walls, and were with difficulty driven back. It was not until Pondicherry was taken from them (1761) that the fears of the English were allayed; and then, as is so often the case where there is a reaction after a long tension, the swing of the pendulum carried them to the other extreme, and the English became over-confident in their safety.
One of the servants of the Company, a Mr. Mackay, offered to buy or lease a large portion of the Choultry Plain for the purpose of erecting dwellings for himself and his fellow-countrymen. The Company was very unwilling to make the concession. Though the power of the French was believed to be broken with the fall of Pondicherry, it was impossible to tell what the future might hold in store ; they still had a grip upon the land. Mackay succeeded, however, in obtaining his desire, and he set about raising the first of a long succession of noble buildings, which have frequently, and not without reason, been called the palaces of Madras. His house retains its name, and is known as Mackay's Gardens.
The fears of the Company proved to be not without foundation. Urged by the French, Haider Ali made war upon the English, and in 1769 threatened to descend upon Madras itself. The terrified inhabitants of the garden houses at St. Thomas's Mount and upon the Choultry Plain fled to the fort for protection. The scare ended in a treaty, a kind of peace-at-any-price compact, which was not to the credit of the English.
This treaty is said to have been signed at one of the houses built upon the Choultry Plain. It was known later as Blacker's Gardens, probably on account of its having had for some time as its occupant Colonel Valentine Blacker, a distinguished officer in the Company's service (Cavalry) and author of a history of the Mahratta war. Haider Ali was encamped near Madras at the time, and
