"Soon after this Admiral Boscawen, with a great fleet and an army, arrived from England; and on 19th of August besieged Pondicherry. The besieging army was six thousand strong; of whom three thousand, seven hundred and twenty were English. But Pondicherry resisted bravely, and after two months the besiegers were forced to retire, having lost, in attacks or by fever, one thousand and sixty-five men. "At the end of the siege, in which I had served as a medical officer, I returned to England. A few months after I left, peace was made between England and France, and by its terms Dupleix had to restore Madras to the English. I hear that fighting has been going on ever since, the English and French engaging as auxiliaries to rival native princes; and especially that there was some hot fighting round Devikota. However, we shall hear about that when we get there." "And what do you think will be the result of it all, Doctor Rae?" "I think that undoubtedly, sooner or later, either the French or ourselves will be driven out. Which it will be remains to be seen. If we are expelled, the effect of our defeat is likely to operate disastrously at Calcutta, if not at Bombay. The French will be regarded as a powerful people, whom it is necessary to conciliate, while we shall be treated as a nation of whom they need have no fear, and whom they can oppress accordingly. "If we are successful, and absolutely obtain possession of the Carnatic, our trade will vastly increase, fresh posts and commands of all sorts will be established, and there will be a fine career open to you young fellows, in the service of the Company." After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, the ship encountered a series of very heavy gales, which drove her far out of her course up the eastern coast of Africa. In the last gale her foremast was carried away, and she put in to a small island to refit. She had also sprung a leak, and a number of stores were landed, to enable her to be taken up into shallow water and heeled over, in order that the leak might be got at. The captain hurried on the work with all speed. "Had it not been for this," Charlie heard him say to Mr. Ashmead, "I would have rigged a jury-mast and proceeded; but I can't stop the leak from the inside, without shifting a great portion of the cargo, and our hold is so full that this would be difficult in the extreme. But I own that I do not like delaying a day longer than necessary, here. The natives have a very bad reputation, besides which it is suspected that one, if not more, pirates have their rendezvous in these seas. Several of our merchantmen have mysteriously disappeared, without any gale having taken place which would account for their loss.