Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/457

 Chap. III.]

MAJOU LAWRENCE.

423

approaching the roads. Tiie French only waited to satisfy themselves that they a.d. i748. were English and hastened off for Pondicherry.

It proved to be the long looked for British squadron. It had remained Amvai of

T->iiiiii T 11 II'" British

inactive m Bengal, but had at length ventm'ed out, under the command oi siiuaarou. Admiral Griffin, who had arrived from England with two ships, one of sixty and the other of forty guns. There was no enemy to encounter it ; and partly by troops brought with it from Bengal, and jiartly by subsequent reinforcements from England and Bombay, Fort St. David was garrisoned so strongly as to be beyond the reach of danger. The aspect of affiiirs had now completely changed, and it was the turn of M. Du})leix to feel alarm. It soon appeared, however, that there was not much cause for it. Admiral Griffin seemed satisfied with his acknowledged supremacy at sea without attempting to derive any benefit from it ; and the whole season for action passed away with no more important result than the destruction of a fifty-gun ship which had belonged to Labourdonnais' squadi'on, and was lying in the roads of Madras. On the approach of the October monsoon an attempt was made to remain on the coast, but it Wiis found impossible, and all the ships were ultimately obliged to take shelter at Trincomalee.

In the beginning of 1748 the squad- ron returned to Fort St. David, and at the same time Major Lawrence, a British officer of distinguished merit, arrived to take the command of all the Company's forces in India. For some months nothin<r of moment occun-ed. In consequence of a rumour that Dupleix was about to renew his designs on Cuddalore, Major Lawrence formed a camp between the garden already mentioned and the banks of the ^'»J°'- 1^«- Pennar. Here he had remained for some time, when the alarming discovery mlmk^-in"- was made, that thougli not yet disposed to risk a new campaign, the French iuat.'" governor had, with characteristic cunning and duplicity, been endeavouring to prepare for it by tampering with the fidelity of the native troops in British pay. The commander of a body of 400 sepoys sent from the English settlement at Tellicherry had promised to desert with them to the French in the fii-st enfrat^e- ment that should happen ; and within the fort itself, an Indian, who had ticted as interpreter and agent to the English governor of Madras, was ascertained to have long can-ied on a treaciierous con-espondence with the enemy, by communicating with Madame Dupleix in the Malabar tongue. The interpreter and an accomplice suffered death, and the commander of the Tellicherry sepoys, together with ten of their other officei-s, were banished to St. Helena.

Major-general Stkini;i;u Lawrence. — From an

enKrnvini; by Houston, »fttr Sir J. RrynolUi.