Chapter IV: The Two Colonial Wars (2)

Some years had to pass before the new spirit, hampered as it necessarily was by inherited evils, could produce much effect. A glance at the operations of 1744 will show from what a low level of energy the naval administration had to be raised. Though the retreat of M. de Roquefeuil before Sir John Norris and the February gales had shown the weakness of our enemy, we yet called upon the Dutch to send the twenty ships they were bound to supply by treaty. These vessels were duly sent. Nothing effectual was done with the large force now collected. In April and May Sir Charles Hardy with the Grand Fleet escorted the Mediterranean trade as far south as Lisbon. The French, after the failure of Roquefeuil’s cruise, had reverted to the plundering warfare of the former war. Fourteen vessels were sent out in twos and threes with orders to join at sea and attack our commerce, under the command of M. de Rochambeau. Admiral Hardy protected the trade against his attacks till it was safe in the Portuguese ports, and then returned home. The return voyage was marked by an incident which gives no high opinion either of the discipline of the fleet or of its intelligence. On the 8th May a sail was seen to the northward, and Captain Watson of the =Northumberland=, 74, was ordered to chase, but not to lose sight of the fleet. He did lose sight. A mist came on, but a gun was heard by the officers on deck, Captain Watson himself being in his cabin, and was understood to be a signal of recall. The captain came up, but continued to hold on, although a second signal was reported by the midshipman on the forecastle. In the afternoon the mist lifted, and the =Northumberland= was found to be close to two large French warships, the _Content_, 60, and the _Mars_, 68, which had a frigate, the _Venus_, 26, with them. At this time the =Northumberland= was not cleared for action, nor indeed was she ever in proper order throughout the fight. The master, James Dixon, implored the captain to get his ship into better condition, but no notice was taken. A midshipman named Best swore at the court martial that he heard the master say to the chaplain that it was sad Captain Watson should take the ship into action in the condition he was in. When asked what he understood by this, he answered that he supposed the master to mean that captain “was in liquor.” The evidence was not tested, though both the master and chaplain were present. Captain Watson’s actions were certainly not those of a sober man. He bore down on the two Frenchmen, passing the _Content_, which was nearest and engaging the _Mars_, whereby he enabled both to fall on him at once. The =Northumberland= was cut to pieces. Captain Watson received first one wound and then a second. He staggered to the accommodation ladder, and stood holding to the railing and bleeding to death. The master, it was sworn, came on the quarter-deck “with his hands in his breeches and his hat on, seemingly in a surly mood.” He declared that there were no men to fight the ship, and indeed the crew were running from the guns, while all the marines on the poop who were not shot had escaped below. In these conditions the flag was hauled down. The master gave the command after appealing to the captain to surrender, in order to save the men from being killed “like cows.” The first lieutenant, Craven, made a motion to hoist it up again, and even spoke of blowing the ship up rather than surrender her to the enemy. But his heroism did not go beyond words, and indeed the =Northumberland= was in no condition to fight further. Yet he was the superior officer, and, if he had wished to repeat the heroism of Sir Richard Grenville, had all the necessary authority. The court martial acquitted the lieutenant honourably, but sentenced the master to imprisonment for life in the Marshalsea. It would have sentenced him to death, but took the more merciful course in consideration of the good advice he gave the captain, which, if it had been followed, would have prevented the loss of the ship.

Here, by way of illustration, may be taken the case of another vessel, lost in the following year. This was the =Anglesea=, 40, commanded by Captain Elton. She was cruising on the south coast of Ireland, and fell in, off the Old Head of Kinsale, with the _Apollo_, a French privateer of 56 guns. Captain Elton rushed into action with all the folly of Captain Watson. His decks were not cleared, nor his men properly at quarters. The gunner could not as much as get the key of the powder magazine till the last moment. So ill did Captain Elton handle his ship that he allowed the Frenchman, who was to windward, to cross his stern, rake him, and range up on the lee side. As the =Anglesea= was one of the crank ships then common in our navy, she heeled over so much that the water ran in at her ports. Thus she lay, with her upper deck exposed to the small-arm fire of the Frenchman, her hull and rigging at the mercy of a heavier broadside than her own. In twenty minutes she was a beaten ship. Captain Elton fell, shot through the body. Two of his men took him down to the surgeon, but on reaching the main-deck from the quarter-deck found he was dead, and so left him. The ship was surrendered by Lieutenant Baker Philipps. The court martial found that the chief cause of the loss of the vessel was the negligent and unofficerlike conduct of Captain Elton. Yet it sentenced Philipps to be shot, though with a recommendation to mercy in which all joined except the President. Baker Philipps was shot. Admiral Vernon afterwards quoted this as a proof that naval courts martial did their duty. The shocking contrast between the cruel severity shown to this young officer and the scandalously light sentences passed on greater offenders, had probably not a little to do with making Parliament see that the naval court martial had to be taken in hand.

