The Records express the melancholy interest with which the Company's employees, when they re-entered Madras, took note of the changes that the enemy had made in the familiar settlement. The Councillors apparently conceived that it was in a wanton spirit of destruction that the greater part of Black Town had been wiped out; for they formally decided that the streets that had been destroyed should be rebuilt. It may be supposed however, that their military advisers counselled them otherwise; for, so far from the old houses being rebuilt, those that had been left standing were destroyed. The open space was allowed to remain; and 'New Black Town'--the modern 'Georgetown'--began to be developed. It continued to be called 'Black Town' until the visit of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King George V) to Madras in 1906 when it was formally re-named 'Georgetown'--ostensibly in Prince George's honour, but in reality to meet the wishes of a number of the residents who sought an opportunity of getting rid of what they regarded--quite reasonably--as an objectionable name for the locality in which their lot was cast. The disappearance of the historic name is a matter for historic regret, but a concession had to be made to the intelligible wishes of residents. [Illustration: A MAGAZINE IN THE BLACK TOWN WALL] The Company, bearing in mind that the French had been able to capture Madras, realized that it was necessary to strengthen the defences of Fort St. George and also to provide adequate protection for the new native city that had grown up outside the Fort's protective walls and was absolutely without defence. The defences of the Fort were taken in hand at once, though the work was by no means completed; and the Directors in England readily sanctioned the construction of a wall round New Black Town. It was well that the security of the Fort was looked to without any long delay; for in 1758, a large French army under Count Lally besieged the Fort again--but so unsuccessfully that, after sixty-seven days of persistent endeavour, they beat a sudden retreat. It was a good many years, however, before the building of the wall round Black Town was taken seriously in hand--and then only because the Company had been given a succession of sharp warnings that it was absolutely necessary that new Black Town should be protected.