Page:History of the French in India.djvu/201

 LA BOURDONNAIS SIGNS THE TREATY. wretched Madras, that I would give an arm never to have put foot in it. It has cost us too much." The next day he signed the treaty — the same treaty which, on the 11th and 12th, he had forwarded to Pon- dichery, and to some articles of which, on the 14th, the Council of Pondichery had objected — he signed this treaty, stating in the preamble that he did so, because the Pondichery Council, by articles signed on the 13th, and by that same letter of the 14th,* had engaged itself to hold to the capitulation in those terms. Having thus concluded, by an act not only unauthorised, but, under the circumstances, even dishonourable, that struggle for authority, and — would that we could omit the remainder — for his own private ends — for the secur- ing to himself of the private sum which was additional to the public ransom — La Bourdonnais assembled the members of the English Council, and, reading to them the treaty in both languages, received their acceptance of its terms. Governor Morse and five of hisf council- lors then attached to it their signatures. The treaty was sent the same day to Pondichery, accompanied by an intimation from the admiral to the Council, that he would hold them responsible, individually and collec- tively, for all contraventions perpetrated against its conditions by the French. In the interim, La Bourdonnais had made extraordi- nary exertions to repair and rent his vessels. Here he have given the most important ex- tracts from this letter. If the reader refer to it he will find, that so far from giving La Bourdonnais autho- rity to accede to the terms mentioned, it distinctly objected to two of the most important conditions — condi- tions which, nevertheless, are found unaltered in the treaty which La Bourdonnais, on the strength, as he says, of this letter, signe d. La Bour- donnais, in his memoirs, declares that the previous letters of Dupleix, agree- ing in general terms to his conditions, authorised him to act thus ; — but why, then did he not quote these in the preamble ? t Mr. Grose, who was a contem- porary, and who naturally adopted the English view, writes: — "If the French had not perfidiously broken their engagement, the price of the ran som would have been a very fa- vourable circumstance to the English Company." No doubt, and that is just why Dupleix opposed it, though he broke no engagement, having made none. IN' 2
 * In a foot-note to page 174 we