Sir Charles Hardy’s own work was half done. He returned home, leaving M. de Rochambeau at sea. The Frenchman blockaded the merchant ships in Lisbon. Among them were vessels on their way out with stores for the garrisons and ships in the Mediterranean. The necessity for action was pressing, and a fleet was sent out. It is a proof of the little confidence felt in the senior officers of the day that the work was entrusted to Sir John Balchen, a veteran of the wars of King William and Queen Anne, who had fought some forty years before as captain against Duguay-Trouin with more courage than success, and had lately been appointed Governor of Greenwich Hospital as a reward for long service. In spite of his great age (he was seventy-five), and his claim to exemption, Balchen left his well-earned rest, and took command of the fleet. He drove off Rochambeau, saw the trade safe to Gibraltar, and returned home in September. On the 4th October the fleet was scattered by a great storm at the entry to the Channel. Balchen’s flagship, the =Victory=, disappeared during the night of the 4th-5th October with her crew of a thousand men. She was considered an ill-built vessel and may have capsized, but Guernsey tradition asserted that the sound of minute guns was heard from the Casketts through the gale, and it was guessed that the =Victory= had been driven on the rocks. In one way or the other the sea took its own.

During 1745 the fleets cruised unopposed. In the Mediterranean Admiral Rowley, who had succeeded Mathews, blockaded the Spaniards at Carthagena. He was so superior that he was able to send ships to harass the French trade as far off as the West Indies, to watch Cadiz, and to act against those Italian states in alliance with France. In America a squadron sent from the Leeward islands under Commodore Warren, covered the expedition from New England, a partly patriotic and partly commercial speculation of the colonists, which took Louisbourg in Cape Breton from the French in April, May, and June. Our enemies were so incapable and so unenterprising that our fleet had little to do. During the latter part of the year the interest of the country was mainly turned on the Jacobite rising. The share of the navy in this passage of our history was naturally important, since it had to prevent the French from sending help to the Jacobites. But no serious move was made by the French fleet, and no opportunity for service other than patrolling the coast, and capturing single ships which endeavoured to slip in with money and stores for the Prince, presented itself. The navy did indeed contribute materially to make the rising less serious than it might have been. Prince Charles had sailed from Nantes with two vessels, the _Doutelle_, a small craft in which he himself sailed, and the _Elizabeth_, a 64-gun ship employed to carry the bulk of his arms. When on the 47th parallel and thirty-nine leagues west of the Lizard, they were met by the =Lion=, 58, commanded by Piercy Brett. He had been one of Anson’s lieutenants, and had been appointed by him captain of the =Centurion= at Canton. As the commodore was not authorised to have a captain under him the Admiralty refused to confirm the commission. Anson, in great anger, had refused to accept promotion to the rank of the rear-admiral. The ministerial change of December 1744 had brought him back, and Brett, who had been made captain in the interval, was allowed to date his seniority from his appointment at Canton. He now attacked the _Elizabeth_, and the two fought one of the fiercest of recorded single ship actions. They were so well matched that they beat one another to a standstill, but the substantial fruits of victory remained with the =Lion=, for the _Elizabeth_ was compelled to put back. The _Doutelle_ went on and reached Scotland.

In 1746 the success of the Colonial expedition against Louisbourg, encouraged the Government to fit out an imitation of it to attack Quebec. Lestock, who retained a very ill-deserved reputation for capacity, was appointed to command the ships, and Lieutenant-General St. Clair, the troops, consisting of some engineers and artillery with six regiments of foot. The preparations were delayed till the season was passed for a voyage across the Atlantic. It was therefore sent to the French coast on raiding expedition. Nothing need be recorded of it save that it did not sail till the 14th of September, that troops were landed cleverly enough to the west of Port Louis on the southern coast of Brittany, and then re-embarked when it was found that they had no means of taking the town of L’Orient, which lies a little behind Port Louis and further up the river Blavet. L’Orient was the dockyard of the French East India Company, and its destruction was much desired by us. After failing at L’Orient, the expedition went on to Quiberon Bay, where it again landed soldiers, and again found that there was nothing to be done. Finally the transports carried the soldiers to Ireland, and Lestock returned to Portsmouth.

