e avenue), "the weakest side of the Fort, I placed a battery
of 3 guns, and worked hard at clearing out and enlarging
the Ditch, but there was no time to make it of any use as a
defence. A warehouse on which I put bales of _gunny_[26] to
prevent cannon balls from breaking in the vaults of the roof,
served it as a casemate."

The east or river curtain was left alone. The French were, in fact,
so confident that the ships of war would not be able to force their
way up the river, and that Clive would not therefore think of
attacking on that side, that the only precaution they took at first
was the erection of two batteries outside the Fort. It is a
well-known maxim in war that one should attack at that point at
which the enemy deems himself most secure, and it will be seen that
all Clive's efforts were aimed at preparing for Admiral Watson to
attack on the east.

As regards artillery Renault was better off.

"The alarm which the Prince" (Siraj-ud-daula) "gave us
in June last having given me reason to examine into the
state of the artillery, I found that not one of the carriages
of the guns on the ramparts was in a serviceable condition,
not a field-piece mounted, not a platform ready for the
mortars. I gave all my attention to these matters, and
fortunately had time to put them right."

To serve his guns Renault had the sailors of the Company's ship,
_Saint Contest_, whose commander, M. de la Vigne Buisson, was the
soul of the defence.

About this time he received a somewhat doubtful increase to his
garrison, a crowd of deserters from the English East India Company's
forces. The latter at this time were composed of men of all
nationalities, English, Germans, Swiss, Dutch, and even French. Many
of them, and naturally the foreigners especially, were ready to
desert upon little provocation. The hardships of service in a
country where the climate and roads were execrable, where food and
pay were equally uncertain, and where promises were made not to be
kept, were provocations which the best soldiers might have found it
difficult to resist. We read of whole regiments in the English and
French services refusing to obey orders, and of mutinies of officers
as well as of men. The one reward of service was the chance of
plunder, and naturally, then, as soon as the fighting with the Nawab
had stopped for a time, the desertions from the British forces were
numerous. Colonel Clive had more than once writt