Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/673

 Chap. XL]

SURRENDER OF PONDICHERRV.

639

not caiTy their ammunition dry, nor drag the artillery over inundated fields. They could, therefore, do little more than give utterance to earnest wishes that ships expected with supplies from Madagascar might arrive while the British ^s([uadron was dispersed or driven from the coast. Even these wishes soon failed them, and with

A.D. i:gi.

PONDICHKRRY

'^_ «N0 ITS I SVIROMS

Scidc

7 f.^->..y>»

a a a, Fii-st encampment. July 17. d d d, Hodoubts erected, July 18.

b b b. Second encampment. Sept. 10. c c c, Third encampment, Oct.

re- newed despondency they saw their road again blockaded by eleven sail of the line, consisting chiefly of tliose which had wea- thered the storm, and others which had e.scaped it by being at the time at sea be- yond its reach. The damaged works of the besiegers also were re- paired, while the gar- rison were so pressed I)}'" want that, when they had by a well conceived and executed attack carried a redoubt and taken a consideraljle number of prisoners, Lally, to save the additional drain on his store of provi- sions, was obliged to make an open confession of approaching famine by sending them back on their parole.

On the 10th of January a battery often guns and three mortal's opened its fire, and trenches were begun on the north side, just within the skirt of the Blancherie, or Bleaching Town, the houses of w Inch afforded good cover ; shortly after a battery was completed within 450 yards of the walLs. The garrison scarcely attempted to interrupt these works. They saw their approaching fate, and seem to have thought it useless to attempt either to ward it off" or to postpone it. Another battery was about to be commenced about 1 50 yards nearer the walls. It proved unnecessiiry. On the 15th, as the sun was setting, a flag was seen approaching from the town. It preceded a deputation, consist- ing of Colonel Durre, commandant of the royal artillery. Father Lavaur, superior of the Jesuits, and Moracin and Courtin, membei"S of the council, with an interpreter. They were the bearei-s of two memorials, one signed by Lally, and the other by the governor and council. The one by Lally wsis very charac- teristic, both in its style and substance. As if he had been about to dictate terms, not to receive them, he set out with a long and irrelevant preamble, in which he asserted that the " Engli.sh had t^iken Chandernagore against the faitii

Siege and surrender of Poi.dicherry