Page:History of the French in India.djvu/241

 VOYAGE OF THE ENGLISH FLEET. 219 mand the expedition. The instructions he received CH ^ P were to endeavour to deprive the French of the base of ^— ^— their operations against India, by the capture of the 1748 Isles of France and Bourbon, and, succeeding or not in that, to deliver his main blow against Pondichery itself. On this expedition, with eight ships of war,* and a convoy of eleven ships, having on board 1,400 regular troops, Boscawen left England on November 15, 1747. The greater number of his ships reached the Cape of Good Hope on April 9 of the following year. The remainder arrived sixteen days later, but it was not till May 19 that the admiral left Table Bay for the islands. He had recived here, however, a considerable accession of force in six ships and 400 soldiers belong- ing to the Dutch East India Company. The united force, with the exception of three vessels, sighted the French islands on the morning of July 4. Had the Isle of France been in the same position with respect to its defences in which it was in 1735, the English admiral would have found little difficulty in gaining possession of it. But by the efforts of La Bourdonnais, during the first five years of his adminis- tration, fortifications had been erected all along the coast, such as rendered an attack upon it, especially at a season of the year when the wind blew strongly from the land, a matter of great uncertainty. Thus, although the garrison was small, consisting of only 500 regular troops and 1,000 sailors lent from the ships at anchor in the harbour, the defences had been so skilfully thrown up, and there appeared to be such a firm resolu- tion to defend them with pertinacity, that the admiral, after three days spent in examination of the coast, and in futile efforts to obtain some information as to the strength of the garrison, felt constrained to call a ship of 74 guns, one of 64, two of tender, and a hospital-ship. — Orme» 60, twa of 50, one of 20, a sloop of
 * The fleet was composed of one 14 guns, a bomb -ketcb, with her