Note 07 — Chapter XVII · IN WHICH GREEK JOINS GREEK.

But when matters were adjusted thus far, the French fancied it a good chance to refuse suddenly to conclude any treaty at all, alleging that nothing they might promise would bind their head factory at Pondicherry, which is true enough, as all agreed when they remembered the breach of faith committed eleven years back at Madrass, when Mr Dupleix chose to destroy the town which his own Admiral had admitted to ransom. The recollection in itself was sufficiently sinister, but when the news came that Salabadjing, owing to our failure to support him in the Carnatic, and the diversion of our forces for the recapture of Calcutta, had been compelled to receive Mr Bussey again into favour, and hand over to him the provinces of Masulipatnam, Ganjam, and Vizagapatnam, thus bringing him within two hundred miles of Fort William by way of Cuttack, we could not doubt but the French were preparing a blow against us, and amusing us with negotiations while they collected their troops. On this our commanders lost no time in preparing to anticipate the threatened danger, Colonel Clive writing to the Nabob that he was advancing with his army to assist him against the Pitans, and halting on his way at Chandernagore, while the Admiral, who would not yet consent to act without the Prince’s leave, wrote him a letter in a very moving style, pointing out not only the presumption of the French in invoking his name as the guarantie of a treaty they had no power to conclude, but also the delay of his own subjects in fulfilling the terms of the Calcutta agreement, and threatening him with ruin and destruction if these were not performed punctually and at once. This epistle was carried to the Nabob by Mr Watts, who, finding the Prince very apprehensive alike of the Pitans and the English, took occasion to represent the ingratitude of the French to him very forcibly, wringing from him at length a permission for the attack upon Chandernagore. Of this signal triumph we were apprised by the good gentleman himself on his return from the Kella,[07] which is the Soubah’s palace here.