In the following year, 1747, the new spirit at the Admiralty began to tell. The fleet was employed with vigour on well-selected services, and was rewarded with proportionate success. It was no longer used to convey insufficient military expeditions to besiege towns they had not the means of taking, or to invade countries they were not numerous enough to occupy. The French Government was stung by the fall of Louisbourg, and by the news from India, into making efforts to use its fleet to better purpose, and the increase of activity on both sides gave an energy to the naval war it had not as yet possessed. In spring it was known that two squadrons were to sail from France together and were to divide at sea—one, commanded by M. de la Jonquière, was then to steer for America, and the other, of which M. St. George was the chief, was to sail for India. They were composed of eight king’s ships, and of six of the vessels of the French East India Company. Transports and merchant vessels were to go under their protection. A squadron of sixteen ships of from 40 to 90 guns were formed to intercept them, and Anson took the command while still retaining his seat on the Board. It is characteristic of the prevailing jobbery of the time that this force was not got together without the necessity of defeating an intrigue. Two of the vessels selected to serve under Anson were the =Defiance=, 60, Captain Grenville, and the =Bristol=, 50, of which William Montagu, commonly called Mad Montagu, a brother of Lord Sandwich, was captain. Neither of these officers was wanting in spirit. Grenville was killed in the action of the 3rd May, fighting most gallantly, and whatever could have been said against the sense of Mad Montagu, a noisy violent man of much deliberate eccentricity whose rôle it was to play the rattlepated Jack Tar, his courage was above dispute. But both would have preferred to cruise alone, and pick up prizes. Grenville belonged to the famous “cousinhood” of the name, and his cousin George Grenville, who was on the Board, attempted a little manœuvre on his behalf. An order to Anson not to keep the =Defiance= and =Bristol= with him for more than seven days was put into a letter which the Duke of Bedford was expected to sign without looking at it. The Duke did detect the trick, and refused to sign, declaring that “they should deserve to be hanged for it if it was done.”

Anson sailed for his station off Finisterre on the 9th April, sent his look-out sloops to watch Rochefort, and stretched his fleet out in a line abreast, each ship a mile from the other, in order to diminish the risk that the enemy would pass undiscovered. In the early morning of the 3rd May the =Falcon= sloop brought the news that she had seen the French the day before steering for the west. Anson called in all cruisers, collected his ships, and steered to cross the presumed route of the enemy. Between nine and ten the French squadron was seen to the S.W. It was at first not possible to estimate its strength, for warships and transports were all sailing together, and the one could not be distinguished from the other. Anson therefore kept his fleet in a body lest he should meet an equal enemy whom it would be rash to attack in disorder. As the space between the two fleets was reduced, it was seen that the French had divided. Nine vessels were formed in a line to meet our attack, while the others were making off to leeward. La Jonquière and St. George had, in fact, no more than that number of vessels fit to meet line-of-battle ships. When the inferiority of the enemy’s force was seen, Anson ordered a general chase. The English captains went into action at their best speed, attacking the enemy on both sides. The French fought brilliantly, but the superiority of force against them was so overwhelming that they could do no more than sacrifice themselves bravely in order to give their charge time to escape, which many of the merchant ships did succeed in doing. Six of the French king’s ships and four of the Company’s were taken. Yet the French sold their defeat dear. Five hundred and twenty men were killed and wounded in our ships. The loss of the enemy was about seven hundred. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon when the first of the English ships—Anson’s old ship the =Centurion=, now commanded by his former lieutenant, Denis—came up with the rear of the French ships as they were edging away to leeward, and hoping to delay our attack by showing a firm front till the night should come. The action was over at seven. Anson was made a peer for the victory, which filled the country with well-grounded delight. Our superiority in numbers and weight of ships was great, and as a battle the action of the 3rd May was not glorious, but here was a success won by foresight, good management, and activity against a gallant enemy. It was the first time that so much could be said since the war began in 1739, and it was the promise of greater things to come.

