against him La Bour- donnais was induced to accept by a bribe of 100,000 pagodas (£40,000), and the annexation of the town by Dupleix, and its final restoration to the English, formed an unconsidered episode of the war of the Austrian Succession, 1744-1748. That war at once brought England and France into conflict ; and the first hostile act of each country was to fit out a naval expedition for the destruction of the other's mercantile settle- ments in the Indian Ocean. " The English fleet was the fii'st to arrive in the Bay of Bengal in 1745, when Dupleix, the Governor of Pondichery, in great alarm sent a large present to the Nawab of the Carnatic, who replied, as desired, by forbidding the English, who up to that time were his tributaries, from engaging in hostilities within any part of his dominions. The English fleet in consequence left the ' Bay and Coast,' in 1746. They had no sooner disappeared than La Bourdonnais with the squadron he had collected together with extraordinary energy from the Isles of Franco and Boui'bon, entered it ; and now Morse, the Governor of Madras, 1744-1749, in his turn applied to the Nawab of the Carnatic to restrain the French, as he had previously restrained the English, from hostil- ities, but, as Morse neglected to send a present with his application, it was left without an answer. In consequence, on 18th August, 1746,* (as this interesting Law Case, in correction and amplification of the * Note by Colonel Malleson. The history. This corresponds to the date fleet on this occasion was commanded, quoted by Sir G. Birdwood, 18 August, not by La Bourdonnais, but by M. de la old style. The new style was adopted Portbarr§. The dale was August 29th, in England in 1751, new style, which I have followed in my 590 APPENDIX A. vague statements of our standing histories, inform us) La Bour- donnais, with eight ships under his command, appeared before the town of Madras, and fired a few shots in the Fort St. Greoi'ge, and some broadsides into the Princess Mary, one of the English Company's ships then in the roads, and afterwards lay to in the offing, or cruised up and down the Coromandel coast, in sight of the town and people of Madras. On 3rd September, Morse and his Council heard that La Bourdonnais had landed his men somewhere down the coast, and was marching on Madras ; and the next day he opened his attack on the town. On the 10th of September, Morse and his Council, excepting Mr. Fowke, came to a resolution to capitulate, and treat for the ransom of the place; and for that purpose Mr. Monson who was next to Morse in Council, and Mr. Hallyburton, an English gentleman of Madras, who spoke French, were deputed to wait on ' Monsieur La Bourdonnais,' and settle terms with him. These, in brief, were that the town should pay 1,100,000 pagodas for its ransom ; and the charge of bribery and treason against La Bourdonnais is that he agreed to this ransom in consideration of a further sum of 100,000 pagodas, to be given to him for his own private use and gratification. Dupleix quashed the treaty and confiscated all the Company's property in Madras, and all private property, excepting only personal apparel and jewelry, and carried oft' the chief people of the place prisoners to Pondi- cherry, and annexed Madras (appointing Paradis Governor) to the French possessions on the Coromandel coast. "Had La Bourdonnais stood loyally by Dupleix at this conjuncture (after the example of our English oflicers in the early days of the Company's adventures in India) the future dominion of India would, as far as we can now judge, have passed away fiom us altogether, and ' the trade, navigation, and conquest of the Indies ' fallen into the hands of the French. But La Bourdonnais, in a huflf, set sail from Madras, 29th October, 1746, leaving Dupleix in the lurch ; thus throwing to the winds the greatest opportunity the French ever had of establishing their Empire in the East. Dupleix fully understood this ; and that La Bourdonnais did not, is the true secret of his strange conduct ; and not that he took a bribe ; or i^ he took it as a mere complimentary present (dusturi) that he was in the least influenced by it. " After this the operations of the French and English against each other dragged on in an ineffective manner for a year or two moi"e ; and on the conclusion of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, Madras was restored to the English Company. " On his return to France La Bourdonnais was at once thrown into the Bastille, on the charge of collusion with the English in the matter APPENDIX A. 591 of the ransom of Madras ; but after a trial extending over three years (1748-51), was fully acquitted and set free. He died broken-hearted in 1755. His acquittal by his own Government, which was inspired by the deepest resentment against him, is a strong fact in his favour ; and Colonel Malleson, a soldier as well as a historian, should at least have himself read the records of the case, not only in the India Office but in the French Admiralty, before reviving so scandalous a charge against one of the noblest ornaments of the French Navy. La Bour- donnais acted with the gravest indiscretion, and that sufficiently accounts for his strange, and in a political sense, culpable conduct. That he was a traitor is, for anyone who is acquainted with his charac- ter, an impossible assumption. He was a brave, ardent, and adventur- ous sailor, whose only idea, in fitting out his expedition fi'om Bourbon and Mauritius, was to harry the English trade in Indian waters, and exact war prizes. Dupleix, on the contrary, was a calculating, prescient statesman, with a constitutional contempt for fighting (which, he used to say, " confused his thoughts "), whose far-reaching policy was directed to the complete expulsion of the English from India, and the i-aising of a gi'eat French Empii-e on the foundations we had laid. From the moment, therefore, that these two men met they were in direct antipathy with each other, and in all these ti'ansactions at Madras in the autumn of 1746, La Bourdonnais's perverse part from the first was to withstand and disconcert Dupleix's political plans. He acted after the manner of all French leaders in India in the last century, and it is the commonplace moral of history that it was in this manner they lost India. "■ But to return to the evidence offered by Law Case, No. 31, of the 3rd March, 1752, Colonel Malleson merely refers to it without quot- ing it. I will now quote every material passage bearing on La Bourdonnais's alleged bribery and treason ; premising that the case arose fi'om the objection of the Court of Directors of the East India Company to meet the bonds on which the sum i-equired for the ransom of Madras was raised, on the ground that, in part at least, the bonds had been given, not to save the Company's property, but the private property of the Govei-nor and his Council. Morse and the rest, excepting Fowke, examined by the Court, were i-eally on their own defence, and it may be said that the only impartial evidence incriminating La Bourdonnais to the extent of his receiving a complimentary gratification (dusturi) is that of Fowke. '^ Folio 3. — Mr. Morse, late Governor of Fort St. George, in a letter to a Committee of the Coui't of Directors (18th January, 1748) .... says, ' I take this occasion to advise you, apart, that in that transaction (ransom of Madras), we were under the necessity for applying a further 592 APPENDIX A. sum besides that publicly stipulated by the articles (of ransom) which aflfair, as it requii'ed privacy, was by the Council referred to myself and Mr. Monson to be negotiated.' "Mr. Monson, in a letter to the Court of Directors (21st December, 1748) says : * I am to acquaint you that, in treating for the ransom of the place, we were soon given to understand that a further sum was necessary to be paid beside that to be mentioned in the public treaty. You will easily imagine from the nature of the thing that it required to be conducted with some degree of secrecy. There was, however, a necessity for acquainting the Council with it, though for form's sake and to preserve appearances with the person (we were) treating with, it was referred to Mr. Morse and myself to settle the matter with him ; I can, nevertheless, with great truth assure you that all the gentlemen of the Council were constantly faithfully acquainted with every step that was taken in the matter, except Mr. Edward Fowke, who, from the beginning of the treaty about the ransom, declared that he would not join us in any of these measures, which by all the rest were thought absolutely necessary at the juncture It remains for me to acquaint you that we had no possible means for raising the money but by giving the Company's bonds for it ; and this negotiation was not kept secret for those who supplied the money on this occasion, as they were to a man informed of the use it was borrowed for, before they lent it, and thought by lending it they did a meritorious piece of service to the Company ; bonds were accordingly given for so much as we could bori'ow under the Company's seal and signed by Mr. Morse and the rest of the Council, except Mr. Edward Fowke. Part of the money thus borrowed was actually paid to the person treated with, and the rest was disbursed in defraying the charges of the garrison until the French broke the capitulations and turned us out of the town.' ^^ Folio 4. — Mr. Monson in his letter (3rd May, 1748). . . . after excusing himself from declaring to whom .... this money . . was given, says : ' I hope I shall stand excused if I declare no further than that part of the money was appropriated to pay six months' salary and two months' diet to your covenant servants, with a month's arrear to the garrison, besides sundry payments to the officers and sailors of the Princess Mary, to your officers and military that were going to Cuddalore, and some little advances we judged necessary towards our future re-establishment, the rest of the money, with the diamonds, was actually and bona fide applied to the purpose already mentioned (the payment of that person) which in the opinion of those concerned in the business would have redounded very much to the honour, the credit, and the real advantage of the Company.' APPENDIX A. 593 " Folio 5. — Mr. Edward Fowke .... speaking (letter of the 25th of December, 1 746) of the ransom .... says : ' In regard to ran- soming of the town, afterwards when Monsieur la Bourdonnais told us we might march out with our swords and hats, I thought it (going out with swords