Page:History of the French in India.djvu/437

 DUPLET X TREATS FOR PEACE. 411 nor. Far better for him to come to terms, even though chap. they might be disadvantageous, than to see his best-laid IX " plans thwarted and ruined by the want, on the part of those who were to execute them, of ordinary prudence and the commonest self-command. Accordingly, and with the hope rather than the ex- pectation that some practical result might arise from the meeting, Dupleix proposed that commissioners should be appointed, armed with full powers, to treat regarding an accommodation. To this the English Governor acceded, and the little town of Sadras belonging to the Dutch, nearly equidistant from Madras and Pondichery, was fixed upon as the seat of conference. The English commissaries, Messrs. Palk and Vansit- tart, arrived at this place on the 30th December ; the French — M. de Kerjean, M. Bausset, and Father Lavaur, the principal of the Jesuits — delayed by the non-arrival of passports from the English Governor — not till the 21st of January. The next day the con- ference held its first sitting. The English commissaries began by declaring that they had no propositions to make, and none to listen to, which did not comprehend the acknowledgment of Muhammad Ali as sole and legitimate master and Nawwab of the Karnatik, or which did not guarantee to the Kaja of Tanjur the full and entire possession of his kingdom. The proposals of the French commissaries were, in words, much more moderate. They suggested that Ma- dras should be quit of the annual ground-rent due to the government of the Karnatik ; that Punamath, a town in the Chengalpat district, and its dependencies should be ceded to the English Company ; that all the expenses of the war on the part of the English should be defrayed ; that the French Company should give to the English Company the necessary securities for free- dom of commerce ; and that in consequence of these cessions, the English Company should evacuate the