Page:History of the French in India.djvu/49

 rONDJCflKftY THREATENED BY THE DUTCH. sixty Europeans had been reduced to thirty-four ; but he did not despair. He continued to build houses, maga- zines, and stores; and in the beginning of 1689, he obtained likewise, though with much difficulty, the per- mission of Sambaji, son of Sivaji, to make of the defences he had erected a regular fortification.* In that year, however, war broke out between France and Holland, and the Dutch appeared determined to take advantage of the opportunity to repair the fault they had committed in 1674, when they granted the French a free retreat from St. Thome. The prosperity of Pondichery alarmed them. The occasion was propitious. The French navy was too much occupied in Europe to be able to assist its possessions on the Koromandel coast — which, indeed, had been systematically neglected from the out- set. The Dutch, on the contrary, had a strong force in the eastern seas ; and, free from all fear of opposition, they resolved to use it to nip in the bud the young French settlement at Pondichery. In accordance with these views, a fleet of nineteen sail of the line, exclusive of transports and smaller vessels, appeared before Pondichery at the end of August, 1693. It was one of the most imposing armaments that had ever sailed on the Indian seas. It had on board fifteen hundred European troops, and two thousand European sailors, besides some native Cingalese in Dutch pay ; it had sixteen brass guns, six mortars, and a siege train Nevertheless, scarcely satisfied with their own means, the Dutch had previously written to Ram Raju, who, on the death of Sambaji, had been appointed ruler of the Marathas, offering to buy from him the district of Pondichery. The reply of Ram Raja deserves to be remembered. " The French," he said, " fairly purchased Pondichery, and paid for it a valuable consideration; therefore all the money in the world would never carried out by a Capuchin monk, Father Louis.
 * It is a tradition of Pondichery that these defences were planned and