hat, thanks to God, I am fairly well.

"I kiss thee, etc., etc."

One would be glad to be assured that Courtin re-established his
fortune. If he is, as I suppose, the Jacques Ignace Courtin, who was
afterwards _Conseiller au Conseil des Indes_, we may be satisfied he
did so; but French East India Company Records are a hopeless chaos
at the present moment, and all that one can extract from the English
Records is evidence of still further suffering.

From Murshidabad or Cossimbazar, Courtin went down to Chandernagore,
whence the majority of the French inhabitants had already been sent
to the Madras Coast. The Fort had been blown up, and the private
houses were under sentence of destruction, for the English had
determined to destroy the town, partly in revenge for the behaviour
of Lally, who, acting under instructions from the French East India
Company, had shown great severity to the English in Southern India,
partly because they did not think themselves strong enough to
garrison Chandernagore as well as Calcutta, and feared the Moors
would occupy it if they did not place troops there, and partly
because they dreaded its restoration to France--which actually
happened--when peace was made. At any rate Courtin found the
remnants of his countrymen in despair, and in 1759 he wrote a
letter[168] to Clive and the Council of Calcutta, from which I
quote one or two paragraphs:--

"With the most bitter grief I have received advice of
the sentence you have passed on the French Settlement
at Chandernagore, by which all the buildings, as well of
the Company as of private persons, are to be utterly
demolished.

"Humane and compassionate as you are, Sirs, you would
be sensibly affected--were your eyes witnesses to it as mine
have been--by the distress to which this order has reduced
the hearts of those unhappy inhabitants who remain in that
unfortunate place, particularly if you knew that there is
nothing left to the majority of them beyond these houses, on
whose destruction you have resolved. If I may believe
what I hear, the motive which incites you is that of reprisal
for what has happened at Cuddalore and Madras: it does
not become me to criticize either the conduct of M. Lally,
our general, who, by all accounts, is a man very much to be
respected by me, or your reasons, which you suppose sufficient.
Granting the latter to be so, permit me, Sirs, to
address myself to your generosity