Page:History of the French in India.djvu/623

API'ENPTX A. 597 received some money, lie suggests that it may have been by way of dasturi or douceur, 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 Madras 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 dasturi, or douceur, 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 George 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 posterity 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 straits 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 George 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