Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/717

Book XIII Thiagar, and from the force remaining at Gingee, including what the garrison might on occasion spare, no attempt of convoys to Pondicherry beyond the provisions of a few days were to be apprebeaded They had lost, if ever it lay open, the opportunity, when they were in full force. Nevertheless the number of troops remaining at Pondicherry, with the defences and ammunition, still secured the town from every danger, excepting famine; and Mr. Lally not imprudently preferred that the troops he had detached, should remain abroad where they might do some service, and would subsist themselves, rather than return to consume in Pondicberry the slender stock of provisions, of which they had supplied so little. He now wished even to add more to their number for another purpose, on which ill fortune and necessity obliged him to rely as the likeliest means that remained of relieving the distresses of Pondicherry.

The French squadron, which had left the coast on the 1st of October of the preceding year, arrived on the 15th of November at the isle of France. This island never furnished provisions sufficient for the settled inhabitants, and had been so much exhausted of the stores collected from abroad, by victualling the squadron at their departure for the coast, that little remained to afford them on their return; and this scarcity had been injudiciously encreased by the equipment of two vessels, which had been sent to attack the English factories in the gulph of Persia. In this distress, it was resolved to follow the example of the preceding year, and to send three ships of burthen, under the convoy of the Centaur of 74 guns, belonging to the French Company, to purchase provisions at the Cape of Good Hope. But Mr. D'Aché proposed to give the command of the Centaur to the captain of the King's ship the Actif; on which all the captains of the Company's ships of war protested against this. preference, as derogatory to their own rights; and whilst the tedious disputations usual on such occasions were carrying on in writing, with much acerbity and little public zeal, the the annual tempest of the elements in this climate arose in the night of the 27th of January, and lasted without intermission, and with the utmost excess, for 36 hours. Thirty-two vessels in the port of Mauritius were torn from their