Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/101

Rh battles on sea. He could send his men on shore, but on land his own men, he himself even, came under the orders of Bussy. And we have seen what the Bussy of 1783 was. Yet this man, once so distinguished, had now an opportunity at the like of which he would have clutched in his younger days. Covered by the fleet, he could make an assault on the enemy — the landing of whose battering train had been prevented by the success of Suffren — with numbers superior to their own. Suffren urged him to this course; d'Offelize urged him; the officers of his staff urged him. But he would not. He let the golden moments slip. Then Suffren, disgusted, returned on board his ship, asking Bussy as he left him "if he expected that he could take his ships to beat the enemy on shore."

At last, after many hesitations, when General Stuart had recovered from the moral depression which the departure of the English fleet and, with it, his battering train, had caused him, Bussy determined to risk a sortie. But a sortie to succeed must be composed of picked men, and those men must be well commanded. Bussy neglected both these necessary precautions. The men he ordered for the work were not only not specially selected, but their number was insufficient for the purpose; their leader moreover, the Chevalier de Dumas, was the least trusted officer in the French force. The result corresponded to the plan.