Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/182

154 her magazines, was transferred bodily to England. One point was insisted on by General Decäen, and, from motives of policy, accorded by the English commander. This was that the French troops should not be considered as prisoners of war, but should be permitted to return to France at the cost of the British Government with their arms and baggage.

Thus did the French lose, after an occupation of nearly a hundred years, the beautiful island upon which had been bestowed the name of their own bright land, and which in climate, in refinement of luxury, in the love of adventure of its children, had been, in very deed, the France of the East. In the long struggle with England which had followed the Revolution, the Isle of France had inflicted upon the English trade a "damage which might be computated by millions," whilst she herself had remained uninjured, — for eighteen years indeed — unthreatened. She had proved herself to be that which