at all jump with the restoration of
Madras, once conquered, to the English. He declared that La
Bourdonnais had gone beyond his powers; that terms to the vanquished on
Indian soil could be made by the Governor of Pondicherry and the
Governor of Pondicherry alone. He refused to ratify La Bourdonnais's
convention, and, instead, declared that the capitulation was at an end,
marched upon Madras, insisted upon the pillage and destruction of a
great portion of the town, arrested a large number of the leading
Englishmen, including the Governor of Fort St. George, and conveyed
them with all circumstances of public ignominy to Pondicherry. As for
La Bourdonnais, who had taken so gallant a step to secure French
supremacy in India, he was placed under arrest and sent to France,
where the Bastille awaited him; he had fallen before his vindictive
rival.

The inhabitants of Madras, smarting under what may {260} fairly be
called the treachery of Dupleix, considered rightly that they were no
longer bound by the convention with the luckless La Bourdonnais. One
at least of the inhabitants was a man not likely to be bound by the
mere letter of a convention which had already been broken in the
spirit. Clive disguised himself as a Mussulman--we may be permitted to
wonder how a man who to the end of his days remained eccentrically
ignorant of all Eastern languages accomplished this successfully--and,
escaping from Madras, made his way to Fort St. David. At Fort St.
David his military career began. The desperate courage which had
carried him to the top of the tower of Stephen's church, and which had
enabled him to overawe the "military bully who was the terror of Fort
St. David," now found its best vent in "welcoming the French," like the
hero of Burns's ballad, "at the sound of the drum." The peace which
was concluded between England and France sent Clive for a season,
however, back to the counting-house, and gave back Madras again to the
English company.

[Sidenote: 1748--The dream of Dupleix]

But the ambition of Dupleix was not a thing to be bounded by the
circumscription of war or peace between England and France. England
and France might be at peace, but there was no need that the English
East India Company and the French East India Company should be at peace
as well. The internal troubles of India afforded Dupleix the
opportunity he coveted of pushing his own fortunes, and doing his best
to drive the English traders out