Page:History of the French in India.djvu/160

 138 LA B0UKD0NNA1S AND DUPLE1X. chap, the impossible " at the islands, who had there made ' ^_, ships and sailors, and soldiers and guns, who had sailed 1746, across the ocean with his untried crews, and had met and scattered the war-ships of the enemy, that the man whose motto was " action," should have suddenly so changed as to call forth an incitement to action couched in the terms we just given 1 Yet we have seen in our own day how blind to all perception of right, how oblivious even of the ordinary obligations of politeness, how open to the malignant suggestions of whisperers and sycophants, wounded vanity will make even those who, in other respects, soar far above the common run of their fellowmen. Up to the time of the despatch of that letter, Dupleix and the Council had met every requisition on the part of La Bourdonnais in the most obliging spirit. They had made over to him the par- ticular officers he had asked for, of whom Paradis was one, all the stores, ammunition, and, as we have seen, all the guns they could spare. They had only pressed upon him to act. But the feeling that he was thus under control, that he, who had always impressed his own will upon all around him, should be subject to the will of another, had changed the heart and the blood of La Bourdonnais. The burden of all his letters was, that he could not attack Madras, because the English squadron had not been destroyed ; that the English squadron had not been destroyed, because he could not bring it to action, and that he could not stay on the coast later than October 15. The meaning was that he would do nothing till then. Even the letter of the Superior Council failed to move him. Plain as were its terms, that he should either attack the English fleet or Madras, he had the boldness to declare that its con- tents prevented him from moving, because it did not prescribe precisely which of the two courses he was to adopt. Taking the letter in his hand, he declared publicly to all who would listen to him, that the