s to relate some of the historic events in which
Government House has figured since it was acquired.

During the second siege of Madras by the French, under Lally, the
besiegers occupied the Garden House, and during their occupation they
did a great deal of wanton damage before they ceased their vain
endeavours. Two years later, however, the English had the enjoyment of
a delicate revenge. They captured Pondicherry and brought Lally to
Madras, where they imprisoned him in the Garden House till a vessel
was available to take him to England. The damage that he had done had
not yet been repaired; and a contemporary Record says that 'Mr. Lally
was lodged in those apartments of the Garden House which had escaped
his fury at the Siege of Madras,' and that in respect of his table he
was allowed to give his own orders 'without limitation of expence,'
with the result that he 'seemed to have intended Revenge by
Profusion.'

A few years later Tipu, Sultan of Mysore, at the head of a body of
horsemen, made a sudden raid on Madras; and the troopers scampered
about the well-laid-out grounds of the Garden House, looting the
villages on either side. According to accounts, Governor Bourchier and
his Councillors were there when the raiders came, and they would
assuredly have been caught had they not managed to make their escape
in a boat that was conveniently tied up on the bank of the Cooum
river.

More than one Governor of Fort St. George has died at Government
House, and it was there that Governor Pigot died in extraordinary
circumstances. The tale has been told in a previous chapter, that Lord
Pigot was arrested by his Councillors, with whom he had quarrelled,
and that he died in confinement in the Garden House.

The reader has yet to be told how the Garden House was finally
transformed into the Government House that we see to-day.

In 1798 Lord Clive, son of the great Robert Clive, was sent out to
India as Governor of Madras. Within the first six months of his
arrival there was the excitement of a war with Mysore, in which the
terrible Tipu Sultan was killed during the assault on his capital.
During the tranquil remainder of his five years in India, Lord Clive
turned his attention to domestic reforms, and amongst them he resolved
that the Garden House should be improved. In an official minute he
wrote:--

'The garden house, at present occupied by Myself, is so
insufficient either for the private accommodation of my