Page:History of the French in India.djvu/616

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. George, 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 officers 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 from us altogether, and 'the trade, navigation, and conquest of the Indies' fallen into the hands of the French. But La Bourdonnais, in a huff", 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 more ; 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