On the 21st-22nd June, some six weeks after Anson had ruined the French expeditions to America and India, Captain Thomas Fox, who was cruising with a small squadron on the 47th degree of North Latitude, met and scattered the valuable convoy coming home from San Domingo. Forty-eight prizes were taken by our ships, and the injury inflicted went beyond the material loss, for the disaster showed how little able the French were to protect their sea-borne commerce against the British Navy. They were too weak to keep the road open, in face of energetic direction given to our forces by the new Admiralty. Before the close of the year a third blow drove the lesson well home, and did a great deal to bring France to recognise the necessity for making peace. The outward bound trading ships to the French West Indies were collected at Rochelle. A strong squadron of eight line-of-battle ships of the French Royal Navy, and of one 64-gun ship belonging to the Indian Company, was told off to protect them. The Chef d’escadre, or Rear-Admiral, Desherbiers de l’Etanduère, was in command, with his flag flying in the _Tonnant_, 80, a noble vessel. Indeed l’Etanduère’s squadron was a stronger one than La Jonquière’s, and the vessels composing it were superior in build and strength to our ships of the same nominal force. A powerful squadron was prepared to intercept this convoy. What was wanted in quality of ships we made up in number, and fourteen vessels were sent to overpower the French nine. The command was given to Rear-Admiral Edward Hawke, the captain of the =Berwick=, whose gallantry had stood out brilliantly against a background of blundering and pusillanimity in the battle of Toulon five years before.

Being fixed by the necessity they were under of reaching the West Indies soon after the end of the hurricane season in October, the enemy’s time of sailing could be calculated. Hawke left England on the 9th August for his cruising ground, the latitude of from 46° to 48° N. The enemy was sighted on the 14th October. The ensuing action was an almost exact reproduction of Anson’s engagement with La Jonquière. Hawke has had an affectionate biographer in our time, and the glory he won twelve years after this meeting with the convoy reflects back on all his life. Therefore he has naturally been credited with displaying great originality, but the truth is that he followed the pattern given him by Anson six months before, down to the details. The English ships approached in order, till they were near enough to estimate the enemy’s inferior numbers. Then they went ahead in general chase, attacking on both sides, and crushing their opponent by weight of numbers. As l’Etanduère’s squadron was stronger than La Jonquière’s, it made a harder fight. The French flagship, the _Tonnant_, proved too much for any of our vessels, and in company with the _Intrépide_, commanded by the Count of Vaudreuil, broke her way through and escaped. Captain Philip Saumarez in the =Nottingham=, 60, who pursued the two for a time, was killed. But six of the eight French were taken. They did not surrender till they were thoroughly wrecked. As his own vessels were severely cut up, Hawke made his way home and reached port on the 31st October. Meanwhile the French merchant ships, protected by the _Content_ and a frigate, had continued their voyage and had escaped for the time being. Hawke, however, took the precaution to send a sloop to the West Indies with the news, and many of the French vessels were captured by our cruisers when nearing their destination.

It will be observed that on both these occasions the French officers secured the escape of the vessels put under their protection. The substantial victory may therefore, in a sense, be said to have been theirs, since they did what they were sent out to do. The question then arises whether Anson and Hawke could not have done better, since they were sent out to interrupt the enemy’s commerce, and since they had a superiority of nearly two to one in fighting ships. They might have detached four sail to pursue the trading vessels, and still have left themselves a superiority over the French squadron of twelve to nine on the 3rd May, and of ten to eight on the 9th October. Yet the policy of making the destruction of the fighting force of our enemy as near as might be a certainty was the sound one, since, if his fleet was once driven off the sea, his convoys could not sail at all. Moreover, it is to be remembered that in 1747 the general bad quality of our ships might well lead our admirals to think that they could not afford to dispense with any superiority of numbers over the French.

With Hawke’s victory the naval war in Europe came to an end. In the East Indies, however, it continued. One of the few relieving features in the dulness of this war—or these wars, the Spanish and the French—is the extension of the activity of our fleet into the remote east. Hitherto when the Royal Navy had gone to the Indian Seas it had been on particular missions, but from 1744 it acted there continuously, and in squadrons, for so long as the countries were at war in Europe. Not that anything the navy did there was very flattering to our pride. Rather the contrary, indeed, since the dispensation by which it was arranged that while we were bad, our enemy should be even worse, was nowhere more conspicuously to our advantage. Yet it marks one step in the growth of the navy that it is found taking over its duties on the other side of the world.

