mitted suicide in despair. As a matter
of fact, De Terraneau was a land officer,[45] and therefore not
likely to be able to advise the Admiral, who, as we shall see,
solved the riddle of the passage in a perfectly natural manner, and
the Probate Records show that De Terraneau lived till 1765, and in
his will left his property to his wife Ann, so the probability is
that he lived and died quietly in the British service. His only
trouble seems to have been to get himself received by his new
brother officers. However, he was, so Clive tells us, the only
artillery officer the French had, and his desertion was a very
serious matter. Renault writes:--

"The same night, by the improved direction of the
besiegers' bombs, I had no doubt but that he had done us
a bad service."

On the 18th the French destroyed a battery which the English had
established near the river, and drove them out of a house opposite
the south-east bastion. The same day the big ships of the
squadron--the _Kent_ (Captain Speke), the _Tyger_ (Captain Latham),
and the _Salisbury_ (Captain Martin), appeared below the town. The
_Bridgewater_ and _Kingfisher_ had come up before. Admiral Watson
was on board the _Kent_, and Admiral Pocock on the _Tyger_. The
fleet anchored out of range of the Fort at the Prussian Gardens, a
mile and a half below the town, and half a mile below the narrow
passage in which the ships had been sunk.

On the 19th Admiral Watson formally announced the declaration of
war,[46] and summoned the Fort to surrender. The Governor called a
council of war, in which there was much difference of opinion. Some
thought the Admiral would not have come so far without his being
certain of his ability to force the passage; indeed the presence of
so many deserters in the garrison rendered it probable that he had
secret sources of information. As a matter of fact, it was only when
Lieutenant Hey, the officer who had brought the summons, and, in
doing so, had rowed between the masts of the sunken vessels,
returned to the _Kent_, that Admiral Watson knew the passage was
clear. Renault and the Council were aware that the Fort could not
resist the big guns of the ships, and accordingly the more
thoughtful members of the council of war determined, if possible, to
try and avoid fighting by offering a ransom. This apparently gave
rise to the idea that they wished to surrender, and an English
officer says:--

"Upon the Admiral's sending them a summo