n, a second
action was fought in August, under nearly the same conditions and in
much the same fashion. The French flag-ship met with a series of
untoward accidents, which determined the commodore to withdraw from
action; but the statement of his further reasons is most suggestive of
the necessary final overthrow of the French cause. "Prudence," a
writer of his own country says, "commanded him not to prolong a
contest from which his ships could not but come out with injuries very
difficult to repair in a region where it was impossible to supply the
almost entire lack of spare stores." This want of so absolute a
requisite for naval efficiency shows in a strong light the fatal
tendency of that economy which always characterized French operations
at sea, and was at once significant and ominous.

Returning to Pondicherry, D'Ache found that, though the injuries to
the masts and rigging could for this time be repaired, there was lack
of provisions, and that the ships needed calking. Although his orders
were to remain on the coast until October 15, he backed himself with
the opinion of a council of war which decided that the ships could not
remain there longer, because, in case of a third battle, there was
neither rigging nor supplies remaining in Pondicherry; and
disregarding the protests of the governor, Lally, he sailed on the 2d
of September for the Isle of France. The underlying motive of D'Ache,
it is known, was hostility to the governor, with whom he quarrelled
continually. Lally, deprived of the help of the squadron, turned his
arms inland instead of against Madras.

Upon arriving at the islands, D'Ache found a state of things which
again singularly illustrates the impotence and short-sightedness
characteristic of the general naval policy of the French at this time.
His arrival there was as unwelcome as his departure from India had
been to Lally. The islands were then in a state of the most complete
destitution. The naval division, increased by the arrival of three
ships-of-the-line from home, so exhausted them that its immediate
departure was requested of the commodore. Repairs were pushed ahead
rapidly, and in November several of the ships sailed to the Cape of
Good Hope, then a Dutch colony, to seek provisions; but these were
consumed soon after being received, and the pressure for the departure
of the squadron was renewed. The situation of the ships was no less
precarious than that of the colony; and accordingly