At the close of 1745 the British squadron duly arrived, but found itself, through Anwarudeen's action, limited exclusively to operations by sea. Meanwhile, also La Bourdonnais, aided partly by the arrival of a few weak ships from France, but chiefly by his own amazing energy and resource, had fitted out a squadron at Mauritius, with which he appeared in July 1746 off the southern coast of Ceylon. An indecisive engagement followed, at the close of which the British commander, Commodore Peyton, with strange pusillanimity sailed to Trincomalee to repair the trifling damage sustained in the action, leaving Pondicherry untouched and Madras unprotected from French attack. The French therefore had won a first and most important point in the game: if the Nabob could be persuaded to let that game proceed without interference, the ultimate victory must lie with France. [Sidenote: Aug. 18/29.] [Sidenote: Sept. 3/14.] [Sidenote: Sept. 10/21.] The town of Madras at that time consisted of three divisions; that on the south side, which was known as the White Town or Fort St. George, being inhabited by Europeans, that next to northward of it being given up to the wealthier class of Indian and Armenian merchants, while a suburb to the north of all was filled with all other classes of natives. Of these divisions the White Town, which was about four hundred yards long by one hundred broad, alone possessed defences worthy the name, being surrounded by a slender wall with four bastions and as many batteries. The total number of English did not exceed three hundred, two-thirds of which was made up of the soldiers of the garrison. The Directors of the East India Company had too often been neglectful of defences in the past, and had improved little in this respect during the past half century. They relied upon the British fleet and upon that alone. The Governor, Mr. Morse, was simply a merchant, a man of invoices and ledgers, with little knowledge of affairs beyond the scope of his business, and ignorant of the very alphabet of intercourse with native princes. There was, it is true, a clerk in his office named Robert Clive, who had arrived in India two years before; but this clerk was known only as a quiet, friendless lad, not without spirit when provoked, but lonely and out of harmony with his environment, and grateful to be able to escape from it to the refuge of the Governor's library. On receiving intelligence of hostile preparations by the French at Pondicherry, Governor Morse appealed to the Nabob Anwarudeen to fulfil his determination of enforcing neutrality within the Carnatic; but his envoy, being unprovided with the indispensable credentials of a present, met with little success in his mission. On the 29th of August the French squadron appeared before Madras, cannonaded it for a time with little effect and sailed away again; but a fortnight later it reappeared with eleven hundred European soldiers and four hundred drilled natives,