the first week in March in which to make the attack with a certainty of success, gave sudden evidence that she was not to be trifled with with impunity. Twenty-four hours probably, forty-eight certainly, would have made all the difference, for Fort St. David could not have offered a serious resistance to a daring attack. But when the morning of the 14th of March broke, Paradis beheld the sea facing Gudálur covered with ships bearing the flag of England, and having on board a reinforcement of a hundred men for the garrison of the threatened fort. Recognising that the English fleet was at once a succour to Fort St. David and a menace to Pondichery, he retraced his steps to the camp near that town, and a few days later, when the English fleet appeared before it, entered the town itself. Dupleix had recognised that he, who had planned the expulsion of the English, might have to exert all his resources to ward off the counter-blow which the islanders were about to deliver.
But fortune gave him one more chance. The opportune arrival of a French squadron drew off the English fleet, and Dupleix, thoroughly alive now to the value of time, resolved to strike one more blow for Fort St. David. On the 27th of June he despatched a force of 1800 men, of whom 800 were Europeans, to capture that place. Who the commander was I have been unable to ascertain, but he must have been a rash and incapable man. There had arrived at Fort St. David, some six months
