ds, made a secret condition with Mr.
Morse, by which he bound himself to restore Madras in the future, upon
the payment of a large sum of money. This agreement Dupleix, whose
heart was set upon the total expulsion of the English, refused to
ratify.

"A good many of us considered that, by this breach of the agreement,
we were released from our parole not to carry arms against the French;
and a dozen or so of us, in various disguises, escaped from Madras and
made our way to Fort Saint David, a small English settlement twelve
miles south of Pondicherry. I made the journey with a young fellow
named Clive, who had come out as a writer about two years before. He
was a fine young fellow; as unfitted as you are, I should think,
Marryat, for the dull life of a writer, but full of energy and
courage.

"At Fort Saint David we found two hundred English soldiers, and a
hundred Sepoys, and a number of us, having nothing to do at our own
work, volunteered to aid in the defence.

"After Dupleix had conquered Madras, the nawab awoke to the fact of
the danger of allowing the French to become all-powerful, by the
destruction of the English, and ordered Dupleix to restore the place.
Dupleix refused, and the nawab sent his son Maphuz Khan to invest the
town. Dupleix at once despatched a detachment of two hundred and
thirty French, and seven hundred Sepoys, commanded by an engineer
officer named Paradis, to raise the siege.

"On the 2nd of November, the garrison of Madras sallied out and drove
away the cavalry of Maphuz Khan; and on the 4th, Paradis attacked his
army, and totally defeated it.

"This, lads, was a memorable battle. It is the first time that
European and Indian soldiers have come into contest, and it shows how
immense is the superiority of Europeans. What Paradis did then opens
all sorts of possibilities for the future; and it may be that either
we or the French are destined to rise, from mere trading companies, to
be rulers of Indian states.

"Such, I know, is the opinion of young Clive, who is a very
long-headed and ambitious young fellow. I remember his saying to me
one night, when we were, with difficulty, holding our own in the
trenches, that if we had but a man of energy and intelligence at the
head of our affairs in Southern India, we might, ere many years
passed, be masters of the Carnatic. I own that it appears to me more
likely that the French will be in that position, and that we shall not
have a single esta