and hats) much more to your interest than to accept the terms that were agreed upon .... I could have consented so far as five or six lacs .... Madras is but a tributary town .... therefoi'e for your Honours to be loaded with such a monstrous sum, and the Native Government not to feel any part of so severe a blow, would, I am afraid, in future have a veiy bad effect, especially with a little money laid out among the great men, which the French know pretty well how to place.' " Again, 3rd March, 1748, ' I can assure you, gentlemen, not- withstanding I may have appeared so lukewarm in defence of your town .... I would rather have sacrificed my life than to have acceded to those terms of agreement, I thought them as directly oppo- site to your interest, honour and credit, as others thought them for it. In the same letter he says one of the bonds was bi'ought to him to sign ; and he wrote on it : — ' I acknowledge Mr. George Jones to have brought me the above-mentioned bond to sign, but as I do not approve the ransom, nor do I know whether I am now legally authorised (being a prisoner of La Bourdonnais) to take up money on the Company's account, I refused to sign it.' "Folio 10. — In the examination (1753 ?) of the bond creditors by inter- rogatories, Messrs. Abraham Franco, Jacob Franco, Aaron Franks i'/^/e/- alia, say : ' That they heard and believe that the then President and Council of Fort St. George did, after the 10th of September, 1746, agree to give and pay to Monsieur de la Bourdonnais 88,000 pagodas, but they did not know and believe that the said 88,000 pagodas, or any part thereof were so agreed to be paid in order to free or exempt the goods and efiects of the merchants and inhabitants .... and particularly the goods and efiects of the said Governor in Council, or the said Solomon Solomons (one of the bondholders) in their private capacity from being seized, taken, or plundered, but that the same was agreed to be given or paid to the said Monsieur de la Bourdonnais, as a douceur or present on behalf of the said East India Company, with the view to reduce the amount or value of the ransom insisted on by the said Monsieur de la Bourdonnais.' "And the same further say {Folio 11), 'They do believe in their con- sciences that .... the same and said present of 88,000 pagodas, as agreed to be given to the said Monsieur de la Bourdonnais, was entered into for the benefit and interest of the East India Company.' "Folio 12. — Francis Salvadore, executor to Jacob Salvadore, says : QQ 594 APPENDIX A. He don't know, bub hath heard and believes that the said President and Council did after the said 10th day of September, 1746, agree to give and pay to or to the use of the said Monsieur de la Bourdonnais the sum or value of 88,000 pagodas, as at present,* but whether .... in order to exempt or free the goods and effects of the said Governor and Council in their private capacity, or the said Edward and Joseph Fowke, or the said Jacob Salvadore, .... he don't know nor has been informed.* ^^ Folio 21. — In reply to certain interrogatories, Mr Monson says; He , the said Mr. Monson, having afterwards (after the treaty of ran- som had been settled) heard from Monsieur de la Bourdonnais that they must pay him down 100,000 pagodas, if they expected peiformance of the agreement, he communicated such his information to the Council, who, after deliberation agreed to pay it, but says this money was not demanded for granting the 15th and 16th articles.' " Again : — ' No receipt was taken or required for the money privately paid, nor could any be insisted on in such a transaction, nor was any agreement made for returning the 88,000 pagodas in case the treaty was rejected by the Governor and Council of Pondichery; and can't say whether the Governor and Council of Pondichery were ever informed of this private transaction.' " Folio 23. — Mr. Fowke, in answer to the interrogatories, says ' He is a stranger to the payment, but don't doubt the money being paid.' "In Folio No. 11, Francis Salvadore, executor to Jacob Salvadore, seems to prove that Mr. Morse and Messrs. Edward and Joseph Fowke advanced money on the Council bonds for the ransom ; but I should like someone better acquainted with the phraseology of money dealings to examine this passage, before relying on it as of any pertinence in the present question. " In the whole case the extract from Folio 23 seems to me the only evidence that any money was ever paid to La Bourdonnais by way of dusiuri. Excepting Fowke, all the rest of the Council are out of Court, and so would Foivhe he, if, while Tie disapproved of the capitulation, he yet joined ivith Solomons, Salvadore, Franco, and the rest of these extortioners, in advancing moneij on the Council bonds he tvotdd not himself sign. Indeed, if Edward Fowke was personally interested, as a sleeping partner with his brother Joseph, in the prospective profits of an usurious advance of this kind, this of itself would be a sufficient explanation of his refusal to join with Messrs Morse and Monson in signing the bonds * Note hy Colonel Malleson. Sir G. no meaning, I presume that he intended Birdwood writes in the printed volume to write "a present." " at present," but as those words convey APPENDIX A. 595 for the amount, on the plausible pretext of his disapproving of a capitulation that could not possibly have been prevented. Besides, if anyone who advanced the money knew for what it was intended, Dupleix, through his half-caste wife, to whom he owed, so much of the success of his intrigues in India, would easily have obtained sufficient evidence against La Bourdonnais to convict him when he was put on his trial for corruption and treason on his return to France, On the face of the case also very little of the 88,000 pagodas could have gone to La Bourdonnais ; and what Colonel Malleson states is that he received 100,000.* La Bourdonnais was probably quite capable of accepting a douceur or dusticri. It was the universal custom of his time. It was one of the perquisites of public office. But this document, cited with- out quotation by Colonel Malleson, affiards no evidence for reviving the charge of corruption and treason against La Bourdonnais after his acquittal by his own Government. It seems to me very probable that, in consideration of La Bourdonnais's ' politeness and generosity in exempting Madras from pillage ' (I am quoting from the case from memory, for I cannot trace the passage), ' The Governor, Nicholas Morse, and his Counci?l, agreed to make him a private present, and raised 88,000 pagodas for the purpose ; that this sum was mostly other- wise expended ; and that difficulty having arisen with the Court of Directors about refunding this and other sums embraced in the ransom, it was plausibly pleaded that this particular sum was paid to La Bour- donnais to secure the execution of a treaty of ransom which was never exercised but disvowed by Dupleix." IIL Such is the case which Sir George Birdwood has submitted to the public to disprove my contention that La Bourdonnais was offered, and received, a considerable sum of money, probably 100,000 pagodas, for negotiating the ransom of Madras. My contention, the reader will recollect (pages 160-2), was that whilst Dupleix did not desire that Madras should be ransomed. La Bourdon- nais persisted in negotiating to ransom it in order to gain a large sum of money for himself. I now contend that not only is my argument proved to the hilt, but it is proved by the evidence which Sir George Birdwood has provided. His method is certainly a queer method. He * Note hi/ Colo)iel MaUrso/i. In the lakhs of rupees) as the price of the first edition, page 157, Colonel Malle- ransom treaty made with the English." son wrote in the note: "It was charged In the text, also page 157, Colonel against La Bourdonnais in his lifetime Malleson wrote : " That he did receive that he had accepted a present from the a considerable Bum is undeniable." English of 100,000 pagodas (about four Qtq 2 596 APPENDIX A. makes a great display of force ; he poses as the pure and upright man who is incapable of "searching out mean and sordid causes for the great results of history." He then marshals his witnesses, men some of them of distinction in their time ; the only men whose evidence could throw any light on the subject ; and then, when he finds that their evidence tells against his theory, and establishes beyond a doubt the statement that La Bourdonnais did negotiate for and accept a bribe for the i-ansom of Madras, he asks the reader to disbelieve them because ** they were really on their own defence." They were not on their own defence more than a member of Council of the present day would be who might be asked to narrate certain transactions in which, by virtue of his office, he had taken a prominent part. Who but Mr. Morse and Mr. Monson could have revealed the negotiations between themselves and La Bouidonnais ? It is conceivable why their evidence is very disappointing to Sir George Birdwood, for it proves my contention ; therefore he can find no other method of getting rid of it than by summarily putting the witnesses out of court. But, I would ask, is that fair argument ? 