“Pardon to deserters who will rejoin their colours, and
  rewards to officers who will come over to us.”

These were seized by the officers before the men could see them, but one of the officers themselves, Charles Cossard de Terraneau, a sub-lieutenant of the garrison, took advantage of the offer to go over to the English.  This officer had served with credit in the South of India, and had lost an arm in his country’s service.  The reason of his desertion is said to have been a quarrel with M. Renault.  M. Raymond, the translator of a native history of the time by Gholam Husain Khan,[44] tells a story of De Terraneau which seems improbable.  It is to the effect that he betrayed the secret of the river passage to Admiral Watson, and that a few years later he sent home part of the reward of his treachery to his father in France.  The old man returned the money with indignant comments on his son’s conduct, and De Terraneau committed suicide in despair.  As a matter of fact, De Terraneau was a land officer,[45] and therefore not likely to be able to advise the Admiral, who, as we shall see, solved the riddle of the passage in a perfectly natural manner, and the Probate Records show that De Terraneau lived till 1765, and in his will left his property to his wife Ann, so the probability is that he lived and died quietly in the British service.  His only trouble seems to have been to get himself received by his new brother officers.  However, he was, so Clive tells us, the only artillery officer the French had, and his desertion was a very serious matter.  Renault writes:—­

  “The same night, by the improved direction of the
  besiegers’ bombs, I had no doubt but that he had done us
  a bad service.”

On the 18th the French destroyed a battery which the English had established near the river, and drove them out of a house opposite the south-east bastion.  The same day the big ships of the squadron—­the Kent (Captain Speke), the Tyger (Captain Latham), and the Salisbury (Captain Martin), appeared below the town.  The Bridgewater and Kingfisher had come up before.  Admiral Watson was on board the Kent, and Admiral Pocock on the Tyger.  The fleet anchored out of range of the Fort at the Prussian Gardens, a mile and a half below the town, and half a mile below the narrow passage in which the ships had been sunk.

On the 19th Admiral Watson formally announced the declaration of war,[46] and summoned the Fort to surrender.  The Governor called a council of war, in which there was much difference of opinion.  Some thought the Admiral would not have come so far without his being certain of his ability to force the passage; indeed the presence of so many deserters in the garrison rendered it probable that he had secret sources of information.  As a matter of fact, it was only when Lieutenant Hey, the officer who had brought the summons, and, in doing so, had rowed between the masts