# A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan/Volume 2/Book 13

BOOK XIII.
COLONEL Monson being now master of his own views, carried into execution an operation which he had proposed in the council of war a few days before, when Colonel Coote explained his intention of attacking the fort of Ariancopang.
The bound-hedge of Pondicherry, besides its natural defence of trees and thorns, is strengthened by four redoubts; one on the north, opposite to the north-west angle of the town, another nearly west of this angle, a third nearly west of the south-west angle, and the fourth stands directly south-west of the same point. All took their names from their situations; the north was called the Madrass repoubt, the next the Valdore, the third the Villenore, and that to the south-west the Ariancopang redoubt. From the Villenore redoubt led the road and avenue, which passed through the center of the English camp at Perimbe' and about a mile from the hedge this avenue leads through the village of Oulgarry, in which were several country-houses belonging to the French inhabitants of Pondicherry, and a church belonging to the Jesuits. The regiment of Lorrain and Lally, which at this time did not assemble both together more than 400 men, were remaining in this village since the late attack on the camp. The marines, 300 men, were within the hedge, to defend the redoubt of Valdore with the part of the hedge on each hand. The battalion of India, consisting of 500 men, were stationed at the Villenore and at the Ariancopang redoubts, and between them. The north side of the hedge, with the Madrass redoubt, ​doubt, as being at the fartherst distance from the English camp, was trusted to the Sepoys. The horse, still only 100 riders, were dispersed in different posts round the limits. The rest of the army, which, exclusive of the garrison of Gingee and its out-posts, consisted of 500 European foot, 150 European horse, and 500 Sepoys, were abroad, most of them waiting to escort the provisions collected at Gingee.
At midnight the whole of the English army were under arms; a proportional number from each of the different bodies were left to defend the camp; and the main body appointed to march was divided into two brigades, of which the principal officers had the day before reconnoitered the ground of their respective attacks as near as the enemy's out-posts would admit. The regiments of Draper and Coote, comprizing both together 1000 men, 200 of the marines, the 150 highlanders, with 500 Sepoys, and four field-pieces, marched off their ground from the left of the camp at three in the morning, and entered into the Red-hill, in which they were to take a large circuit round the tamarind-grove, and, coming out where nearest, were to attack the Valdore redoubt, and the west side of the hedge adjoining. This brigade was formed into two divisions; the grenadiers of the two regiments led the first, under the command of major Robert Gordon; major William Gordon commanded the rear division, and colonel Monson the whole of this attack. The other brigade was composed of the Coromandel battalion 800, the two French companies 120, the Bombay detachment of 350 Europeans and Topasses, 600 Sepoys, and four field-pieces. They were to march from the right and attack the enemy's troops posted in Oulgarry, and after routing them, to proceed and seize the Villenore redoubt. Joseph Smith, who since the departure of Calliaud to Bengal was the first officer on the coast of the Companie's troops, and a few days before had been appointed by the Presidency of Madrass to the rank of major, commanded this brigade. The cavalry, black as well as white, were intended to appear before the Ariancopang redoubt during the two other attacks, in order to prevent the troops there from sending detachments to support them. ​Major Smith's brigade, having much less ground to go than Monson's, did not move until four in the morning. The enemy's entrenchment in front of the village of Oulgarry lay across the avenue, and they had an advanced post in a garden beyond, but a little to the right of the entrenchment. Smith, to avoid the immediate discovery of his brigade, as well as the direct fire of the entrenchment along the avenue of Oulgarry, marched down the Villenore, as far as Barthelme's garden, which lies on the left as you come down; the line then turned and passed through the garden, which brought them half the distance between the two avenues, when the brigade struck down through the intervals of some inclosures, which led to the left of the village of Oulgarry, from whence they might likewise take the entrenchment in reverse; but the two French companies were sent off immediately from the garden to cross the avenue of Oulgarry, and attack the enemy's advanced post on the other side of this avenue; but were not to begin their attack, before the firing commenced upon Oulgarry, which soon happened; for some black fellows belonging to the French