over to the English. This officer had served with credit in the
South of India, and had lost an arm in his country's service. The
reason of his desertion is said to have been a quarrel with M.
Renault. M. Raymond, the translator of a native history of the time
by Gholam Husain Khan,[44] tells a story of De Terraneau which seems
improbable. It is to the effect that he betrayed the secret of the
river passage to Admiral Watson, and that a few years later he sent
home part of the reward of his treachery to his father in France.
The old man returned the money with indignant comments on his son's
conduct, and De Terraneau committed 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