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Rh capitulation, the terms of which stipulated that Martin and his co-patriots should be shipped to Europe either that year or the beginning of the next Meanwhile, they were allowed to march out with all the honours of war. The native troops were simply disbanded.

Severe and apparently fatal as was this blow, it resulted favourably to the young settlement. Martin and his companions were despatched to France. The reception accorded to Martin there, alike by the King and the Directors, was cordial in the extreme. The latter then, apparently for the first time, appreciated the greatness of their agent's character. And when, four years after the capture (September 21, 1697), the peace of Ryswick restored Pondichery to France, Martin was re-appointed Governor, and was despatched thither with 200 regular troops, several engineers, a large supply of military stores, several heavy and field guns, and materials in abundance for the use of the settlement.

Martin was now not only Governor of Pondichery; by letters patent from the King, he was nominated, February, 1701, Director-General of all the French possessions in India. Those possessions included a small plot of ground, about six acres, at Masulipatam, called the French Pata, acquired by Mercara; of a decaying establishment of about eight acres at Surat, abandoned in 1714; of the settlement of Chandarnagar on the right bank of the Húglí, twenty-two miles from Calcutta, first occupied by a small body