respective owners. Fort St. David was repaired to a certain extent, but a great portion of it was too much injured to be capable of restoration. Pondicherry was rebuilt on lines laid down by the ambitious Governor, Dupleix, which would have made it the handsomest city in India. Sonnerat, the naturalist and friend of Buffon, was there at the time. He speaks of the beauty of the new town that rose on the ashes of the old Pondicherry, and says that it surpassed anything that had yet been seen on the Coromandel Coast. It was barely completed when war broke out again. Under the plea of assisting Haider Ali, the French appeared before Fort St. David and Cuddalore town, where the English had entrenched themselves as well as in the fort. The English made a counter attack on Pondicherry. They took the new town and utterly destroyed it (1778). It cost them a large sum of money to demolish the handsome buildings, and one cannot but regret the necessity of its destruction. The French captured Fort St. David for the second time (1782), and in return for what the English had done to their town they completed the work of demolition and left the fort a heap of ruins beyond possibility of repair. Then came peace with the usual restitution of property.
For the third time war broke out, and Pondicherry was again taken (1793). It was, however, a very different town, poor and insignificant compared with its short-lived predecessor. It was occupied by British troops for some years, and restored to the French at the signing of the treaty of peace in 1816.
Perhaps the most cruel of all the acts of the French was the handing over to Haider Ali of a large number of English officers and men—soldiers and sailors—taken by the French Admiral Suffrein in a sea fight off Cuddalore. It must have been known by that time what kind of fate they would meet with at the hands of Haider. They were marched on
