At this time, when British valour was bearing all before it; when the powerful fortress of Karical (which the King of Tanjowar had ceded to France in 1739) was about to fall, and he lost, with all the fertile district around it; when the united fleets of Admirals Pocock, K.B., and Sir Samuel Cornish were sweeping along the shores of the Carnatic, reducing many places of minor importance, and by their cannon everywhere beating down the _Fleur-de-lys_ of France; when Colonel Eyre Coote was pressing the French and their allies along the frontier of Bengal, and when the Prince of Vizanapore and other native rajahs were in open revolt against King Louis,--the announcement of the Chef d'Escadre filled the colonists with fear and confusion. Indignant and exasperated, Lally would have left the camp and sought Count d'Ache in person; but at that crisis, being so reduced by sickness that he could not quit his bed, he sent a deputation of field officers to represent the necessity of his remaining in the immediate vicinity of the Carnatic coast; of his co-operating with the land forces, and conjuring him by all means to suspend the execution of a design so pregnant with disaster to the Indian interests of his Most Christian Majesty. But nothing that these officers could urge, or their united eloquence suggest, would avert the fatal purpose of the Count d'Ache, who put to sea, and once more left the disheartened soldiers of King Louis to their fate. Immediately upon this Lally assembled the Council and drew up a solemn PROTEST against the unaccountable conduct and sudden departure of the Chef d'Escadre and his fleet, proclaiming that he--and _he alone_--would be responsible if Pondicherry, the capital of French India, with all its territory fell into the hands of the British army and revolted rajahs. The "protest" was dated on the 17th of September, 1759, and was unanimously signed in the Hall of Fort Lewis, at Pondicherry, by Lally himself and the following gentlemen:-- "Duval de Leyrit, Renaut, Barthelmy, Chevalier des Soupirs, Michael Lally, Bussy, Du Bois, Carriere, Verdieres, Dure, Gaddeville, Du Passage, Beausset, Renaut, De la Salle, Guillart, Porcher, Pere Dominique, _Capucin Pretre de la Paroisse de Notre Dame des Anges, F.S. Lavacier, Superieur General des Jesuites Francais dans les Indes, L. Rathon, Superieur General des Missions Etrangeres_, Poitier de Lorme, Duchatel, Audouart, Aimar, Combaut d'Authenil, Goupil, Keisses, J.C. Bon, De Wilst, Banal, Rauly, Termelin, Sainte Paul, J.B. Launay, Deshayes, Fischer, Du Laurent, Audager du Petit Val, D'Arcy, Medin, Diore, Bertrand, Legris, Miran, Bourville, F. Nicolas, Du Plan, De Laval, Boree, D. l'Arche, Bayelleon de Guillette."