Page:Dupleix and the Struggle for India by the European Nations.djvu/71

 CHAPTER V

The English Besiege Pondichery

Despatches from France had warned Dupleix that an English force, escorted by an English fleet, more powerful than any which had till then appeared in the Indian seas, had quitted England in the preceding November. At the period at which we have arrived, the end of June 1748, it might arrive at any moment. Renouncing then, as I have stated, further attempts on Fort St. David, Dupleix devoted himself, with all the energy of his nature, to strengthen the defences of Pondichery. With the invaluable aid of Paradis he made of the small fort of Ariákupun, nearly two miles from the town, an almost impregnable outwork, whilst the defences of the town itself he completed in a manner such as to render them, if well defended, very formidable if assailed by any but a very superior force.

But the force conveyed by the ships of Admiral Boscawen was very formidable. The fleet itself was, including the ships in the Indian seas, composed of thirty vessels, of which thirteen were ships of the line. The land forces it carried numbered 1400. But Holland was at war with France, and that country