authorities makes it difficult to form a connected narrative, and,
in respect to many incidents, I shall have to follow that account
which seems to enter into the fullest or most interesting detail.

It will now be necessary to go back a little. After the capture of
Calcutta in June, 1756, the behaviour of the Nawab to all Europeans
was so overbearing that Renault found it necessary to ask the
Superior Council of Pondicherry for reinforcements, but all that he
received was 67 Europeans and 167 Sepoys. No money was sent him, and
every day he expected to hear that war had broken out between
France and England.

"Full of these inquietudes, gentlemen, I was in the
most cruel embarrassment, knowing not even what to
desire. A strong detestation of the tyranny of the Nawab,
and of the excesses which he was committing against
Europeans, made me long for the arrival of the English in
the Ganges to take vengeance for them. At the same time
I feared the consequences of war being declared. In every
letter M. de Leyrit[19] impressed upon me the necessity of
fortifying Chandernagore as best I could, and of putting the
town in a state of security against a surprise, but you have
only to look at Chandernagore to see how difficult it was for
us, absolutely destitute as we were of men and money, to do
this with a town open on all sides, and with nothing even to
mark it off from the surrounding country."[20]

He goes on to describe Fort d'Orléans--

"almost in the middle of the settlement, surrounded by