In 1744 a squadron of 4 ships, two of 60, one of 50, and one of 20 guns, was sent to the Eastern Seas under Commodore Curtis Barnett. Here at once there is occasion to note how well we were served by the folly of our opponent. A man was then at Paris who was admirably qualified to defeat any enterprise we might undertake against the French posts in India. This was Bertrand Mahé de la Bourdonnais, governor of the French islands of Bourbon and Mauritius. He had not been trained as a king’s officer, though the rank of Capitaine de Frégate was conferred upon him. He was a native of St. Malo, a merchant skipper and trader. But he had acquired all the knowledge needed to make a skilful naval commander, and had shown great faculty in his government. La Bourdonnais was convinced that England would attack the French settlements in the East, and he laid a scheme before the king’s ministers for forestalling us. His plan was accepted, and he was promised a squadron of five vessels. But La Bourdonnais, most happily for us, had excited the hostility of the French East Company by his self-assertive character, and his exposures of its corruptions, and his talent for scornful retort. The company opposed his scheme, and had influence enough to get it laid aside. It persuaded itself and the king’s ministers that it would be possible to maintain neutrality with the English East India Company. Neither thought fit to consider the probable action of the British Government, which might very well decline to be guided by the company. Being deprived of the force promised to him, La Bourdonnais was driven back on his own resources, and on those he could draw from the islands.

Commodore Barnett sailed from Spithead on the 5th May 1744, and after touching at Porto Praya in the Cape Verd islands, went on to the Indian Ocean. After rounding the Cape, he visited Madagascar, where fresh meat could always be got from the natives, and then stood over to the coast of Sumatra. He detached two of his vessels to take post in the Straits of Malacca, between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula, and himself went through the Straits of Sunda, between Sumatra and Java, and took up his station in the Banca Straits, between Sumatra and Borneo. He was thus on the trade route between China and the European possessions on the coast of Coromandel. On the 25th January 1745 three French China ships of great value sailed right into his hands. In these far seas he did not trouble to look for an Admiralty Court, but carried his prizes into Batavia, sold them to the Dutch for £92,000, and divided the proceeds at the capstan head. Then he came across to Madras.

The relations between the English and the French Company did, to some extent, justify those who held that a neutrality could be maintained if the traders only were considered. The English Company was flourishing, and asked nothing better than to be allowed to trade in peace. The French Company was not so well off, and therefore was much more lean, hungry, and disposed to adventure. But it was not strong on land, and at sea had so far no force. A tacit arrangement was made by which the French promised to abstain from attacking us by land, so long as Barnett did not assail them from the sea. The Company persuaded the commodore to accept this arrangement, and 1745 passed in insignificant movements. Barnett died in the spring of 1746 at Fort St. Davids.

The command now fell to the senior captain, Edward Peyton, and its fortunes in his hands have caused the death of Barnett to be esteemed a misfortune. The arrival of reinforcements from home and arming of a prize taken from the French had raised the number of the squadron to six, one of 60, three of 50, one of 40, and one of 20 guns. It had, therefore, a total of 270 guns, and all the vessels, with the exception perhaps of the French prize, were built for war. The quality of the squadron must be taken into account in estimating what followed. While our ships were idly parading the Bay of Bengal, La Bourdonnais was straining every nerve to fit out a squadron at the Île de France, now Mauritius. In the spring of 1746 he had scraped together, by all kinds of devices and makeshifts, eight vessels, one of them being a man-of-war mounting 70 guns, and the others converted merchant ships of from 26 to 36 guns. The total was 292, and most of the pieces were small. The vessels were indeed full of men, but a large proportion of them were Lascars and Caffres. La Bourdonnais sailed on the 29th March, and after nearly suffering total shipwreck on Madagascar left it for the Coromandel coast in May, and arrived there in June. On the 25th of this month, before he had touched at any of the French settlements, he met the English squadron at sea between Fort St. Davids, at Cuddalore, and Negapatam, to the south of Pondicherry, the chief French port. Knowing his inferiority in artillery La Bourdonnais tried to come to close quarters and overpower the English by the number of his men. Peyton baffled this effort by keeping well to windward, and the encounter resolved itself into a distant cannonade, by which one of the French ships was crippled and very little harm was done to us. That little was enough to deprive Peyton of all desire to meet the French again. He held a council of war next morning, and by its advice sailed away to Trincomalee, leaving La Bourdonnais free to continue his voyage to Pondicherry. The decision was without excuse, for if Peyton had used his eyes at all during the cannonade of the day before, he must have learnt that he had to deal with ships of very inferior armament. But some of his own vessels were in no good condition, and he could think of nothing but of their defects, and of the excuse afforded him for a retreat.

