Page:History of the French in India.djvu/198

 176 LA BOUKDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. chap, nearly five hundred troops — the Pondichery contingent, IV " which, it will be recollected, La Bourdonnais, to assure 1746. his own unquestioned authority in Madras, had em- barked upon them. The storm, as usual with such storms, gave but little warning of its approach. Before, however, it attained anything like its greatest severity, the ships had all slipped their cables, and put to sea. All night long the hurricane raged with terrible fury. La Bourdonnais, who, at the first whistle of the storm, had busied himself in making preparations to meet every possible conjuncture of fortune, vainly strained his eyes, as the day slowly broke, to discover any trace of his fleet. Not a vessel was to be seen. The hurri- cane continued to rage furiously, and, at eight o'clock in the morning, appeared to be even augmenting in force. During the whole of that day his anxieties increased. But he was not idle. Here, again, the old qualities of the great organiser of the islands displayed themselves to their full perfection. He sent parties along the coast, with means and appliances to succour the crews that might stand in need of aid. At Madras itself, he made preparations on a large scale for the same purpose ; he wrote letters to Dupleix, detailing his terrible anxieties, and asking news of the ships at Pondichery ; besides this, all the boats having been destroyed, he detached catamarans,* at half past three in the afternoon, when the storm had begun to abate, with letters detailing the state of things at Madras, and asking for information from any vessel they might fall in with. No intelligence reached him, however, before eight o'clock, nor did a single sail appear in view. At that hour he learned that the " Marie Gertrude," an English prize, having many soldiers in her, had been lost with nearly all on board, between St. Thome and Kovlaon ; that one ship totally dismasted, and another, three or four pieces of wood, about which a man stands with a paddle.
 * A catamaran is composed of twenty feet long-, tied together, upon