When La Bourdonnais laid siege to Fort St. George, it was surrounded with a slender wall, defended with four bastions, and as many batteries ; but these were very slight and defective in their construction, nor had they any outworks to defend them. The principal buildings inside were fifty good houses in which the chief Europeans resided, and an English and a Roman Catholic Church, the ware house of the Company, and the factory in which their servants resided. On the morning of September 12, 1746, the French fleet having on board the troops, artillery, and stores intended for the siege of Madras, sailed from Pondi cherry. A letter from Madras, dated October 27, states : " They came in sight the 2nd nine sail, and landed 800 Europeans at Covalong, marched to St. Thome, there landed more." The neighbourhood covered with country houses was given up to pillage, and the French Commissary General states that La Bourdonnais and his brother La Villebague harassed the town of St. Thomas, for loot. On the i7th September the French " began to play their mortars, being fifteen in number, from behind the garden house, io and 5 from Cross the Bar ; the strength on shore I compute 2,000 Europeans, Seapiahs, and 3,00o Coffrees ; they have when all on board about 3,00o Europeans, 600 of which were Pondicherry troops, their intent was to have stormed us by escalade, which we were in no condition to prevent, i,000 bombs having prevented our sleeping for 3 days and nights. Yet we had more to dread from our own disorder within and want of Government and Council than from the enemy with out." In the afternoon of September 21, La Bourdonnais, at the head of a large body of troops marched to the gates of the fort, where he received the keys from the Governor. The French flag was immediately hoisted, and the boats of the French squadron took possession of the Company's ships. Three years later (1749) the news of the peace of Aix-la Chapelle restored Madras to the English in exchange for the restitution of Louisburg, in North America, to the French. The honourable Board, in their letter to the East India Court, complain of the condition in which it was given back to the English.
" Your Honours have been already informed in an address we made you overland, the 3oth August, that your Settlement of Fort St. George was restored to us on the list of that month. We have, therefore, here only to acquaint you that the condition in which it was delivered was so extremely bad that we appre hend it will require to be entirely new fortified, all the walls and bastions being undermined in such a manner that they must, in all probability, fall down in the ensuing monsoon, and it is represented by His Majesty's Engineers and all the bricklayers that they are no ways to be repaired, neither are they in the least capable of bearing any cannon upon them, on which last circum stances we have been obliged, so far to deviate from your direc tions, as to permit a platform that was begun by the French to be finished, as we are informed it tends greatly to the present security of the place ; and we hope, your Honours will not be displeased thereat, as we conceived it to be absolutely necessary. As our engineer is gone, we cannot at this time send you a plan thereof, but will endeavour to get one prepared with an estimate of the expense in readiness to send by the January ship." The Board then proceed to refer to the efforts they had made to improve the fortifications of the fort : " We have completed the stonework on the north side of the fort and about half finished the Lunette to the east and west, the latter of which is now proceeding on in a gradual manner, and we judge the completing of them and filling up the covered way will be sufficient to employ our workmen till we have the pleasure to receive your further commands on this head, and in the interim have only to assure you that the constant and sincere regard we have always had for your Honour's interest will oblige us still to continue our utmost care and industry to prevent putting you to the least unnecessary expense in all the progress we may make therein." The further commands on this head could not
have been satisfactory, for Orme, who was in 1756 a member of the Madras Council, informs us that, " the English let the place remain in the state they received it from the French in 1751 until the beginning of the year 1756, when the expectation of another war with that nation, and the reports of the great preparations making in France against India, dictated the necessity of rendering it com pletely defensible." An addition had been projected many years before, the plan having been approved by Mr. Ben jamin Robins, who had come to Madras as Engineer-General of all the Company's fortifications in India. Robins was a close friend of Orme, who described him as a man of great science and an honour to his country. Robins was the real narrator of Lord Anson's Voyage Round the World, though the title page carries another name, and he also wrote A Discourse concerning the Nature and Certainty of Sir Isaac Newton's Method of Fluxions. His works were edited by Nourse, who himself was a good mathematician and the friend of Newton. The new fortifications had only been erected a short time, when the fort was again attacked by the French under Lally, who, though a hot-headed martinet, was a soldier of great courage and rare unselfish ness. We find from the old records that at a consultation held on December 12, 1758, present : " The enemy having marched this morning from the Mount, and appeared about daybreak upon Choultry Plain, our army, after about two hours' cannonading, returned into garrison, and the enemy encamped upon the spot where our troops were last night, about a mile and a half to the southward of the Fort. At the same time their advanced guards were seen at the Garden House and Chebauk, the village just on the other side of the Bar. From these motions it appeared to be the enemy's design to form immediately the siege of Madras, and the Board being of opinion that the necessary orders for conducting the defence cannot, without great inconvenience and delay, be debated on and issued by the whole Council, it is therefore unanimously agreed to leave the conduct of the defence to the Governor, who, with Colonel Lawrence, is desired to take the assistance of the other Field-officers and the Engineer as often as maybe requisite, and immediately to issue the necessary orders." Among the ancient archives in the Record office at Madras there is a Journal of Transactions during the Siege of Fort St. George, began 12th December, 1758, that has never been printed. It gives a brief, but clear and precise account of a siege which the Gibbon of our Indian Empire describes as " being without doubt the most strenuous and regular that had ever been carried on in India ; and we have detailed it in hopes that it may remain an example or incitement." " In order to dispose the garrison with spirits and as a Reward for the Bravery, it is resolved to publish to them in case the enemy shall be either defeated or compelled to raise the siege, the sum of fifty thousand rupees shall be divided amongst them five days after their defeat or retreat, following in this promise of reward the example of the Honourable Company, who have thought two thousand pounds not too large a recompense to the seamen of any of their ships who shall make a good defence when attacked, and repel the enemy." Wednesday, the 2oth.—" This being the day appointed by the Charter for Mayor and Sheriff annually elected to enter on their respective offices, the Council assembled as usual, and a message being brought that the Mayor elect and Sheriff are ready to take the oath, they are introduced with the other members and officers of the Mayor's Court, and the oaths of allegiance and office are first administered by the President to Charles Turner, Esq., who was chosen the 5th instant, and then to Mr. Henry Eustace Johnstone, who was the same day elected Sheriff, both for the year ensuing.