Page:History of the French in India.djvu/86

 64 THE RISE OF THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. CHAPTER III. THE RISE OP THE FRENCH POWER IN INDIA. chap. In the year 1725, a small French squadron under the mmm ^ m ^ command of M. de Pardaillan, acting under the orders 1725. of the Government of Pondichery, came to opposite the little town of Maihi,* just below Tellicheri, on the Malabar coast, and summoned the place to surrender. The Governor refused. The situation of Maihi indeed seemed to place it out of all danger. On high ground rising up from the sea, and washed on its north side by a little river, the entrance into which, as it ran into the sea, was closed by rocks for even the smallest boats, Maihi seemed to be able to bid defiance to any enemy who should attack it on the side of the sea. So at least thought the Governor, and so, apparently, seemed to think the French commodore. He, at all events, was hesitating as to the course he should adopt under the circumstances, when the captain of one of his ships submitted to him a plan which he begged he might be permitted to carry himself into execution. The name of this captain was Bertrand Franccis Mahe de La Bourdonnais. As this is a name which will occupy considerable space in these pages, it may be as well to take the earliest opportunity of describing who and what man- ner of man this was, the earliest trace of whose action in the Indian seas we have just averted to. La Bour- prior to the attack upon it by the ectors, with the view to secure, on French. It formed nominally a part the Malabar coast, a post that would of the possessions of the petty Raja indemnify the French for the loss of of Cherakal, but, in all probability, Surat For this purpose Maihi was was practically indepeudent. The well suited, attack recorded in the text was made
 * But little is known of Maihi in pursuance of orders from the Dir-