turning with reinforcements from Ceylon, Dupleix sent his four ships out of its way to the west coast, so that the sea was now open. When, therefore, in 1747, the French commander, Paradis, was about to move again on Fort St. David, he was stopped by the appearance of the English squadron, which threw supplies and troops into the place and compelled him to retire to the protection of Pondicherri. From this moment the tide turned. In attempting to take Cuddalore by a dashing blow, the French were outwitted by Lawrence and beaten back with loss; Admiral Boscawen arrived with a formidable fleet and fifteen hundred soldiers; and in 1748 Pondicherri was invested by land and sea. But as the French had failed before Fort St. David, so the English failed before Pondicherri; the place was so clumsily besieged by the English and so gallantly defended by the French that the assailants had at last to draw off with serious loss.
In 1749 the news of the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle stopped the fighting in India and restored Madras to the English in exchange for the restitution of Louisburg in North America to the French. The chief outcome of this sharp wrestle between the two Companies at close quarters on a narrow strip of seacoast was a notable augmentation of the French prestige in India, and great encouragement to Dupleix in his project of employing his troops as irresistible auxiliaries to any native prince whose cause he might choose to adopt. He was already in close correspondence with one of the parties in the civil war that was just beginning to