1 am wrong to call it argument at all ; it is the resourcie of a mind di-iven to its last shift to avoid a palpable issue. The then late Governor of Madras and his senior member of Council, state that La Bourdonnais insisted on negotiating for and accepting a bribe (vide Folio 3, 4, and 21, quoted by Sir George Birdwood), they formed the committee to which the negotiation was intrusted ; and their statement is practically confirmed by the men to whom they applied to raise the money (vide Folio 10.) Their colleague, Mr. Fowke, although a stranger himself to the transaction, expresses " his belief that the money was paid." So much for the facts of the case. But Sir George Birdwood, fight- ing against conviction, states that after a trial of over three years in France La Bourdonnais was acquitted of this very chai'ge. He was acquitted simply because the evidence on which he now stands con- demned had not then been taken. La Bourdonnais captured Madras and negotiated for the ransom in 1746; he was tried in France in 1748-51 ; the date of the ease in which the evidence regarding him is recorded in England is 1752. Who can doubt but that if that evidence had been in existence during 1748-51, and had been produced before the court which tried La Bourdonnais in France, he would have been condemned ? There is no getting away from that evidence. And here I would call attention to the fact that it entirely satisfied the distin- guished judge Avho first brought it to my notice, and who subsequently became Chief Justice of the High Court of Madras. But I have not yet done with Sir George Birdwood. Beaten at all points, and forced at laf;t to admit that La Bourdonnais may have APPENDTT A. 597 received some money, he suggests that it may have been by way of dasturi or doaceitr, and that the former was one of " the perquisites of public office." Further, that the members of Council may have given it out of their private purse in consideration of the politeness and generosity of La Bourdonnais in exempting Madras from pillage. Let us examine these suggestions for a few moments. Let me recall the attention of the reader to the position of La Bourdonnais. He had captured Madias from the English. His superior, the Governor of Pondichery, wanted to keep Madras, and ordered La Bourdonnais not to ransom it, but to make it over to officers whom he nominated. If La Bourdonnais had obeyed him he would have received no private money for himself. He, therefore, negotiated with the two senior members of the English Council for the ransom of the place. The witnesses prove that as the negotiations proceeded La Bourdonnais made known that he must have something for himself. Whether he called it dastur/, or douceicr, or present, or bribe, is absolutely immaterial. All four words meant the same thing. They meant the transfer of about 100,000 pagodas to La Bourdonnais' pocket. Did that sum constitute, as Sir Ceorge Birdwood contends, " one of the perquisites of public office." A high official negotiating, against the orders of his superior, for the ransom of a town, to accept dasturi, that is percentage on the amount of ransom, for disobeying his own superior officer at Pondichery because it was " the universal custom of the time ? " The thing is incredible. La Bourdonnais demanded the money, because it was money. It certainly was not " the universal custom of that time " for an officer to demand a sum of money from a beaten enemy that he might fill his own pockets, whether he hid his demand under the form of dasturi or douceur, or any other form. And it is because it was not the universal custom that those living at the time, and posteiity afterwards, have cried shame on it. As to the other suggestion of Sir George Birdwood, that the members paid the sum demanded out of their own pockets, it is too childish to treat seriously. It shows the sti-aits to which Sir George Birdwood is reduced to establish a contention which is absolutely baseless. It is contradicted by the purport of all the evidence, and, logically, by Sir Geoi'ge Birdwood himself in the last four lines of the paragraph in which he suggests the possibility. But I need say no more. It is always bad policy to "slay the slain," so I shall omit the comments which naturally suggest themselves. But I cannot part from Sir George Birdwood without thanking him most sincerely for placing on public record the evidence which proves my case. After all, his fate is not at all uncommon. The man who dug a 598 APPENDIX A. pit for another and fell into it himself ; the engineer who was hoisted \vith his own petard ; the prophet who set out with the intention of cursing, and finished hy blessing ; and now Sir George Birdwood him- self, presents examples of the danger a man incurs by basing his actions on purely personal sentiments. Sir George Birdwood started to convict me of ei-ror : he has simply convicted himself of that which is worse than mere erior. G. B. Malleson, London, March 16, 1893. INDEX. ACH ACHE, Count d', appointed naval col- league to Lally, 511. His character, 511. He wastes time on the passage out, 514. Is beaten off Nagapatan, 503. Refuses to act against Madras, 536. His indecision and ill-luck, 536. Is defeated off Tranquebar, 531. Sails for the Isle of France, 532. Appro- priates for the fleet money intended for Pondichery, 541. Arrives in the Indian waters, 554. Is beaten by Pocock, 555. Abandons Pondichery, 557. Becomes the accuser of Lally, 581 Adlercron, Colonel, commands a force in the Karnatik, 466. Retreats to- wards Madras, 467 Ahmad Shah Abdali, effect of his inva- sion of India on the movements of Clive, 47.5 Ahmad Shah, becomes King of Delhi, 234 Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, effects of, in India, 229 Alemanava, acquired by the French, 281 Angria, surrenders to the English and Marathas, 454 Anandaraj, Rdja, revolts against the French, 549 Anwaru-din, Nawwdb, appointed to ad- minister the Karnatik, 106. Nomin- ated Nawwab, 106. Appealed to by Dupleix, 106. Responds, 107. Refuses to restrict the movements of the French against Madras, 143. Threa- tens the French, 150. His impatience at the French occupation of Madras, 189. Sends troops there under Mafauz Khdn, 190. Comes to terms with the French, 205. Declares against the French, 224. Opposes Chanda Sdhib, 237. Is killed in battle, 238 Ararabure, M. d', reinforces Law, 487. His brilliant conduct, 489. Bears the brunt of the action, 491. His skill and gallantry, 594. His fatal mistake at Pondichery, 570 Arkat, its capture by Clive, 294 Ariankupum, its situation, 217. Is for- tified, 217. English repulsed at, 225, Abandoned by the French, 225 Asiatic, the, his peculiarity as a soldier, 491 Astruc, M. , appointed to command be- fore Trichinapalii, 387. Repulses an attack on Srirangam, 387. Crosses the Kavari and occupies the Five Rocks, 389. Attacks and carries the Golden Rock, 391. Has victory within his grasp, 393. It is snatched from him by Lawrence, 385, Resigns his command, 395. Resumes it, 400. His caution, 400. Is attacked by Law- rence, 401. Is defeated and taken prisoner, 402 Aumont, M. d', his shameful conduct at Wandiwash, 537 Aurangabad, entered by Saldbat Jang and Bussy, 279. Occupied by Ghaziu- d-din, 368. Bussy marches on, 380 Aurangzeb, his plans on the Dakhan and death, 348 Auteuil, M. d', commands the French force, 237. Is wounded, 238. Wins the battle of Ambur, 239. Takes com- mand at Valddvur, 251. Vainly tries to stop the mutiny in his army, 252. Resolves to retreat, 253. Repulses the Mardthds, 254. Brought to trial by Dupleix, 255. Is restored to com- mand, 256. Detaches a party to attack Ndsir Jang, 257. Moves on Tiruvadi, 258. Defeats Muhammad Ali, 258. Aids in the capture of 600 INDEX. JinjM, 204. Leads a force towards Tiicliindpalli, 284. Defeats Gin- gens at Volconda, 286. His gout and apathy, 286. Follows up the English, 287. Shuts them up in Trichiniipalll, 287. Relieved of his command, 289. Sent to supersede Law, 316. Attempts to reach the Kolrun, 320. Retires from Utdtur, 324. Surrenders to Clive, 324. Ap- pointed to command a force against Trichin^palli, 450. His faulty method of warfare, 451. Its ill-success, 453. Replaced by Saubinet, 454 B A LESHWAR, factory at, founded, 33 Bal&ji Bdji Rao, the Peshwd, receives two lakhs from Sal5,bat Jang, 280. Promises to support Ghaziu-d-din, 349. Enters the Dakhan, 356. Has- tens to bar the road to Fund, 356. Is defeated by Bussy, 359. His intrigues, 360. Forced to fly for his life, 360. Is again beaten, 361. Opens negotia- tions with Saldbat Jang, 363. And concludes an armistice, 364. Offers himself to the highest bidder, 365. Agrees to peace with Sa'^'at Jang, 368. Invades Maisur, 477. Retires, 478. Refuses to assassinate Bussy, 481. His anxiety to gain Bussy, 482. Endeavours to propitiate him, 483 Bai-d ^^^hib, defeated and slain by the Mardihds, 90 Barnet, Commodore, charged to destroy the French settlements, 101. Appro- priates the plan of La Bourdonnais. 120, note. Dies, 126 Barnev^l, Mrs., daughter of Dupleix, writes to La Bourdonnais, 147 Baron, M., Director of Surat, 20. Be- sieged in St, Thome, 22. Visits Martin at Pondichery, 23. Returns to Surat and reports to the Company, 23, note Barth61emy, M., appointed Councillor at Madras, 157. Protests against La Bom-donnais, 164. Apjiointed mem- ber of secret committee, 444 Basdilat Jang, appointed keeper of the great seal to Saldbat Jang, 499. No- minated his minister, 499. Declines the French overtures, 557 Battles, of Damalcheri, 82. Off Ndgd patan, 127. Near Madras, 194. Near St.Thom6, 196. OfAmbur,238. On the Panar, 260. Near JinjI, 268. Of Volconda, 285. Of the Arni, 304. Of BUS Kilvarip&k, 304. Of Vicravandi, 336. Of Bahur, 337. Near Beder, 368. Of Rdjdpur, 360. Near Korigaon, 373. Of the Golden Rock (first), 390. Of the Golden Rock (second), 395. Of the Sugarloaf Rock, 399. Off Ndsid- patan, 509. Off Tranquebar, 531. Of Kondur, 549. OS Fort St. David, 555. Of VVdndiwdsh, 567 Bausset, M., appointed Peace Commis- sioner, 410 Beaulieu, Captain, joins Commodore de Nets in an expedition, 6. Commands one of his own, 7. Returns to France, 7 Bijapfir, succumbs to Aurangzeb, 23, 24 Boileau, M., appointed member of secret committee, 442 Bonnessay, Cornet, obedient among the disobedient, 565 Boscawen, Admiral, his lineage, 219. Appointed to command the expedition against Pondichery, 219. His abortive attack on the islands, 221. Is re- pulsed at Aridnkupum, 222, Occupies it and closes on Pondichery, 224. His great efforts and their failure, 236. Raises the Ciege, 226. Leaves for England, 247 Bourbon, Isle of, see Isle of France. Bouvet, M., Governor of Bourbon, sails for Pondichery, 214. Outmanoeuvres the English admiral, 214. Returns the coast, 228 Brennier, M., succeeds Astruc in com- mand, 397. His two plans, 397. De- termines to intercept Lawrence, 398. His mistakes and defeat, 399. Re- treats to Mutachelinur, 401. Resigns command to Astruc, 401 Brereton, Major, supports a sortie against the French, 536. Storms Kdnchipiiram, 551. Takes Tripatur, 554. Is repulsed at Wdndiw^sh, 554. Is mortally wounded, 564 Bruyere, M., appointed a Commissioner under De Bury, 165. Bury, General de, appointed to execute the orders of Dupleix against La Bourdonnais, 165. Hands over to La Bourdonnais a letter from the Coun- cil, 166. Is arrested with his com- panions, 168. Appointed to command the force against Fort St. David, 201. Marches thither, 202. Is sur- prised and beaten, 204 Bussy, M. de, is present at the battle of Ambur, 239. Gains the day, 239. His lineage, 262. Sent to attack Jinjl, INDEX. 