Mss Eur Orme OV.16

p. [i]. Contents.

1, pp. 1-170. Letters written by an officer, who came in the squadron with Lally, to a person of distinction in France, from April 23rd 1758 when the squadron had sight of the Island Ceylon to the18th of October 1759, when the French troops revolted and were brought back by Viscount Fumel. In French. Stated in 134. 96 to be Original. Duplicate of 73. 2. Copied in XIV. 1, where it is entitled "Expedition de Lally." On p. 43 of an Appendix to the Piéces Justificatives attached to the Mémoire pour le Comte de Lally . . . contre le Procureur Général (1766), there is a letter from Major-General Fumel to the Sieur de Bussy dated Pondicherry, 9 February 1762, in which he refers to previous letters to the same person, possibly the father of the great Bussy. These letters were probably addressed to the same person. In 45, p. 101, Orme ascribes this paper to Lieut. Colonel Viscount Fumel, but at the end of the present volume he writes: "Harley Street, 30 August 1774. Read this volume for the first time. It is curious, and contains some particulars not mentioned by the French memorialists of India. The siege of Madras and Tanjore has new lights. He speaks well of Deleyrit, highly of Bussy, advantageously of Fumel, everywhere ill of Lally, and seems to think of him as he speaks. He nowhere mentions any personality of good or ill regarding himself"; which would seem to imply that the paper is not by Fumel. Plans of Fort St. David and Madras, to which reference is made, are missing. Some of the letters included are published in De Leyrit's Mémoire.