Page:History of the French in India.djvu/184

 162 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. chap, tion of that place involved two dangers — hostilitv from the Nawwab, and renewed hostility from the English — of his conduct is, in fact, so plain, so apparent, that we search in vain for any secret motive, least of all for any which might have been beneficial to his private fortunes. But it is not so with La Bourdonnais. It is now clear that up to September 26 he had entered upon no positive engagements to ransom his conquests. It is, we think, certain that on that 26th he agreed to terms with Governor Morse, one of those terms stipulating for a private present to himself of the equivalent of about £40,000 ; that, receiving on the same day convincing intimation from Pondichery, that Dupleix and the Superior Council would be no party to any scheme for a ransom, he suddenly resolved to break with them, to assert his own independent action. Is it too much to infer that the alarmed private interests stimulated, perhaps unconsciously, his jealous and easily roused ambition to a revolt against the better feelings of his nature To return to the narrative. We left La Bourdonnais on the evening of the 26th and on the morning of September 27, refusing to acknowledge the authority of the agents sent to co-operate with him by the Superior Council, sending to Pondichery for ratification a copy of the treaty of ransom, and yet — strange incon- sistency — asserting his entire independence of the con- trol of that Council But before this actually happened, some intimation that it was about to happen had reached Pondichery. Amongst the officers of the besieging army — the com- mandant, in fact, of the Pondichery contingent — was M. Paradis, a Swiss by birth, and a man of a bold, energetic, daring nature. He had previously been known to La Bourdonnais, and the latter had, even might be defenceless: the reason