o the Fort; it was the time when the
French were besieging Madras. During the siege the enemy used the
Garden House as a vantage-ground for their big guns; and afterwards,
when they had captured Fort St. George and were in occupation of the
city, they pulled the Garden House down, lest the English, trying
perhaps to recapture the Fort, should be able to use it as a
vantage-ground in their turn.

Thus, when Madras was restored to the English, the Garden House had
disappeared, and the only house for Governor Saunders was the original
residence in the middle of the Fort. Governor Saunders, however, was
not content with the walled-in accommodation that the Fort provided
and was unwilling to forgo the residential privileges that his
predecessors had enjoyed; so a private 'garden-house' in Chepauk was
rented in his behalf. It belonged to a Mrs. Madeiros, a rich
Portuguese widow, whose husband, lately deceased, had been a leading
merchant in White Town.

Mrs. Madeiros's house was 'Government House, Madras,' of the present
day. The house, however, has been enlarged and the grounds have been
extended since Governor Saunders lived there as a tenant.

[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MADRAS]

Governor Saunders liked his residence, and, before he had been there a
year, the Company acquired it from the widow, who had no use for it
now that her husband was dead; and the Governor was careful to leave
on record the reason of the acquisition:--

'It having been always usual for the Company to allow the
President a house in the Country to retire to, and Mrs.
Medeiros being willing to dispose of her House, situated in
the Road to St. Thome, for three thousand five hundred
pagodas (say Rs 12,250), Agreed That it be purchased
accordingly, The Company's Garden-house having been
demolish'd by the French when they were in Possession of
this Place, and Mrs. Medeiros's being convenient for that
Purpose, and on a Survey esteem'd worth much more than the
Sum 'tis offer'd at.'

The Company always enjoyed a good bargain, and Governor Saunders was
justified in thinking that he had made a very good one in respect of
the house; for, a few years later, the house, with certain extensions
and improvements, was written down in the Company's books at a
valuation of nearly four times the price that was paid for it.

We have brought our story down to the acquisition of Government House,
but it remain