Page:Dupleix and the Struggle for India by the European Nations.djvu/24

Rh and Baron. To these gentlemen the actual position seemed full of danger. They could scarcely doubt that the Dutch, whose naval preponderance on the coast had enabled them to recover Trinkámalí, would take instant measures to retake St. Thomé. To be provided with a territory, the possession of which no European power could contest, they directed the officer next to them in authority, M. Francis Martin, who had been the trusted lieutenant of Caron, and whose remarkable abilities had conciliated their esteem, to arrange with one of the native princes for the cession of a piece of land on which they might build, and which, fortified with care, might become the head-quarters of the French possessions on the eastern coast of Southern India.

Martin at once entered into negotiations with Sher Khán Lodí, the governor of the possessions of the King of Bíjápur in the Karnátik, and finally was allowed to purchase a plot of land on the sea-coast, in the south Arkát division, comprising an area of 113 square miles, and the districts known as Puducherí, Villanur, and Báhur. The village of Puducherí, which gave its name to the territories, and which, by universal acceptance, is now called Pondichery, was eighty-six miles to the south-south-west of the English settlement of Madras. The purchase concluded and ratified, Martin returned to St. Thomé to report his success to his superiors. He found the place blockaded by the Dutch fleet on the side of the sea, and besieged by the troops of