601 264. His success, 265. Is aUached to Muzaffar Jang, 277. His conduct at Radapah, 278. His address after the death of Muzaffar Jang, 279. Ap- points Saldb^t Jdng to be Subadar, 279. Accompanies Sal^bat Jang to Aurangdbdd, 279. His wise arrange- ments there, 351. Hears of the move- ments of Gh4ziu-d-din, 356. His ad- vice to the Subadar, 357. Moves upon Beder and thieatens Pund, 359. Defeats the Peshwa, 360. Again, 361. Again, 362. Moves the Subadar to malie peace, 367. Procures the nomin- ation of Dupleix as Nawwdb of the Karnatik, 362. Falls sick and pro- ceeds to Machhlipatan, 368 Learns the treacherous conduct of Saiyid Lashkur, 376. His prompt action, 376. Marches on Aurangabdd, 379. Obtains the cession of four province.', 380. Agrees to maintain Saiyid Lashkur, 380. Takes possession of the four Sirkars, 382. Accompanies the Subadar to Haidarabad, 384. His touching farewell on setting out for Machhlipatan, 384. His mortification, but noble resolve, on the recall of Dupleix, 435. Is ordered by Godeheu to rejoin Salabat Jang, 474. The language used to him by the Subadar, 476. Marches against Maisilr, 479. Returns to Haidarabdd, 468. Moves against Sdvanur, 481. Enters into a secret agreement with Murdri Rdo, 482. Is dismissed from the service of the Subadar, 483. His statesmanlike conduct, 484. Receives overtures from Bdldji, 485. Resolves to make a stand at Haidardbdd, 487. Occupies the Char Maball, 487. Gains over two Marathd chiefs, 490. Sends inti- mation to Law, 490. Orders Law, in the name of the King, to advance, 492. His own daring action, 492. Sends to bring in the sick, 495. Is reconciled to the Subadar, 484, Re- marks on his conduct, 496. Marches into the ceded districts, 498. De- spatches Law into Bengal, 499. Disperses the Aurdngdbdd conspira- tors, 501. Is ordered to join Lally, 502. Makei over charge to Conflans and sets out, 503. Joins Lally at Arkdt, 529. His real opinion of Lally, 531. The high opinion entertained of himself by the other French com- manders, 533. Is appointed to rank next to de Sonpire, 534. Is with Lally before Madras, 535. Is implored to cnA cut off the English, 538. His refusal and its consequences, 538-9, and iiote. Goes to Wdndiwdi'h, 557. His abortive negotiation with Bds41at Jang, 559. Is taken prisoner at Wdndiwdsh, 565. Cabals against Lally, 575. His own fate adverted to, 576-7 CALCUTTA, captured by the Subadar \J of Bengal, 452. Recaptured by Clive and Watson, 465 Calliaud, Captain, joins Lawrence at Trichindpalli,404. Ordered to Madura, 443. Receives startling news, 455. His rapid march to Trichindpalli and his success, 459. Operates against the French before Madras, 540 Caron, M.,his origin, 14. His treat- ment in Batavia, 14, and note. His command of a French expedition, 15. His success, 15. Quarrels with Mar- cara, 19. His attack on Galle and Trinkamalli. 17-18. Is recalled, 18. His ship founders, 19 Cattans, de, employed as a spy, 399. Is hanged, 400 Chace, Captain, in command at Tiru- vadi, 390. Repulses the French twice, 392-3. Is cut up with all his men, 393 Chandranagar founded, 33. Its im- provement under Dupleix, 70. Its state when he left it, 96. Its decline after his departure, 464. Its defences, 471. Attacked by Clive and Watson, 473 Surrenders, 472. Reflections on its capture, 473 Chanda Siihib, his character, 74. Takes Tricbinapalli, 75. Offers to assist Dumas, 78. Takes the fort of Kikan Garhi, 81. His ddatoriness, 81. Sends his family to Pondichery, 85. Visits Pondichery, 89. His proceed- ings at Trichinapalli, 90. Surrenders Trichindpalli and is sent prisoner to Satara, 91. His release, 237. Allies himself with Muzaffar Jang, 239. And with Dupleix, 241. Shares in the battle of Ambur, 242. Becomes Nawwab of the Karnatik, 243. His reasons for not following Muhammad AH, 245. Marches from Pondichery, 247. Turns off to Tanjur, 249. Is deaf to the remonstrances of Dupleix, 250. Retreats in disorder, 250. Casts in his lot with the French, 254. His gallant contest with Mur4ri Rao. 255. Regains his position, 261. Marches 602 INDEX. CHJ towards Tricbin^palH, 284. His slow procedure, 280. Gains a victory at Volkonda, 287. Misuses it, 287. Is repulsed by the English, 289. Takes possession of Srirangam, 289. De- taches a force to re-take Arkit, 296. Vainly urges Law to vigorous mea- sures, 318. Accompanies him into Srirangam, 320. Surrenders to Miin- akji, 327. Is stabbed by bis order, 328, 329 Chicacole (Srik^kolam) ceded to the French, 381 Clive, Robert, escapes in disguise from Madras, 200. His gallantry before Pondichery, 227. Serves under Cap- tain Gingens, 284. Sketch of his earlier career, 290. His daring plans, 292. He proposes them to Mr. Saun- ders, 292. Marches on, and captures Arkdf, 294. His gallant defence ol that place, 296. Repulses the enemy, 297. Beats the Fi ench at the Ami, 302. And at Kdvaripdk, 303. Des- troys the town built by Dapleix, 305. Marches to relieve Trichindpalli, 305. Sent to cut off Law from Pondichery, 307. Is misled by an intercepted letter, 322. And surprised at Samia- veram, 323. His splendid conduct, 324. Avoids an action with Law, 325. Forces d'Auteuil to sui render, 32H. Goes to Fort St. David for his health, 335. Takes Kovlaon and Chengalpat, 340. Proceeds to England, 340. Re- turns to India, 449. Is employed in the attack on Geriah, 450. Hears of the capture of Calcutta, 451. Sails for Bengal, 451. Re-captures Cal- cutta, 463. His designs on Chand- ranagar, 463. He temporises, 453. Accepts Renault's proposal to be neutral, 465. Resolves to break the agreement, 466. Marches against Chandi-anagar, 469. Captures it, 470. Results to him of the capture, 471. Despatches Colonel Forde to the ceded districts, 544 Colbert, M. de, his capacity, 10. Forms a Company of the Indies, 11. Supports the enterprise against Galle, 17 Committee, Secret, appointed by Gode- heu on his departure, 446. Will do nothing 446 Company of the Indies, founded by Henri IV., 6. Coalesces with some merchants of Rouen, 6. Sends out two expeditions, 7. Another raised by Richelieu, 8. Attempts to colonise Madagascar, 9. A third raised by Col- cou bert, 11. Its attempts on Madagas- car, 19. Sends Caron to tlie East, l'>. Gives up its rights to the Company of St. Malo and others, 39. Its privileges extended, 41. Revoked, 46. Is united to the Company of the West, 47 ; and styled the Company of the Indies, 48. The mode of its formation, 48. It takes upon itself various functions of the State, 49. Acquires the monopoly of Tobacco, 50. The Royal Bank united to it, 55. Entitled the ' Per- petual Company of the Indies,' 56. Severed from the Royal Bank, 56. Its capital, 59. Its great expenses, 60. Its action on the Pondichery govern- ment, 68. Suspends and restores Da- pleix, 68. Its economical restrictions, 98. Its approval of Dupleix's conduct 100. Apprises him of the war about to ensue with England, 101. Its timid policy, 115. Refuses to accept the re- signation of La Bourdonnais, 120. WarnsDupleixof war between France and Holland, 173. Writes a letter of thanks to Dupleix, 227. Urges him to peace, 274. Expresses satisfaction with his conduct, 335. Again urges him to peace, 404. Is dissatisfied with him, 415. Sends Duvalaer to London to negociate, 415. Resolves to sacri- fice Dupleix, 417. Appoints Godeheu to succeed him, 417. Its selfish and ungenerous treatment of Dupleix, 420. Its ovsm fate adverted to, 578 Conference for peace meets, 410. Breaks up, 412 Conflans, M. de, appointed to succeed Bussy, 502. Takes over charge of the ceded provinces, 503. His unfitness for his position, 543. Awaits the Eng- lish attack and is beaten, 646. Cap- itulates to Forde, 547 Coote, Colonel Eyre, is out-manoeuvred on the Palar, 562. Beats Lally at Wdndiw4sh, 564. Recovers all the places in the Karna,tik, 569. Moves against Pondichery, 569. Repulses Lally's sortie, 571. Resigns and re- assumes his command, 571-2. Captures Pondichery, 585. His opin- ion of Lally, 576 note Cope, Captain, leads the English against Devikotd, 244. Is forced to retreat, 245. Advises Muhammad AH, 259. Marches to defend Trichinap^lli,285. Unsuccessful at Madura, but enters Trichin^palli, 285. Is mortally wounded, 302 Courchant, M. Beauvallier de, Governor INDEX. 603 of Pondichery, 58. Improves the town, 60 Crillon, M. de, arrives at Pondichery, 510. Takes Trip.1,tur, 528. Implores Bussy to cut oflE the English, 537. Brinfjs back the soldiers to their duty, 558. Sent by Lally to Sri- rangam, 561. Storms it and rejoins, 561 D AKHAN, the, description of, 350 DaltoD, Captain, tries to rally the English, 292. Joins Lawrence be- fore Trichinapalli, 316. Beats up Law's quarters, 321. Captures El- miseram, 323. Sent to attack d'Au- teuil, 327. In command at Trichin- apalli, 397. Fails in an attempt to drive the French out of Srirangam, 389. Operates on the fears of Virana, 389. Applies to Lawrence for relief, 389. Observe the movements of the French, 400. Daud Khdn, Naww^b of the Karndtik, his demand on Mr. Pitt, 141. En- forces it, 142. Dauphine, Isle, named by the French settlers, 12. Massacre at, 13. Day, Mr., founds Madras, 141. Desforges, M., appointed councillor at Madras, 156 Despremesnil, M., appointed to com- mand at Madras, 163. Protests against La Bourdonnais's usurpation of authority, 164. Replies to La Bourdonnais, 168. Succeeds him at Madras, 181. Threatened by Ma- fauz Khan, 192. Sends a detachment to drive him off, 194. Recalled to Pondichery, 199 Dev Rdj, his helplessness against the French, 479. Pacifies the Subadar, 481 Devikoti, the English retreat from, 245. Stormed by them, 239. Taken by the French, 520. Retaken by the English, 566 Dordelin, M., senior naval officer at Pondichery, 181. Ordered to Puli- kat, 181. Succumbs to La Bourdon- nais, 181. Sails with four ships to Ach6n, 184. Arrives at Pondichery, 202. Proceeds to Goa, 206. Thence to the islands, 214 Dost Ali, Nawwdb of the Karndtik, grants permission to Dumas to coin money, 73. Is defeated and slain, 81 Draper, Colonel, the Conqueror of Man- illa, 531. Heads a sortie against the French, 586. Is repulsed, 536. His able conduct at Wdndiwash, 554 Dubois, M., Intendant of the French Army, is assassinated, 565 Dulaurent, M., appointed Councillor at Madras, 157. Protests against La Bourdonnais, 164 Dulivier, M., succeeds Martin as Gover- nor, 41 note. Is succeeded by Hebert, 41 note. Holds the appointment again for two years, 41 note Dumas, M., appointed Governor of Pon- dichery, 71. His earlier career, 71. Obtains permission to coin money, 73. Aids Sdhuji, 76. Is deceived by him, 77. Sends troops to occupy Karikal, 79. Obtains a grant of it from Partab Singh, 80. Prepares to defend Pondichery, 82. Receives the families of Dost Ali and Chanda Sdhib, 84. His replies to Raghuji Bhonsla, 85. Receives Sufdar Ali and Chanda Sahib, 88. Applies for aid to the Isle of France, 90. His wise behaviour towards Ragbuji, 92. The honours showered upon him, 92- 93. Character of his administration, 93 Dupleix, M., his early career, 