Page:History of the French in India.djvu/550

 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. as prisoners of war. The fortifications were immediately razed to the ground. Thus, in less than five weeks after his landing, had Lally, notwithstanding difficulties unheard of and almost inconceivable, certainly entirely unexpected, carried out one part of his programme. He had driven the English from one of their principal settlements — from that one indeed which for a long time had remained their seat of government, which had defied the efforts of Dupleix, and whence Lawrence and Clive had sallied to baffle the French arms at TrichinapalH. But he did not stop here. The very day of the surrender, the Count d'Estaing was detached to Devikota, which the English garrison, counting only 30 Europeans and 600 sipahis abandoned on his approach. Whilst this expedition was in course of progress, d'Ache landed at Fort St. David, and dined with Lally, who seized the occasion to open to him his new designs. Now was the time, he said, to attack Madras. The place was unfortified, the garrison weak, the Council discouraged by the capture of Fort St. David. Let but d'Ache agree to act with him, to take his army on board, and to land it either at Madras itself or at least on the high land of Alumparva, already occupied by the French, and success, he said, was certain. But, to his chagrin, d'Ache refused him his support. Acting in the same spirit which had animated him when he had delayed his voyage to India in order to keep and dispose of the little merchant ship which he had captured, d'Ache alleged that it devolved upon him to cruise off Ceylon to intercept the stray merchant ships of England. To all the remonstrances of Lally he replied only by urging the deficiency of provisions and the sickness of his crews — reasons which appeared equally to apply to their cruising off Ceylon. Unable to shake his resolution, Lally, rejoined by the detachment under d'Estaing, returned to Pondichery, into which he made a triumphant entry — a Te JJeum