LA BOURDONNAIS ARRESTS THE DEPUTIES. 167 sidered he ought not to go back from the promise he had chap. 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 English fleet had been seen off 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 aproces verbal 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.