67. Ap- pointed chief of Chandranagar, 69. Improves its trade 70. Succeeds Dumas as Governor of Pondichery, 94. Its state on his arrival, 97. His policy of ostentation, 98. Is crippled by the Company, 98. His bold and self-reliant measures, 99. Is thanked for his disobedience, 100. Proposes to Mr. Morse to be neutral during the war, 102. His defenceless posi- tion, 100. Applies to Anwaru-din, 106. His friendly correspondence with La Bourdonnais, 130. States his views regarding Madras, 129. Protests against the plan of La Bour- donnais, 135. Sends intimation to him at Madras, 146. Again, 147. His agreement with Anwdru-din, 150. Intimates the same to La Bourdon- nais, 150. The reasons for his policy, 154. Writes sharply to La Bourdon- nais, 157. Sends him a touching letter, 165. Appoints an executive commission to carry out his orders, 166. His feelings on learning the arrest of the deputies, 169. He pro- tests, 169. Receives overtures from La Bourdonnais, 171. His dilemma, 168. Is strengthened by the arrival of a squadron, 172. The instructions 604 INDEX. DUP he received, 173, and note. OfPfrs conditions to La Bourdonuai;?, 174. His disinclination to attend to the new proposals of La Bourdonnais, 182. Reasons for supposing hira to have been sincere, 190. His diffi- culties regarding Madr:is, 192. Re- solves to retain it, 193. Sends in- structions to Desprouiesnil, 194. Or- ders Paradis to relieve Madras, 195. Appoints Paradis Governor of Ma- dras, 198. Resolves to drive the English from Fort St. David, 200. Is forced to appoint de Bury to the command, 203. Orders Dordelin to the coast, 206. Makes overtures to Anw^ru-clin, 206. Fails to surprise Gudalur, 20(5. Orders Dordelia to Goa, 207. His apparently fatal mis- take, 208. Appoints Paradis to com- mand, 208. His unaccountable in- action, 210. Its consequences, 206. His perplexity, 212. Sends Dorde in to the isles, 213. Attempts again to surprise Gfidalfir, 214. Is repulsed, 215. Fortifies himself against attack, 217. His grief at the death of Para- dis, 223. Takes the conduct of the defence upon himself, 220. His skill, 225. Compels Boscawen to raise the siege, 225. Announces his triumph all over India, 228. Is forced to re- store Madras, 229. Allies himself with Chanda Sahib and Muzaffar Jang, 238. Exhorts the former to march on Trichindpalli, 241. Ad- vances funds to him for that purpose, 245. Remonstrates with him, 248. His plans defeated, 249. ThouKh perplexed prepares others, 251. His mortification at the behaviour of hi5 army, 254. Punishes the officers, 255. Intrigues with the native chiefs, 256. Orders active measures, 257. Sends an expedition to Machhlipatan, 257. Negotiates with Nasir Jang and his chiefs, 266. Sends precise orders to de la Touche, 268. Which arrive too late, 268. His joy at the victory of de la Touche, 269. Is visited by Muzaffar Jang, 272. His conduct at the famous durbar, 274. Founds a city, 270. Is dispose \ to peace, 275. Negotiates with Mu- hammed Ali, 277. Resolves to send Bussy into the Dakhan, 280. His acquisitions from Salabat Jang, 281. His great position, 281. His policy, 282. Is outwitted by Muhammad All, 284. Sends a force against Tri- chin5,palli, 281. Sends men against Arkat, 296. His well-planned policy, 299. His mortiiicatioa at Clive's victories, 307. His anger with Riiju Sahib, 307. His graphic instructions to Law, 308. His anger at Law's folly, 314. His still greater amaze- ment, 315. Sends d'Auteuil to re- assume command, 317. His conduct on learning the surrender of Law, 331. Negotiates with the native allies of the English, 333. Succeeds in bringing over two of them, 333. His plans to destroy Kinneer, 335. Captures a company of S-viss mer- cenaries, 337. Is formally appointed Nawwiib of the Karcatik, 337. Ap- points Riiju Sahib, and afterwards Murtiza Ali, as his lieutenant, 838. Is created a Marquis, 338. Sends a force to blockade Fort St. David, 338. Wins over the Maisurians and Mar^thas, 340. His position at the close of the campaign, 340. His de- signs on the Dakhan, 354. The ex- cuse for his policy, 356. His prompt orders to Bussy, 375. Triumph of his policy, 379. The means at his disposal, 383. Sends Astruc to Tri- chin^palli, 388. Exerts himself to obtain peace, 402. Makes proposals to that effect to Saunders, 402. His policy accounted for, 403. His secret trust in the fortune of war, 403. The fatal blow to his views, 407, Re-opens negotiations, 408. Will not yield his pretensions, 410. His fatal mistake, 410. Sends reinforcements to Mainville, 412. Is represented as the cause of hostilities, 418. And is superseded by Godelieu, 418. His false impression as to Godeheu's character, 419. The latter's behaviour towards him, 419. His generous con- duct, 420. The injustice perpetrated towards him, 421. The probable re- sult of his policy if he had been sup- ported, 424. His character, 424. He returns 10 France, 427. His shame- ful treatment there, 428. His last words, 428. His death and place in history, 429. Stands alone among his countrymen in India, 580 Duquesne, M., commands the French levies with Chanda Sahib, 246. Adapts vigorous measures against Tanjur, 248. Dies, 253 Durre, M , thwarts Lally's plans by his want of dash, 561 Dutch, the, recapture Trinkamali, 18. INDEX. 605 DUV Take St. Thome, 21, Capture Pon- dicbery, 28. Restore it, 34. Intrigue against the French, 75. Inform the French regarding Peyton's squadron, 13i. Join Admiral Boscawen, 220. Furnish Lally with supplies, 525 Duvalaer, M., sent to London to nego- tiate a peace, 415 ELMISERAM, occupied by Law, 316. Captured by Dalton, 319. Occu- pied by the French, 404. Again, 550 Elore, ceded to the French, 378 English, the, their fleet repulsed off Nagiipatin, 125. Surrender Madras, 147. Retire to fort St. David, 199. Kesolve to defend it against Dupleix, 201. Their plans for that end, 199. Their success, 205. The strange in- activity of their fleet, 203. It arrives at Gudalur and forces Paradis to re- tire, 211. Defeat the attempt of the French to surprise Giirialur, 215. Determine to retaliate on Pondi chery, 219. Fatile reconnaisance of the French Islands, 220. Besiege the French in Pondichery, 221. Are repulsed, 226. Determine to aid Sahuji, 229. Repulsed at Devikola, 241. Storm it, 241. Abandon Sa- huji, 244. Reinforce Muhammad Ali at TrichinilpalU, 247. Retire to Fort Sf. David, 259. Driven from Volkonda, 285. Shut up in Trichi- ndpalli, 287. Capture Arkat, 294. Beat the French on the Arni, 302. Again at Kavaripak, 303, Relieve Trichindpalli, 817. Force Law to surrender, 327. Their opinion of the French leaders, 329. Beaten at Vicra- vandi, 834. Denounce the capture of the Swiss mercenaries, 334. Beat the French at Bahur, 337. And at the Golden Rock, 393. Splendid qualities of their soldiers, 394. Again beat the French at the Golden Rock, 395. And at the Sugarloaf Rock, 397. Repulse the French at Trichi- D^palli, 408. Are cut up at Konta- jara, 413. Repulse the French at the Sugarloaf Rock, 414. Try in London to effect the removal of Dupleix, 416. Despatch Admiral Watson to the East, 417. Succeed in their des-igns, 417. Conclude a treaty with the French, 436. In- fringe its provisions, 444. Ill-success of their expedition to Madura, 445. Jealous of the influence of Bussy with the Subadar, 449. Attack and capture Gheriah, 450. Send an ex- pedition to Bengal, 452. The ne- cessities of their position, 452. In- vite the Dutch and French to assist them, 462. March to attack Chand ranagar, 469. Capture it, 469. Are unable to assist Shdh Nawaz Khan, 481. Their obligations to him, 496. Beat the French off Nagapatan, 514. Again off Tranquebar. 526. At Con- dors, 543. Off Fort St. David, 552. Capture Karangoli and Wandiwash, 560. Beat the French at Wandiwash 562. Their fleet .^severely damaged by a storm, 570. Is quicklv refitted, 572. Capture Pondichery, 574. Re- flections on the character of the nation in India, 581. Estaing, Count d', arrives at Pondi- chery, 513. Is ordered to Gudalur, 516. Takes Devikota, 522 Advises an attack on Tanjur, 527. Taken prisoner by the English, 537. ■ FLEURY, Cardinal, his conduct to La Bourdonnais, 113. His assent to bis plan, 115 Floyer, Mr., Governor of Fort St. David, acknowledges Cbanda Sahib as Naw- wab of the Karnatik, 237 iwte. Re- fuses to detain Boscawen, 244 Forde, Colonel, is despatched to the ceded districts, 544. Defeats Con- flans, 545. His brilliant and daring conduct, 546. Obtains the Four Sir- kars for the English, 547 Fort St. George, vide Madras. France, declares war against England, 100. War declared between, and Eng- land, 455. Declares war against England, 506. Reflexions on the Government of, 576 France and Bourbon, Isles of, natives of Madagascar transported to, 9. Discovery bv the Portuguese, and occupation by the Dutch :ind French 13. History of, to the time of La Bourdonnais, 102. Improvements effected in, 113. Advantages of their position, 214. Warn off Ad- miral Boscawen, 220 Frangois I., invites his subject to trade, 5 French, the, occupy Madagascar, 12. Also the Isles of France and Bour- bon, 13. Arrive at Surat, 15. Forra a factory at Machlipatan, 15, 31 606 INDEX, Repulsed from Galle, 17-18. Take Trinkamali, 18. Lose it, 18. Settle at Pondichery, 22. Surrender to the Dutch, 28. Abandon Surat, 31. Found Chandranagar and its depen- dencies, 33. Conquer Mahe, 64. Obtain Karikal, 78. Repulse the English fleet off Ndgapatan, 126. Take Madras, 147. Defeat Miifauz Khan near Madras. 194. Again at St. Thome, 196. Repulse him at Sadras, 202. Are surprised and re- pulsed at Gudaliir, 205. Attempt again to surprise it, but in vain, 206. Take and miss prizes, 208. Move against Giirialar, 209. Are forced to retire, 210. Attempt again to sur- prise Giidalur, but are beaten, 215. Are besieged in Pondichery, 221. Repulse the besiegers, 224. Their position in 1749,229. Win the battle, of Ambur, 238. Of&cers mutiny at Valdavur, 250. Surprise the camp of Murari Rao, 256. Repulse Ma- hamad, 258. Defeat Muhamad Ali, 259. Storm Jinji, 262. Beat N^sir Jang, 2G8. Obtain great increase of territory, 272. Beat the English at Volkonda, but fail to follow up their victory, 286. Shut up the Engl'sh in Trichinapalli, 287. Are beaten by Clive, 302. Again, 303. Retreat into Srirangam, 318. Surrender to the English, 327. Beat the English at Vicravundi, 332. Beaten by them at Baboor, 335. Defeat the Maruthas, 358. Again, 359. Again, 360. Driven to desperation at Haidardb4d, 369. Obtain the cession of four provinces, 375. Defeat Captain ('hace at Tri- vadi, 386. Are defeated at the Golden Rock, 390. Again, 395. Again at the Sugarloaf Rock, 398. Take refuge in Srirangam, 398. Are repulsed at Trichinapalli, 404. Causes of the repulse, 404. Surpri'e the English at Kutdp^ra, 409. Repulsed near the Sugarloaf Rock, 411. Make peace with the English, 433. Refuse to aid Siraj-u-daola against the Eng- lish, 459. Beaten off N4,?apatan, 509. Take Gudalar. 