These were the official conditions; but La Bourdonnais, influenced by jealousy of Dupleix, and by the promise of a bribe of forty thousand pounds, made a secret condition with Mr.
Morse, by which he bound himself to restore Madras in the future, upon the payment of a large sum of money.

This agreement Dupleix, whose heart was set upon the total expulsion of the English, refused to ratify.
"A good many of us considered that, by this breach of the agreement, we were released from our parole not to carry arms against the French; and a dozen or so of us, in various disguises, escaped from Madras and made our way to Fort Saint David, a small English settlement twelve miles south of Pondicherry.

I made the journey with a young fellow named Clive, who had come out as a writer about two years before.

He was a fine young fellow; as unfitted as you are, I should think, Marryat, for the dull life of a writer, but full of energy and courage.
"At Fort Saint David we found two hundred English soldiers, and a hundred Sepoys, and a number of us, having nothing to do at our own work, volunteered to aid in the defence.
"After Dupleix had conquered Madras, the nawab awoke to the fact of the danger of allowing the French to become all-powerful, by the destruction of the English, and ordered Dupleix to restore the place.
Dupleix refused, and the nawab sent his son Maphuz Khan to invest the town.

Dupleix at once despatched a detachment of two hundred and thirty French, and seven hundred Sepoys, commanded by an engineer officer named Paradis, to raise the siege.
"On the 2nd of November, the garrison of Madras sallied out and drove away the cavalry of Maphuz Khan; and on the 4th, Paradis attacked his army, and totally defeated it.
"This, lads, was a memorable battle.