troops, who were asleep in the streets of a ruined hamlet which stood opposite to the angle of the entrenchment, awakened at the wheels of the field-pieces which moved in front of the brigade, and fled with the alarm to the troops in Oulgarry, who immediately began to fire from the entrenchment, with six field-pieces in barbette, and with some aim, as the day had begun to dawn. The English field-pieces, which were of the same number and calibre, drew out of the village to answer them, and were supported by a part of the line; whilst the rest passed on to gain the flank of the village of Oulgarry: when opposite to it, divisions were detached to attack the enclosures, which the enemy had lined with troops. In the meantime, the two French companies, led by captain Myers, stormed the advanced post on the other side of the road, and seized four pieces of cannon which were there, on which the party stationed with them retreated in much hurry to the main body at Oulgarry, who, dispirited by their rout, slackened insensibly the defence of the enclosures, and ​ceased firing the field-pieces in the intrenchment across the avenue. Major Smith perceived this wavering, signified it to his troops; and put himself at the head of the grenadiers. Wherever he commanded, affection to the man conspired with duty to the officer. The grenadiers rushed on without firing, forced their way over the enclosures, and fell amongst the enemy, dealing their arms with irresistible impetuosity, increased by the disadvantages they had surmounted: all the rest entered at other parts, driving the enemy before them across the road; but those at the intrenchment had time to spike up the cannon, and then followed the rest, who were running towards a rising ground on the other side of the road, but farther back towards the bound-hedge. The main body of the brigade took possession of Oulgarry, and were soon after joined by the division with captain Myers, which had killed some, and brought prisoners. During this, a body of Eurepeans were described advancing directly towards Oulgarry, in the plain between this and the Valdore avenue: their distinctions could not be perceived, and the sudden halt of the run-a-ways on the rising ground rendered their appearance very suspicious. Messengers after messengers were sent to discover whether they were friends or foes, but none returned before Major William Gordon himself came, and gave an account that the rear division of Colonel Monson's brigade, which he commanded, had separated from the van amongst the sand hills in the dark; and had continued wandering about until they heard the fire of the attack at Oulgarry, to which he had hastened to give assistance; but it was now too late; otherwise his error might have been retrieved by the important service of intercepting the regiments of Lorrain and Lally in the confusion of their flight out of Oulgarry, who, in this case, would in all probability have been destroyed to a man: during his report, strong firing was heard at the Valdore redoubt.
It was some time before the van of Colonel Monson's brigade discovered the separation of the rear, which by turning wrong had got into windings leading towards the plain; and Colonel Monson, apprehensive that the rejunction could not be made before the dawn ​of day, which was the time destined for the attack of the Valdore redoubt, judiciously determined to risque it with the van division of his brigade alone. They defiled out of the sand hill exactly right, whilst it was still dark, at an opening directly on a line with the western side of the bound-hedge and the redoubt, up to which, the road, when near, leads in a lane between two enclosures towards the flank of the redoubt. Two field-pieces were in the front of the line, followed by the grenadiers of the two regiments of Draper and Coote, after whom came the rest of the Europeans, and then the Sepoys of the division. Colonel Monson knew the ground, and intended that the line, instead of advancing through the lane between the enclosures, should pass through the enclosure on the right, which being a coco-nut garden, was surrounded by a ditch and hedge of little interruption; and the ground within was not only firm, but free from underwood, and the trees themselves have no branches. When past the garden, they were to proceed straight on to the Valdore avenue, which was not far distant, and, having crossed it, were to file down on the other side, to gain the left flank of the Valdore redoubt; where, if not discovered, they could not be expected, and the bound-hedge hereabouts was not so strong as on the other side. The redoubt had a dry ditch, with palisadoes at the bottom, and six embrasures, of which the parapet was fraized. The grenadiers were to rush on, and escalade the redoubt without firing, whilst the rest of the line were, part to support them, and part to spread along the bound-hedge, and to force their way through wherever they could find