La Bourdonnais anchored at Pondicherry on the 9th July, and began at once to prepare for attacks on our settlements. The history of his quarrels with Dupleix, the governor-general, does not concern the naval operations, since they did not prevent him for carrying out his attack on Madras. He was at sea again on the 4th August to look for Peyton, and met the English commander coming back from Ceylon. From the 8th to the 11th August the two squadrons were in sight of one another, but so convinced was Peyton of the inferiority of his squadron that he not only avoided action but sailed away to Bengal. La Bourdonnais now returned to Pondicherry, picked up soldiers, and sailed for Madras on the 15th August. The action of Peyton was again unpardonable, for even if he felt too weak to engage the French at sea, he could have contributed men and guns to the defence of Madras. The help his mere presence on the coast would have afforded is proved by the fact that when in the middle of the siege La Bourdonnais received a false report of the appearance of large English ships, he was preparing to re-embark his men. But the French commander was not one of those who are to be drawn off by mere rumours. He waited for confirmation, and when it did not come, he pushed the siege, and the place surrendered on the 29th September. This event and its consequences, the breach of the capitulation made by La Bourdonnais and the seizure of the town by Dupleix, were the beginning of the great fight between the two companies. At the change of the monsoon in October, which suspended naval operations for sailing ships, La Bourdonnais returned to his own government in the islands, and appeared no more in those seas. He was compelled to return home, was accused of corruption by his opponents of the company, and died ruined and broken-hearted. Once more our best help came from our enemy.

In the following year, 1747, Peyton was superseded by Rear-Admiral Griffin, who is accused of treating his predecessor with great brutality. It is very possible, for Griffin was one of the bad officers who then infested our navy, insolently tyrannical to his subordinates, and shy before the enemy. His own conduct was no better than Peyton’s, for he allowed M. de Bouvet, with a much inferior squadron from Mauritius, to revictual the French garrison of Madras, and did nothing against him either coming or going.

Now, however, the East Indies began to profit by the revival of energy and intelligence at the Admiralty. A squadron of ten ships, of which six were of the line, was sent out at the end of 1747 under the command of Edward Boscawen, one of the new race of officers who were being brought forward by Anson and Bedford. Boscawen owed much to family influence, for he was a brother of the Viscount Falmouth, who once cowed a recalcitrant secretary of state by significantly saying, “Remember, sir, we are seven,” that being the number of pocket boroughs owned by the Boscawen family. But the admiral was a man of ability, who would have won promotion at any time when it was to be won by merit. He sailed in November, but did not reach Fort St. Davids, which since the loss of Madras had become the Company’s chief station on the Coromandel coast, till the 29th July 1748. The length of the voyage was due partly to delay at the Cape to recruit the health of the crews and partly to an unsuccessful attempt to land at Mauritius. The force collected under Boscawen was the greatest seen as yet in eastern waters, for it consisted of ten English line-of-battle ships, and five smaller vessels, together with armed vessels belonging to our own Company and the Dutch. The French had nothing to oppose to this armament on the sea, and as the admiral had brought 1500 soldiers with him, it would seem that it ought to have been easy to sweep the French from the coast of Coromandel altogether. But the military forces were of inferior quality, consisting of independent companies raised for the service of the Company, and had as yet no military spirit. The scientific branches, and in particular the engineers who were of the first importance for siege work, were very poor. The siege of Pondicherry, undertaken in revenge for the capture of Madras, was badly managed, and turned out a complete failure. Boscawen, who directed the operations on shore, was no general, and was badly served by his engineers. A bombardment by the fleet took place on the 26th September, but it was little better than a farce, for the shallow water made it impossible for our ships to approach near enough for their fire to be effective. At a later period in the fighting in the Carnatic the Company’s soldiers found that they were being fired at with the cannon balls then wasted on Pondicherry. After lasting from the 8th August to the 30th September, after not a few panics among the raw soldiers of the army and the sailors landed to work the guns, the siege was raised with a loss of 1065 Europeans.

Peace had now been made in Europe, and Madras was restored in return for Louisbourg. The war indeed was only beginning between the Companies, but henceforward it was carried on ashore, and in the name of the native princes. Boscawen returned in the following year.