SIEGE OF PONDICHERRY RAISED.
41
therefore, instead of renewing their attack on Fort St. David, were compelled to restore Madras, its fortifications undermined, and its storehouses empty[1]. This restoration was the more distasteful to them, when they found, as they very soon found, that from the force of events, the hostilities which had ceased in Europe were, by virtue of a legal fiction, to be continued in India. They were still to fight the battle for supremacy, not as principals, but as allies of the native princes who, in the disorder accompanying the catastrophe of the Mughal empire, fought for their own hand, against the native allies of the English.
- ↑ Forrest, page 4. The report which he gives in extenso, minuted by the Council of the Madras Presidency, runs as follows: 'The condition we have received it (Madras) in is indeed very indifferent, the French having undermined the fortifications, and rifled it of all useful and valuable stores.'
The official statement is quite opposed to the private accounts hitherto accepted as true.
