Page:History of the French in India.djvu/51

 REFLECTIONS ON THE POLICY OF MARTIN. 29 the tangible evidences of his wise and skilful policy. CH i AP - Nevertheless, he brought to bear against it all the re- v ^. sources of a mind habituated to calm and cool judgment. 1693. He had taken the precaution to move the idlers out of the town, and he prepared for a vigorous defence. The Dutch, however, gave him no respite. They landed their troops at the end of August, cut him off at once from the inland and from the sea, and plied their attack with such energy that, on September 6, having then offered a resistance of twelve days' duration, Martin had no hopes of being able to prolong the defence, and de- manded a parley. This resulted in a capitulation, signed on September 8, and consisted of thirteen articles, the. principal of which were, that the place should be given up to the Dutch East India Company ; that the garrison should march out with all the honours of war ; that the native soldiers should retire whither they pleased ; but that the French should be sent to Europe, either that year or the beginning of the next. These conditions were implicity complied with.* Thus ended, apparently for ever, the attempt of the French to establish themselves permanently on the Koromandel coast. Of all the efforts ever made by that nation to form a settlement in India, this one had been undertaken under the most gloomy auspices, and with the smallest resources ; and yet up to the time of the capture of Pondichery, it had succeeded the best. Formed of the remnant of the garrison of St. Thome, composed originally of but sixty Europeans, never regu- larly reinforced, but receiving only stray additions, it had not only maintained itself for seventeen years, but it had made itself respected by the natives of the country. What it had accomplished in its internal arrangements, we have already recorded. As we pon- der over the story of these seventeen years of occupa- capitulation is given iu full.
 * Memoire dans les Archives de la Cotnpagnie des Indes, in which the