Page:History of the French in India.djvu/596

 570 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. chap, in the possession of the French, their second seaport, XIL he made a great effort to preserve.* But what could 1760. ne d° ^ He found the enemies he met with inside the walls of Pondichery worse than those he had to combat without ; he found self-interest everywhere, patriotism nowhere. The inhabitants refused even to don the soldiers' uniform, though only for the purpose of making a show before the enemy. Sedition, cabals, and in- trigues — everyone striving to cast upon Lally the dis- credit of the inevitable ruin that awaited them — every- one thwarting his wishes, and secretly counteracting his orders — each man still bent on saving for himself what he could out of the wreck — this was the internal condition of Pondichery — these the men with respect to whom it might be said that an appeal to patriotism was an appeal to a feeling that, long deadened, had now ceased entirely to exist. "From this time," says Lally, " Pondichery, without money, without ships, and with- out even provisions, might be given up for lost." Yet though he could not be blind to the impending result, Lally himself used every effort to avert the catastrophe. He treated with the famous Haidar Ali, then com- mander of the Maisur armies, for the services of 10,000 men, one half of them horse, transferring at once to Haidar the fortress of Thiagar, and promising him, in case of a favourable issue of the war, to make over to him Trichinapalli, Madura, Tinivelli, and all the places he might conquer in the Karnatik. In pursuance of this agreement, Makhdum Ali arrived at Thiagar on June 4, and at Pondichery a few days later. The in- trigues of the councillors rendered this treaty partially abortive, but this did not prevent Makhdum Ali from attacking, on July 18, a corps of 180 English infantry, M. Renault de St. Germain, the same who had surrendered Chandranagar to Give. At Karikal he made so poor and faint a resistanoe, that he was brought to trial, and seutenoed to be oashiered. Lally says he de- served death.
 * The commandant at Karikal was