140 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. chap, barre,* La Bourdonnais himself alone remaining behind ._ ' t on account of his sickness. The squadron sailing along 1746. the coast succeeded in capturing two small vessels in the Madras roads. It then returned to Pondichery. The health of La Bourdonnais, meanwhile, had im- proved, and his announced determination to attack Madras seems to have improved his relations with the Council. On the evening of the 12th, accordingly, he embarked to proceed on this long-meditated enterprise. On the 14th, approaching the shore, twelve miles south of Madras, he landed 500 or 600 men, with two pieces of cannon. Sailing slowly, parallel within these troops, on the 1 5th, he arrived at midday within cannon-shot of of the town. He then landed with 1,100 Europeans, 400 sipahis and 400 Africans, and summoned the place to surrender. He had still from 1,700 to 1,800 men on board his squadron. 1039. Fort St. George, and the town of Madras, of which it formed the defence, had been built upon a plot of ground,f which a petty raja subject to the last of the Hindu rulers of Bijanagar had made over to the Eng- lish in 1639. Fourteen years later, the little settle- ment had been raised to the rank of a Presidency, and
- Mr. Mill states, that Dupleix
carried his " unfriendly proceed- ing *' so far as to command La Bour- donnais to " re-land the Pondichery troops." It is very true that on August 27, knowing only, by the reply of La Bourdonnais to the cita- tion, that the fleet was to leave, hut ignorant of the direction it was to take, or the object on which it was to be employed, Dupleix directed the re-landing of 250 soldiers and 100 sipahis with their officers, assigning the following as a reason : " The distance which your squadron may find itself from this place by some event which God alone can foresee, and these troops being useless in your vessels, I beg you to disembark the troops above referred to, in order that I may be in a condition to answer to the King for the place which he has confided to me, &c." But it is not less true that on re- ceiving in reply from La Bourdon- nais a letter of the same date, in- forming him of the destination of the squadron, that it was " to sweep the Madras roads." and that it would not be absent for more than eight or ten days, he withdrew from the eqnadron only 125 Europeans and 50 sipahis retaining those for the de- fence of Pondichery. t Mr. Wheeler ("Early Records of British India") thus gives the story of its purchase : " A certain Mr. Day bought the strip of ground from the Hindu raja, of Chandra- gheri. The English agreed to pay a yearly rent of 1,200 pagodas, nearly X600 sterling for this piece of land."
