EASTERN HINDOOSTAN, 29 



a fmall diftridt was, in 1686, bought from a Mahratta prince 

 for the fum of about thirty-one thoufand pounds, for the ufe 

 of the htdia Company, by my countryman EUbii Tale^ the fame Ehhu Yale. 

 who hes buried in Wrexham church-yard, and mentioned in the 

 firft vohime of my Welp Tour *. Tliis tyrant (I am forry to 

 call a IVeljljnian by fo harfli a name) hung his groom for 

 riding his horfe on a journey of two or three days, for the fake 

 of his health t. The Lex talionis fliould have been put in 

 force againft the mailer ; but he came off with a high pecu- 

 niary punilliment in our EngliJJj courts. 



The fortifications of tliis place were gradually ftrengthened, Benjamin 

 the laft time by that great engineer Benjamin Robins, of " - 



whom I have given a fhort hiftory in p. ccxxiii. of the fe- 

 cond edition of my Introduction to the Ardtic Zoology. To 

 that I may add his death, which happened in 1751, at Madras^ 

 occafioned by a furfeit of oyiters ; an irreparable lofs to the 

 Eajl India Company, which had fent him over as fuperinten- 

 dent-general of all their military aichited:nre. Fort St. David 

 ftands on the northern branch of the river Panaur, with 

 the ufual obftruction of a bar at its mouth. It is the flaple 

 of this great weaving country, which produces the fineft di- 

 mities in the world, and maintains multitudes of people by 

 dying blue, or painting the cottons brought from the interior 

 parts of the country. 



The adtive La/ly, ^o unfortunate in his end, begun his Comte Lali.v. 

 fpirited career with the fiege of St. David's. He had landed 

 on Jpril 28, 1758, at Pondicberry. At five in the afternoon, 



* P. 314. t Harris's Col. Voy. i. p. 917. 



after 



