Page:History of the French in India.djvu/137

TAKES FIVE 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. IIL Under these circumstances, La Bourdonnais foreseeing 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 event 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 Avar. 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 effected, were I 2