Field works and entrenched positions were thrown up at the most exposed points outside the main fort, which constituted the stronghold of the settlement, Fort d’Orleans. Six trading ships were sunk across the fairway of the Hooghly, a hundred and fifty yards below the fort, to stop the English men-of-war coming up, and a covering battery, heavily gunned, was placed to enfilade the channel at close range and bring a punishing fire on any ships trying to pass the sunken obstacles. A double boom, moored fast with chains, was also laid across the river. Two bomb-vessels were anchored broadside-on across the fairway, close to the sunken vessels, and three fireships were made ready to let drift down stream on the enemy. Chandernagore Fort itself was a four-sided brick-faced work, two hundred yards each way, with walls fifteen feet high, constructed on the regular Vauban system, with a dry ditch and bastions, and a curtain between the bastions, and with a ravelin covering the main gate. It mounted ten 32-pounders along each curtain, and eight 32-pounders on the ravelin. Besides these there was a six-gun battery of lighter pieces erected on the roof of the high-terraced church of St. Louis, inside the fort. To man his defences M. Renaud de St. Germain, the French Governor, had in all a hundred and forty-six European soldiers and three hundred Sepoys, with an auxiliary body of some three hundred Europeans, “men with muskets,” raised from among the Chandernagore traders and the crews of the French vessels. Chandernagore in itself seemed capable of making a good defence, and the Governor, indeed, as his arrangements drew towards completion, was not without hope of being able to hold his own until help, of which at an early date he received promise, should arrive from the Nawab. Clive and his army gave him little anxiety—or comparatively little. The preliminaries of the attack on the land side showed that the French heavy guns on the ramparts had a command of fire that gave the defence the mastery on that side. It was the broadsides of the men-of-war that M. Renaud was anxious about. If only he could stand up against the sailors, he thought it possible to hold out until the relief he anticipated should arrive. The British men-of-war in the river had to wait at anchor for four days until the tides suited their further advance. Admiral Watson used the opportunity to announce the declaration of war to the Governor of Chandernagore, demanding at the same time the surrender of the fort. Lieutenant Hey, of the flagship, carried the letter. The reply was an offer to ransom the place. It was refused flatly. Unconditional surrender, Admiral Watson sent back word, were his only terms, though private property would be respected. To that the French made no reply, but pressed on with their preparations.