Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/110

 inscribed and the calling-cards deposited upon the table the magnificent peon in scarlet and gold conducted us back to the carriage. I was whirled away with regret at having had so short a time to make my acquaintance with a building that fully deserves the title of palace.

The old merchants, who laid out the Company's Physic Garden on the banks of the Cooum, little thought, when they obtained a reluctant permission from the directors in 1676 to put up 'two or three chambers for the sick,' that their modest sanatorium would in course of time develop into the imposing pile we call Government House. The building of the first house was completed in 1681. It became the official residence of the Governor. Its successor has seen a long line of visitors, beginning with the Dutch Commissary-General, who was conducted to the old house in the State barge, and culminating in the person of the King-Emperor, who, as Prince of Wales, was entertained by the Duke of Buckingham in 1875.

The change of site was brought about by the destruction of the old house by the French (1746). When the English returned after the rendition of the fort (1749) they found the Company's garden-house levelled to the ground. It was associated with the memory of Yale and Pitt, and a long line of Governors extending over sixty years, beginning with Gyfford and ending with Nicholas Morse, whose bones lie in the cemetery on the island.

Associations carried little weight with the Company, and it was decided (1753) to purchase for the Governor's garden-residence a house in Triplicane that had belonged to Luis de Madeiros, a descendant of one of the old Portuguese merchants of Mylapore. Sir Arthur Havelock, when he was Governor, took an interest in local history, and he suggested that the bungalow standing between the banqueting hall and the river and occupied