LA BOUEDONNAIS ATTACKS MADRAS. 145 Governor Morse was under the influence of the dis- chap. IV appointment attending his negotiations with the Naw- s wab, when, on August 29, the fleet of La Bourdonnais 1746. appeared in the roadstead. The unskilful manner in which the squadron was handled made it evident, how- ever, to the garrison of Fort St. George, that the famous admiral who had brought the ships from the Isle of France was not with them.* Seeing nothing of the English fleet, and finding the way open, the officer commanding the squadron, M. de la Portebarre, con- tented himself, as we have seen, with making prize of two merchantmen he found in the roadstead, and then returned on September 5 to Pondichery. Eight days after, La Bourdonnais embarked, and arriving before Madras on the 15th, summoned it, as already recorded, to surrender. Up to this point, Governor Morse had been partially sustained by the hope, that Commodore Peyton would yet be prepared to strike a blow for the preservation of the principal English settlement on the Koromandel coast. But these hopes were destined to be disappoin- ted. Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the French fleet, he received the disheartening intelligence, that the Commodore with all his ships had appeared on September 3 off Pulikat, and had then borne up for Bengal. That leaky sixty-gun ship was again assigned as the reason for the desertion of Madras, the excuse for avoiding a trial of strength with the battered squadron of La Bourdonnais.f • Meanwhile, La Bourdonnais, having landed his troops on the 15th, prepared, on the evening of that day and during the 16th, to erect batteries which should play upon the town. On the 17th the native portion of the garrison made a sortie, but they were easily repulsed, and the French, following up their success, took posses- sion of the Governor's house — about half-musket range
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