twenty-ninth day of the
month, when the engineers were employed in raising another battery, near
enough to effect a breach in the north-west counter-guard and curtain.
Though the approaches were retarded some days by a violent storm, which
almost ruined the works, the damage was soon repaired: a considerable
post was taken from the enemy by assault, and afterwards regained by the
French grenadiers, through the timidity of the sepoys, by whom it was
occupied. By the fifteenth clay of January, a second battery being
raised within point-blank, a breach was made in the curtain: the west
face and flank of the north-west bastion were ruined, and the guns of
the enemy entirely silenced. The garrison and inhabitants of Pondicherry
were now reduced to an extremity of famine which would admit of no
hesitation. General Lally sent a colonel, attended by the chief of the
Jesuits, and two civilians, to Mr. Coote, with proposals of surrendering
the garrison prisoners of war, and demanding a capitulation in behalf
of the French East India company. On this last subject he made no reply;
but next morning took possession of the town and citadel, where he found
a great quantity of artillery, ammunition, small arms, and military
stores; then he secured the garrison, amounting to above two thousand
Europeans. Lally made a gallant defence; and had he been properly
supplied with provisions, the conquest of the place would not have been
so easily achieved. He certainly flattered himself with the hope of
being supplied; otherwise an officer of his experience would have
demanded a capitulation, before he was reduced to the necessity of
acquiescing in any terms the besieger might have thought proper to
impose. That he spared no pains to procure supplies, appears from an
intercepted letter,* written by this commander to monsieur Raymond,
French resident at Pullicat...... The billet is no bad sketch of the
writer's character, which seems to have a strong tincture of oddity and
extravagance.

* "Monsieur Raymond--The English squadron is no more, sir--
of the twelve ships they had in our road seven are lost,
crews and all; the other four dismasted; and no more than
one frigate hath escaped--therefore lose not an instant in
sending chelingoes upon chelingoes, laden with rice. The
Dutch have nothing to fear now. Besides, according to the
law of nations, they are only restricted from sending us
provisions in their