512. And Fort St. David, 515. Repulsed from Tarjur, 524. Beaten off Tranquebar, 525. Beaten at Kondur, 542. Beaten off Fort St. David, 549. Army mutinies, 552. Returns to its duty, 554. Beaten at Wdndiwdsh, 560. Sui-- render Pondichery, 578. Reflections on the character of, in India, 575, 679. The consolation that remains to them, 579 GEOGHEHAN, M., repulses Brereton at W^ndiwdsh, 554 Gingens, Captain, co-operates with Mu- hammad All's levies, 284. Marches to intercept Chanda Sahib, 285. Is repulsed from Volkonda, 287. The panic of his men, 287. His little self- confidence, 302. Is left in command of the troops, 333 Gh^ziu-d-din, eldest son of Nizamu-1 Mulk, prefers to remain at Delhi, 235. Allies himself with the Mardthds. 348. Threatens the Dakhan, 363. Arrives at Aurang4b4d, 363. Is poisoned, 364 Godeheu, M., commissioned by Dupleix to explain his case, 92. Appointed to succeed Dupleix, 417. His real character, 420. His meanness to- wards Dupleix on landing, 421. Re- fuses to settle the accounts of Dupleix, 423. His importunate spite, 423. The advice he received from Dupleix, 424. Restores the Swiss soldiers to the English, 427. Cuts off supplies from the army, 431. Replaces Mainville by Maissin, 432. Whom he instructs to connive at the Eoglisti movements, 432. Resolves on peace at any price, 433. Obtains one, 434. Its disgraceful conditions. 429. He abandons all the French conquests, 439. His strange warn- ing to Moracin, 441. Embarks for Europe, 442, Good effect of his de- pa rturp, 443 Goens, Commodore Ryckloff van, drives the French from Trinkomali, 20. Ordered to attack St. Thom6. Takes it, 21 Golkhonda, King of, aids the Dutch against St. Thom6, 21. Succumbs to Auiangzeb, 24 GoupiljM., commands a French detach- ment, 248. Acts for Bussy at Haidar^bad, 362. His weakness and indecision, 368. Consents to divide his forces, 371 Griffin, Admiral, arrives with his fleet off Cuddalore, 209. Outwitted by M. Bouvet, 213. Returns to England, 220 Guillard, M., appointed member of the secret committee, 441 Giidaldr, plundered by the Mar^thas, 90. Its situation, 197. The French INDEX. 607 are surprised at, 197. Abortive effort of the French on, 205. The French repulsed at. 214. Taken by Lally, 513. Retaken by the English, 567. HAIDAR ALT, falls upon the English bagi^age, 436. Enters into en- gagements with Lally, 566 Haidar Jang, murdered, 500 Haidar4b4d, Bussy's stand at, 485 HallyburtoD, Mr., offers to treat for Ihe surrender of Madras, 145. His part in the surrender, 149 note Hebert, M., GoTernor of Pondichery, 41, note Heguerty, M. d', sets an example to the French cavalry, 562 Henri HI. infites his subjects to trade, 5 Henri IV. forms a company to trade to India, 6 Heron, Colonel, commands an expedi- tion to Madura, 446. Is found guilty of malversation, 446, note TNNIS KHAN, is disgusted with Cap- X tain Gingens, 300. Aids in sur- prising the English at Kutdp^rd, 464 JANUJr, R^jS,, makes overtures to Mu- hammad Ali, 275 Janiiji Bhonsla, invades the Sirkars and retiies, 378 J4nuji, Nimbalkar, gained over by Bussy, 488. Feigns action against Law, 489 Janville, M. de, commands the escort of the Subadar, 375 JinjI, taken by Sivaji, 25. Attacked by Aurangzeb, 27. Its strength, 261. Stormed by the French, 261. Sur- renders to the English, 569 KANDAGLA, hara.ises the French, 492. Kadapah, Nawwdb of, the intrigues of Dupleix with, 246. Shoots Nasir Jang , 267. Conspires against Muz;i- fEar Jung, 277. Is wounded and flies, 280 Kdrik^l, taken by the French, 77. Made over to them, 79. Description of, 79 note. Lally retreats on, 527. Surrenders to the English, 566. Kasim-bazar, lodge at, founded, 32. Law stationed at, 461 LA BOU Karntil, Nawwdb of, is gained over by Dupleix, 254. His treachery towards Ntlsir Jang, 268. Conspires against MuzafEer Jung, 277. Is hacked to pieces, 278 Karnlil, Fort of, stormed, 279 Rerjean, M. de, accuses La Bourdonnais of being bribed, 159 note. Defeats the English at Vicrav^ndi, 334. Is sent to blockade Fort St. David, but retreats towards Pondichery, 335. Is outmanceuvred and beaten, 337. Commissioner at the Conference, 408 Kilpatrick, Captain, moves to assist Clive at ArkAt, 294. Repulses the French from Trichin4palli, 401. Appears before Vellur, 446. Retires, 447 Kinneer, Major, sent back to attack Jinji, 332. Is wounded and de- feated, 334 Kondaoir, ceded to the French, 279 T A BOURDONNAIS, M. de, his early Jj career, 64. His attack on Malie, 65. His subsequent proceedings, 107. Appointed Governor of the Isles, 107. His energetic proceedings, 110. He returns to France, 112. His pro- posals to Flenry, 114. His depar- ture for the isles, 115. The reversal of his orders, 117. He relieves Mabe, 117. Sends back his ships, 118. Resigns, but resignation not accepted, 119. Prepares " to conquer the impossible," 120. His difficulties, 121. Sails for Pondichery, 122. His losses and their repair, 123. Meets the English oflE Ceylon, 125. Fights Commodore Peyton, 126. Repulses him, 127. Offers battle aga'n, 127. Anchors off Pondichery, 129. Friendly correspondence with Dupleix, 129. His desiens regarding Madras, 131. Applies for more guns, 130. His irresolution, 133. Cruises off Karikal, 134. Contrast- the ships of the King with those of the Company, 135. Appeals to the Council, 135. The burden of all his letters, 137. Orders the squadron to leave, 138. Sets out for Madras, 139. Attacks Madras, 144. His alarm, 145. Forces the i)lace to surrender, 146. Writes to Dupleix regarding the capitulation, 147. Declares that he had been authorised to dispose of the place, 147. Explains his reasons to Dupleix, 150. Gives Dupleix credit 608 INDEX. LAn for his success, 152. His real posi- tion, 153. His anger at the assump- tion of authority by Dupleix, 15G. Disavows bis subordination and agrees to ransom Madras, 156. The reasons of his behaviour, 157. His acceptance of a bribe, 159, and Appendix. Other reasons that prompted him, 160. His difference with Paradis, 162. Receives the deputation from Pondichery, 165. Replies to the letter of the Council, 165. Assembles a council of war, 166. Repulses the Pondichery de- puties, 166. Gets rid of the Pondi- chery contingent by a ruse 167. Ar- rests the deputies and denounces Para- dis, 167. His real feelings, 168. Makes overtures to Dupleix, 169. Sneers at the instructions of Dupleix, 172. Re- ceiveshis reply, 173. His fleet encoun- tersa storm, 175. His losses, 176. An- nounces his intention to leave the coast, 178. Signs the treaty and sends it to Pondichery, 178. His energy, 179. Leaves Madras, 180. Influences Dordelin, 180. Arrives at Pondichery, 181. Makes proposals to Dupleix, 181. Refuses to land, but obeys the Council, 182. Leaves Pondichery, 188. Brief review of his proceedings, 184. Proceeds to the isles and thence to Martinique, 185. His reception in England, his treatment in France, and his death, 185-6 Lahaye, Admiral, commands the fleet against Galle and Trinkamali, 17. Declines a contest with the Dutch, 18. Besieged in St. Thome, 21. Visits Martin at Pondichery, and returns to Surat, 22 note La-Joie, Sergeant Major, appointed commander-in-chief by the muti- neers, 555. His prudent conduct, 556 Lally, Count de, orders Bussy to Arkat. 502. His antecedent*. 503. Hi.s advice to the French Ministry, 405. Is ordered to India, .505. His char- acter, 509. His strange greeting on arriving at Pondichery, 513. His ex- tensive powers, 513. His idea of Franco-Indians, 514. Moves against Gfidalur, 516. Experiences the ne- glect of the Pondichery authorities, 516-8. Takes Gudalur, 519. Be- sieges Fort St. David, 519. Impresses the natives, 520. The fault rather that of the Pondichery authorities, 520. Takes Fort St. David, 522. LAW E-xhorts d'Ache to act with him, 523. Unwillinglj'^ consents to move against Tanjur, 524. The sufferings of his soldiers, 525. His violence and want of judgment, 527. Is attacked by a Tanjurian, 528. Retreats from Tan- jur, 528. His letter to Bussy. 530 note. Fails to act against Chen- galpat, 531. Raises money at Pon- dichery, and joins the army, 531. His real opinion of Bussy, 533. Takes Kanchipliram, and attacks Madras, 534. His assertions regarding Bussy, 534 note. Repulses the English sor- tie, 537. His difficulties, 526. The misconduct of his officers, 541. Is forced to raise the sie^e, 543. The reason why, 544. Returns to Pondi- chery, 550, His great difficulties, 551. Hears of d'Ache's arrival, 553; Orders Bussy to treat with Basdlat Jang, 556. His prudent conduct on learning the mutiny of his army, 558. Brings it back to obedience, 559. Divides his force, 559. Joins the army at W^ndiwash, 560. Loses Karan^oli and Wamliw^sh, 561. Re- takes Wandiwash, 562. The dilatori- ness of his chief engineer, 562. Fights at Wdndi wash, 563. Is beaten, 566. Is justified for fighting, 567. Negotiates with Haidar Ali, 567. His bold stroke, and its ill-success, 569. Resolves to hold out at Pondi- chery, 571. Takes no advantage of the storm, 572. Hopes for the arrival of d'Ache , 572. Surrenders, 573. His treatment by his countrymen, 576. Proceeds to France, 576. His condemnation and death, 577. The reversal of his sentence, 577 Lavanr, Father, a Jesuit, commissioner at the Conference, 407. Persuades Lally to act against Tanjur, 521. vSubscribes to pay the arrears of the soldiers, 554. Engages to feed the troops, 569. His baseness and death, 578. His hypocrisy and wealth, 575 note Law, John, of Lauriston, forms the General Bank, 42. Its success, 43. Establishes a Company of the West, 44. Converts the General into the Royal Bank, 44. Unites all the Companies into one Company of the Indies, 45. His system, 47. Raises the Government notes to par, 49. Attempts to extinguish the public debt, 50. Large sums made under his auspices, 51. Appointed Con- INDEX. 