284 
HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
himself, and commanded all those, whether officers or soldiers, who were willing to 
go on this expedition, to advance beyond the lines. Not a man remained behind 
them. 
They arrived at Pondicherry, and performed those services to their country, 
which have been already related. 
The narrative of the operations of M. de la Bourdonnais has been continued to 
his return to the Isle of France, at the end of the year 174 6; we shall now conduct 
him to France, and resume his history, at the moment when he quitted Pondicherry 
for the last time. * 
Third Epocha of the Operations of M. de la Bourdonnais. 
The Captains of the ships who were at Pondicherry not knowing whom to obey, 
the Council who retained them, or M. de la Bourdonnais who summoned them to 
his assistance, determined at length to join the latter. As soon as they were two 
leagues at sea, M. de la Bourdonnais ordered all the Captains on board his ship, 
and gave them their instructions, the principal of which was, to follow those which 
they had received from the Governor and Council of Pondicherry. At the same 
time, however, he thought it. right to deliver his opinion on an article of these 
instructions, which appeared to him to be founded in extreme injustice. 
The Council of Pondicherry, by the fifth article of the instructions which they 
had given to their Captains, commanded them to exact of the King of Achem, the 
restitution of the Favori t a French vessel, which the English had taken in his road; 
and they pretended that, by way of indemnification, he should be made to pay an 
hundred catis , which amount to two hundred thousand livres of our money. M. de 
la Bourdonnais considered this proposition as unjust, because the King of Achem 
not having sufficient force to prevent the English from taking the ship, the French 
could not, with any degree of reason, render him responsible for a violence in which 
he had no concern, and could not prevent or repress. The Council of Pondicherry 
* We shall now, for the convenience of the reader, conduct M. de la Bourdonnais to the end of 
his career: we have not, it is true, proceeded further in the correspondence of Baron Grant than 
the year 1748, and this recital concludes in 1750; but we presumed that these details would be 
more interesting by being brought together, than by being presented in detached parts. 