609 toller General, 52. Attempts to prop ap his scheme, 53. Failn, 54. Law, Captain, appointed to command at Aridkupum, 217. His early suc- cess, 221. His sudden collapse, 222. Succeeds d'Auteuil before Trichi- n^palU, 288. His energetic com- mencement, 289. His pride and in- decision, 298. His bad arrangements, 299. His want of energy, 300. His ntter folly, 306. His un military plans, 307. Their failure, 304. The feebleness of his next measures, 310. Their defeat, 311. Resolves to retreat into Srirangam, 313. His panic when the English were in his power, 315. Re- tires into Srirangam, 317. Attempts to surprise Clive, but fails, 323. Marches against Clive, but does not fight, 323. His despair, 324. Makes terms for Chanda S^hib, 325. Sur- renders with his whole force, 326. Is in charge of KSiSlm -bazar, 458. Retires to Phagulpur, 468. Is cap- tured, 469. Is detached to aid Bnssy, 486. Is reinforced by d'Arambure, 487. Displays some energy, 489. Collapses and writes to Bussy for aid, 490. Is ordered forward, 490. Arrives at Haidardbdd, 493. Des- patched into Bengal, 497 Lawrence, Major, repulses the French at Gtidalur, 213. Taken prisoner at Ari^kupum, 220, Commands the second expedition to D6vik6ta, 241. Conquers it, 242. Joins Nasir Jang, 247. Leaves for England, 258. Re- turns, 302. Outmanoeuvres Law, 307. Effects a junction with the garrison, 308. Repulses Law, and enters Tri- cbinipalll, 310. His share in the death of Chanda S5,hib, 325, and Twte. Forces Law to surrender, 326. Leaves the force, 342. Reassomes command, and marches against Kerjean, 335. Outmanoeuvres and beats him, 336. His opinion of Dupleix, 339. The means at his dis- posal, 380. Harassed by the French and Mar4thds, 382. Desists from bis attempts against them, 382. Marches to relieve Trichin^palli, 384. Is repulsed from Srirangam, 385. Is attacked by Astrnc, 389. His perilous position and heroic resolve, 390. His great victory, 391. Moves to Tanjur, 393. Outmanoeuvres and beats Bren- nier, 395. Defeats Astruc, 899. Covers Tanjur, 413. Revictuals Tricbin^palll, 438. Appointed to command in Madras during the sieee, 530 Re- signs the command, 545. Lenoir, M., Governor of Pondichery, 55. Pays off the debts of the com- pany, 57. His difficulties, 57. Gov- ernor for the second time, 58. His disagreement with Dupleix, 67. Is succeeded by Dumas, 70 Leroy, Gerard, employed in the service of the French Company, 6 Leyrit, M. Duval de, appointed suc- cessor to Godeheu, 444. His service and character, 445. Protests against the English movements and follows their example, 416. Yields to their threats, 447. Is convinced that a non-interference policy is impossible, 448. His crafty policy, 448. Forces the Eoglish to retire from Vellnr, 452. His design to capture Trichindpalli, 454. Orders the seizure of the En- glish factories on the coast, 458. His excuse for not reinforcing Chand- ranagar, 465 note. His opinion of Bussy, 478. Detaches troops to aid Bussy, 486. Delays action till Lally's arrival, 509. His unpatriotic con- duct, 528. Shelters the corrupt coun- cillors and others, 545. Combines against Lally, 572. Earns the con- tempt of posterity, 573 Louis XII., two ships fitted out for the East in the time of, 5 Louis XIV., declares trade to India not derogatory to a man of noble birth, 12 note. Dies, 42 MACHAULT, M., appointed Con- troller General of French finan- ces, 170 Machhlipatan, factory of, founded, 15, 31. Seized by Nasir Jang, 256. Recovered by Dupleix, 257. French possessions there increased, 279 Taken by Forde, 545 Madagascar, discovered by the Portu- guese, 8, 9. Visited by the French, 9. Who settle there, 9. Visited by the Company of Colbert, 12. Aban- doned by the Company, 13 Madras, its first occupation, 139. Its government in 1744,141. Its defences, 141. Attacked by La Bourdonnais, 146. Surrenders, 146. Articles of capitulation of, 146. Storm at, 175. Threatened by Mafauz Khdn, 180. Paradis ap- pointed to administer, 196. Saun- ders Governor of, 291. Succeeded RR 610 INDEX. by Pigot, 450 note. Invested by Lally, 533. The siege of, rai-ed 540 Mafauz Khdn, eldest son of Auwaru- din, advances against Madras, 190. Defeated by the French, 193. His masterly movements afterwards, 193. Is beaten by Paradis, 194. Attacks Paradis and is repulsed, 200. Surprises de Bury, 203. Visits Dupleix at Pondi^hery, 205. Taken prisoner at Ambur, 238 Mab6, attacked and taken, 65. Name of, changed, 65. Believed by La Bourdonnais, 117. Taken by the English, 577 Mahmii Kl 4n, is gained over by Muzaffar B6g, 490 Mainville, M. de, appointed to com- mand at Srirangam, 402. Attempts to surprise Trichiniipalll, 403. The folly of his troops and his failure, 403. Surprises the English, 411. Repulsed near the Sugar Loaf Rock, 413. Floods the country, 413. His supplies stopped by Godeheu, 427. Replaced by Maissin, 432. His strong recommendations to his successor, 432. Is killed, 551 Maissin, M., in command of a body of French, 382. Makes two abor- tive attempts on Tiiuv&di, 887. Occupies it, 887. Takes command from Mainville, 432. Connives at the revictualling of Trichinfipallj, 434. Retreats into Srirangam, 435 Maisur Dalwai of, his treachery to Ndsir Jang, 269. Generals of, enter intonegotiations with Dupleix, 333. Waver, 338. Finally join the French, 338 sec Nandarij. Makhdum Ali, cuts up a corps of English, 565 Malhar Rio Holkar, negotiates with Ghaziu-d-din, 348. Assists him, 366. Accompanies Buesy, 481 Mdnakjl, promises to spare the life of Chan da Sabib, 826. Orders him to be stabbed, 327 Marafbfis, the, invade the Kainfitik and defeat Dost Ali, 81. Retire, 85. Take Tricbindpalli, 90. Plunder Portonovo and Giidaliir, 91. Evacu- ate Trichindpalll, 104. Their trea- chery to Ndsir Jang, 268. Beaten by Raju SShib, 302. Coquet with Dupleix, 332. Again waver, 338. But join the French, 338. Their peculiar power, 359. Are defeated by Bussy, 860. Acquire territory, 867. Excluded from participation in Anyria's booty, 449 note Marcara, M., associated with Caron, 15. Proceed!* to Golkhonda, 15. Establishes a factory at Machhli- patai), 15. Quarrels with Caron, 16. Is supported by Colbert, 17. G oes to Java, 1 7 note M.aiol, M., takes Thiagar and Elmise- ram, 548 Martin, Francois, his early career, 19, Sent to the province of Jinji, 20. Buys a plot of land on the coast, 20. Returns to St. Thom6, 20. Proceeds with sixty men to his plot of land, 22. Lends money to Sh6r Kh&n Lodi, 22. Founds Pondi- chery, 23. Describes it to the DirectOLS, 23. Applies to be allowed to have native soldiers, 24. Obtains further cessions from Sher Kh&n, 26. Is allowed to fortify Pondi- chery, 26. Is attacked by the Dutch and surrenders, 28. Retires to France, 33. Returns and strength- ens Pondicherv, 85. Dies, 87. His system, 86, 38." MartizuAli, his lineage, 72-3. Mur. ders Kafdar Ali, 104. Flees to Vel- lur, 104. Engaged in the murder of Seid Muhammad Khin, 105. Ap- pointed to act under Dupleix, 335. Makes some captures in the Kar- n5,tik, 386. Defeated at Trinomali, 405. Renounces his title and sub- mits to Muhammad Ali, 448. Threatened by the English, 450. Buys them off, 450 M^uiitius, see Isle of France. Mir Asad, taken prisoner, 80. His advice to Safdar Ali, 84. His enmity to Chanda Sahib, 411 note Mir Japar Ali, detached to attack Bussy, 485. Arrives at Haidar^b^d, 486 Monson, Mr., offers to treat f or 6ur« render of Madras, 145 Monson, Colonel, assumes command before Pondichery, and is wounded, 568 Moracin, M. , appointed to command in the Sirkars, 377. His alarm at the recall of Dupleix, 428. Remon- strates with Godeheu, 485. Receives a strange warning from him, 441. His position easier than he had anticipated, 476. Detaches men to aid Bussy, 485. Joins Bussy, 500. His disobedience and its conse- quences, 543, and oiote Morse, Mr., Governor of Madras, re- jects the proposal of Dupleix for neutrality 101. His character, 141. INDEX. 611 MUH Applies for aid to restrain the French, but is refused, 143. Is abandoned by the fleet, 114. Signs a convention with La Bourdonnai.=, 156. And a cafitulatiou, ISO Muhammad Ali, defeated at Arabur and flees, 2'6H. Joins Naf^ir Jang, 249. Appointed by him Nawwab of the Karnatik, 254. Keinforced by Nasir Jan?. 2o7. Repulsed by the French, 258. Separates from the English and is defeated by the French, 251). Flees to Trichindpalli, 276. Affects to agree to the terms offered by Dupleix, 276. Throws off the mask, 284. Quarrels with his allies, 332. His reply to Dupleix, 341. Embarrassment of the English from being associated wiih, 449 Muhammad Husen Khan, secretly distresses the French, 372. He temporises, 374 Muhammad Issuf, operates against the French before Madras, 536 Muhammad Komal, defeated at Tri- pati, 408 Muhammad Sh^h, Emperor of Delhi, confers honours on Dumas, 93. Dies, 234 Mur^ri Kdo, accompanies Rdghujf Bhonsla, 79. Appointed Governor of Tricbindpalli, 89. Joins NSeir Jang, 249. Attacks the French in their retreat, 252. Surprised by de la Toache, 257. Resolves to join the English, 297. Concerts measures with Dupleix, 384. Harasses Law- rence, 385. Covers the French retreat, 393, Surprises the English at Kutd- p^rd, 413. Is threatened by the Subadar, 478. Enters into a secret understanding with Bussy, 479. Allies himself with Lally, 556 Mu'tafanagar, ceded to the French, 376 Muzaffar Jang, nominated successor to Nizamu-1-Mulk, 233. Meets and allies himself with Chanda Sdhib, 234. Appointed Subadar of the Dakhan, 237. Turns off towards Tanjur, 245. Surrenders to his uncle, 252. Released and recognised as Subadar, 269, Visits Pondichery, 271. Shows his gratitude to Dupleix, 273. Applies for a contingent of French troops, 275. Conspiracy against him, 276. Is killed, 278 Muzaffar B6g, a soldier of fortune, hired by Sh6h Nawdz Khdn, 485. Corrupts the French sipdbis, 487 PAn NARSAPUR, acquired by the French. 280 Nasir Jang, succeeds Nizdmu-1-Mulk in the Dakhan, 233. Moves an army towards Pondiclu ry, 249. Appoints Muhammad Ali Nawwdb of the Karnatik, 254. Loads Muzaffar Jang with irons, 2.54. Refuses the terms proposed by Dupleix, 255. Surprised by the French, retires to ArkUt, 256 Seizes Machblipatan and Yanacn, 25(/ Reinforces Muhammad Ali, 257. Hi carelessness, 260 He takes the field, 265. Negotiates with Dupleix, 267. The conspiracy against him, 268. Is surprised and slain, 269 Nets, Commodore de, commands an expedition to the East, 7 Nizam Ali, younger brother of Saldbat Jang, 364. Invested with the ad- ministration of the Ddkhan, 493. Murders Haidar Jang and flees, 494. Obtains the upper hand over his brother, 547. Deposes and causes him to be murdered, 54, )w(e Nizamu-1-Mulk, confers honours on M. Dumas, 92. Enter.s the Karrdtik, 104. Enters Trichindpalli, 104. Dies, 184 Nizdmpatnam, acquired by the French, 279 N^andrdj, Dalwai of Maisur, 382. Tries in vain to surprise Trichindpallf, 384 ORLEANS, Duke of. Regent of France, 41. Patronises Law, 42 Orry, M., Controller General, authorises La Bourdonnais to retain his fleet, 117. Succeeded by Machault, 170 PALK, Mr., Commissioner at the Con- ference, 407. Leaves it, 408 Paradis, M., commands at Karikal, 135. Is the bearer of a letter from Dupleix, 152. Appointed Councillor at Madras, 156. His difference with La Bour- donnais, 162. Appointed a Commis- sioner underdo Bury, 1(U. Denounced and arrested, 167. Liberated and sent to sound Dupleix, 16 Sent towards Madras, 193. Defeats Miifauz Khan at S. Thome, 195. Appointed Governor of Madras, 197. Escorts the plunder of Madras to Pondichery, 199. Repulses Mdfauz Khdn, 199. Jealousy entert-ained regarding, 201. Appointed General, 207. Marches against Giidaldr, 208. Is forced to 612 lIsDEX. PAR retire, 210, Sent to fortify Ari&kupum 216. Appointed chief engineer at Pondichery, 21 7. Heads a sortie and is killed, 223. Pardaillan, M. de^ attacks Mah6, 62. Takes it, 65 Partdb Singh, his lineage, 74. Becomes R5.J4 of Tanjur, 79. Makes over Karikal to the French, 79. And Devikotd to the English, 244. At- tacked by Chanda S^hib, 247. His wiliness, 247. Attacked by Lally, 519-22. Pereira, M., his operations at Karikal, 78 Peyton, Commodore, fights La Bourdon- nais and is repulsed, 126. Sails to Trinkamali, 126. Abandons Madras, 144 Pigott, Mr., succeeds Saunders as Go- vernor of Madras, 448. Appoints Colonel Lawrence to command during the siege, 5.30 Pitt, Mr. Thomas, Governor of Madras, demand made upon, 140. Forced to comply, 141 Pocock, Admiral, engaged in the opera- tions against Chandranagar, 470. Sails from Madras, 513. Beats d'Ache, 514. Again, 516. Again, 551 Pondichery, founded by Martin, 23. Threatened by Sivaji, 25. By the Dutch, 26. Captured, 28. Restored. 34. Fortified, 34. Becomes the seat of the French Government, 85. De- scription of, 36. Its declension under the successors of Martin, 41. Reduced to financial extremities, 57. Further account of, 60. Its fortifications strengthened, 81. Visited by Safdar Ali and Chanda Sdhib, 86. Its state on the arrival of Dupleix, 98. Its new defences, 217. Besieged by Admiral Boscawen, 223. Who raises the siege, 224. Grand Darbdr held at, 272. Be- sieged by Colonel Coote, 564. Storm in the roadstead of, 568. Surrender of, 571. Fate of the garrison of, 575. Its surrender,the doom of the French, 578 Poiidichery.Council of, how constituted, 60. Appealed to by La Bourdonnais, 135. Its reply, 136. Serves a sum- mons on La Bourdonnais, 188. Ap- points a Council for Madras, 163. Supersedes La Bourdonnais by Des- premesnil, 164. Replies to La Bour- donnais' letters. 175. Sends sealed orders to Dordelin, 183. Refuses to entertain the new scheme of La Bour- 8AF donnais, 183. Dealings of with Lally 510 and onwards. Portebarr6, M. de la, takes the French squadron to Madras and returns, 187. His want of skill, 143. Preston, Captain, commands at Chengal- pat, 531. Operates against the French before Madras, 538 Provosti^re, M. de la, Go\ernor of Pon- dichery, 56 RAGUJI Bhonsla. invades the Kar- ndtik, 79. Threatens M. Dumas, 84. Moves suddenly on Trichindpalli, 88. Defeats Bar4 Sdhib and takes it, 89. Threatens Dumas, 89. His wife's love of Nantes cordials, 91. He retires, 92. Engages to support Gbdzu-d-dln, 367. Agrees to retire beyond the Waingangi,, 369 Ragiindth Dass, Ddwdn of the Subadar, is assassinated, 363 Raj^mahendri, ceded to the French, 379 Rdju Sdhib, moves upon Arkat, 295. Proposes to Clive to surrender. 296. Assaults Arkdt, 297. Is repulsed and retires, 297. Defeats the Mardth5,s and is beaten by Clive, 302. Beaten again, 305. Is disgraced by Dupleix, 307. Is too slothful for the views; of Dupleix, 337 R4mchandrJ4dao, gained over by Bnssy, 487. Feigns action against Law, 489 Rdm R5.j^, his reply to the Dutch over- tures, 27 Renault, M. de St. Germain, Chief of Chandranagar, 457. Invited to join the Subadar against the English, 459. Proposes neutrality to the English, 459. His surprise at their conduct, 463. Defends himself with vigour, 464, Surrenders Chandranagar, 46S. Surrenders Karikal and is cashiered, 563 note Richelieu, Cardinal de, forms a new Company of the Imiies, 8 Rouen, two merchants of, begin the trade to the Indies, 5. Two others amalgamate with the Company, 6 Ryswick, effects of the treaty of, 34 SAFDAR ALI, his character, 73. Com- mands an expedition against Tri- chindpalli, 73. His dilatoriness, 81. Sends his mother to Pondichery, 83. Visits Pondichery, 87. Grants privi- leges to M. Dumas, 88. Proceeds INDEX. 613 BAH to Arkfit, 88. Confers honours on M. Dumas, 93. Is murdered, 104 Sihuji, becomes R4j4 of Tanjur, but is expelled, 75. Allies himself with M. Dumas, 75. Recovers Tanjur, 76. Refuses to fulfil his engagements, 77. Is again expelled, 79, Appeals to the English to aid him, 233. Is supported by them, 244. Is abandoned and pensioned, 244. His name used by the French, 519 Sal4bat Jang, appointed by Bassy Su- badar of the Dakhan, 278. His con- cessions to Dupleix, 278. Is inyested at Aorangdbad, 279. Ratifies the en- gagement of his predecessor, 281. The state of his viceroyalty, 347. His facile nature, 352. Accompanies Bussy in his expedition against Pun4, 360. Is anxious for peace, 364. Con- cludes an armistice with B41dji, 365. Makes peace with him, 366. Cedes four provinces to the French, 376. Swears eternal gratitude to Bussy, 386. The effect on him of the recall of Dupleix, 428. Inveighs against the policy of Godeheu, 471. His prophetic language, 471. His feudal authority in Southern India, 472. Requires Bussy to march against Maisur, 473. Dismisses Bussy from his service, 478. Arrives at Haidar5,bdd, 485. Sends to propose a reconciliation, 492, His grief at Bossy's departure, 498. Mar- ches to assist the French, 543. Con- cludes a treaty with the English, 543. His deposition and death, 554, note Saubinet, M., appointed to command the French force in the Karndtik, 450. Overruns the Karndtik, 451. His character, 508. Advises an attack on Tanjur, 522. Takes Trinomali, 525. Is mortally wounded, 536 Saunders, Mr., Governor of Madras, enters into the plans of Clive, 292. Exerts himself to relieve Arkdt, 296. Agrees to a conference, 408. His liberal proposals to Dupleix, 410. In- fluences the English ministry, 416. Accedes to Godeheu's wish for a truce, 436. And to a treaty, 436. Its conditions, 437. The debt due to him by England, 440. Succeeded by Pi- gott, 449 note S4v4nur, Naww^b of, overtures made to by Dupleix, 254. His treachery, 267. Conspires against MuzafEar Jang, 276. Is kUled, 277 S4v4nur, Nawwdb of, eon of the preced- 8T ing, rebels against Sal&bat Jang, but submits, 478 Seid Muhammad Kh&n, succeeds Safdar Ali 104. Is murdered, 105. Again occupied by the French, 401. Again, 432. Stormed by them, 556 ShAh Naw^z Kh^n, succeeds Saijid Lashkar as minister of the Snbadar, 378. His surprise at the recall ot Dupleix, 428. Intrigues against the French, 469. Denounces Bussy to the Subadar, 479. Suggests his assas- sination, 480. Stirs up the country against him, 483. Hires a soldier of fortune, 485. Determines to intercept Law, 486. Is cowed by Bussy's bold- ness, 491. Though he loses the game, his measures greatly assist the En- glish, 494. Continues his intrigues, 495. Summons Niz4m Ali to Aurang- ^b4d, 498. Is killed, 498. Sher Khan Lodi sells a plot of ground to Martin, 20. Borrows money from him, 22. Allows Martin to maintain native soldiers, 24. Is defeated by Sivijl, 25. Grants lands to Martin, 25 Sivaji takes Bijapur and Golkhonda, 24. Defeats Sher Khdn Lodi, 25. Threa- tens Pondichery, 25. Takes Surat, 31 Siv4j-a-daola, Subadar, threatens Cal- cutta, 460. Is disinclined to attack the French and Dutch, 460. Marches against Calcutta, 462. Offers to en- gage Clive in his service, 464 Sirkars, the four, ceded to the French. 375. Some account of, 375-6. Con- quered by and transferred to the English by the action directed by Clive, 545 Smith, Captain Joseph, commands in TrichindpalH, 452 Soupire, the Chevalier de, arrives at Pondichery, 428. His character, 504. His indolence, 506. Takes Karangoli, 526. Is outmanoeuvred by Major Brereton, 546 Srirangam, island of, occupied by the French, 287. The French retreat into, 319. Are cooped up there, 319 Surrendered to the English, 327 St. David, Fort, the English retire to it from Madras, 198. Its situation and early history, 198. Receives reinforce- ments, 207. Besieged and taken by Lally, 518 St. George, Fort, see Madras St. Thom6, taken by the French, 18 Taken by the Dutch, 21. Lally re- treats by, 539 6U INDEX. St. Malo, ships of, seized at Surat, 31. Company of, trades to Indin, 40 Stevens, Commodore, joins Admiral Po- cock, 512 Surat, is visited by C.iron, 15. Taken by Siviiji, 30. Abandoned by the French Company, 31. Ships seized at, 32. Lenoir pays tlie debts of the French Company at, 58 rpANJUR, its early history, 74. At- 1 tackfd by Chanda Suhib, 217. By Lally, 523. Who retreats, 525 Terraneau, M., assists in blocking up the channel of the Hugli, 468. Hel rays the secret to the English, 409. His fate, 470 note Tiruvddi, taken possession of by the French, 250. Action at, 259. Occu- pied by the English, 381. By the French, 387. By the English, 568. Touche, M. de la, surprises Murari Rao's camp, 254. Surprises and defeats Na- sir Jang, 267. Returns to Europe, 276. Is burnt with 700 men in the Prince, 381 note Trinkamali, taken by the French, 18. Retaken by the Dutch, 18 Trichicipallj, taken by Chanda Sdhib, 74. Muhammad Ali flees to, 275. English shut up in, 287. Descrip- tion of, 287. Relieved by Lawrence, 311. Attempted by Nandoraj, 382. Effect of Lawrence's victory on, 398. French attempt to surprise, re- pulsed, 430. Revictualled by Lawrencp, 432. D'Auteuil's attempt upon, 451. Defeated, 454 7.VL VANSITTART, Mr., Commissioner at the conference for peace, 408. Leaves it, 409 Vellur, Muitiza Ali flees to, 103. Again, 104. Description of, 152. Threatened by the Enghsh, 452. Who retire, 4.52 Vignc, Captain de, commands the de- fences of Chandranagar, 468. His brave defence, 470 and note VirdnA, a Maisurian general, is fright- ened out of au iinpregoable position, 385 Volkondah, attacked by the English, 285. Whoare repulsed, 286. D Auteuil surienders at, 325 WATSON, Admiral, ordered to the Indies with four ships, 417. Ar- rives in India, 436. Employed in the attack on Gheriah, 448. Recaptures Calcutta, 461. Concurs in accepting the French proposition of neutrality, 463. Refuses to sign the agreement or to attack Chandranagar, 464. His scruples are silenced, 465, and notd. Sails against Chandranagar, 466. Attacks it, 468 Wiswds Rao, son of Balaji BAji Rdo, advances on Aurangab^d, 497 YANAON, seized by Ndsir Jansr, 2"r.. R -stored, 272 LIRA death, 345 n'ULIKAR Khan, his ability, 314. Hia DATE DUE DEC 1 5 9^ (- r-r> - -J '^ ^ • ■• ... 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