openings, or at least to continue the fire until they had driven away the enemy, who were expected to line and defend the other side; the two field-pieces were likewise to assist in this service after the grenadiers had passed them to the escalade. The day had begun to dawn, when the head of the line arrived at the two enclosures, and Major Robert Gordon, who, excepting Monson, only knew the course of march, and was to lead the grenadiers to the assault, was not present: and the grenadiers, wanting orders, naturally entered the lane which lay before them. Officers were ​sent back to Colonel Monson, to know what next they were to do. Monson, exasperated at this second mistake in the conduct of his brigade, ran forward to rectify it if possible, or to put himself at the head of the grenadiers, and lead the assault. Just as he reached them, the enemy discovered the line which had got to the end of the lane, within a hundred yards of the redoubt, which in this flank had a twenty-four pounder, double loaded with langrain. They fired it, and its execution was terrible, killing eleven men, and wounding 26; amongst them Colonel Monson fell, struck with a piece of iron, which broke both the bones of his leg. The grenadiers, instead of being dismayed, or now hesitating for want of order, of their own motion, rushed to the escalade; and the officers, of their own judgement, got the line as fast as they could cut of the enclosed way, and led them to the hedge, when the attack and defence soon became general and extensive; but the assault of the grenadiers stopped the firing of the cannon from the redoubt, which otherwise would have continued to enfilade the troops attacking the hedge. The grenadiers, although severely galled by musketry from above and in flank, persisted after several repulses, and at length forced their way through the embrasures of the redoubt, when the troops within quitted it, and ran out of the gorge; on which all defending the hedge abandoned their posts likewise, and the whole hurried in disorder to gain the glacis of the town.
The regiments of Lorrain and Lally continued some minutes on the rising ground, in as much uncertainty as Major Smith's brigade, who the troops of Major William Gordon's division might be; but remained firm until they heard the firing at the Valdore redoubt, when comprehending the whole disposition of the attack, they marched off in haste, regained the avenue, and retreated to the redoubt of Villenore. Major Smith immediately followed them with his brigade, pressing so close on their rear, that they passed through the winding of the hedge, without stopping to defend or reinforce the redoubt; this trepidation caught the guard, who, after discharging the guns of their loads upon the brigade as it was advancing ​to the post, retired with the regiments to the glacis of the town. Major Smith immediately took possession of the redoubts, and was soon after joined by the Highlanders commanded by Major Scot, who belonging to Monaon's attack had Graced their way through the hedge between the Valdore and the Villenore redoubts. The battalion of India still continued at or about the Ariancopang redoubt, having entertained no notion of retreating; but were deterred from making any motion to support the other posts, in expectation of being attacked themselves: this however did not happen; for the cavalry of the army under the command of Vasserot, who were intended to make a feint attack upon this quarter, when the other two should commence, did not appear upon their ground until all was finished. There was a small opening in the hedge about a quarter of a mile from the Villenore redoubt, where a retrenchment had been thrown up, and the battalion of India kept a guard, who abandoned it on the appearance of a party which Major Smith detached along the inside of the hedge to attack them in the rear. The total loss sustained in the two attacks, were 115 Europeans killed and wounded, which fell nearly equal in both brigades, but in Monson's heaviest amongst the grenadiers, of whom, besides rank and file, a Lieutenant and an Ensign were killed. The Sepoys suffered much less, having been very little exposed. The French loss was not known; but they suffered most at the attacks of Oulgarry, where some were likewise made prisoners.
The Bombay detachment of 350 men were stationed to guard the three posts in the hedge, and the body of the army assembled and encamped in the paddy-fields to the left of Oulgarry. The situation was ill chosen, being commanded by higher grounds, and liable to be swamped on the first rain; but the talents of Major Robert Gordon were inadequate to the general command, which devolved on him by the incapacity to which Colonel Monson was reduced by his wound. Major Joseph Smith advised that the whole of the Company's battalion, 1000 men, should remain in the village of Oulgarry to cover the three posts in the hedge; and that their gorges, which were open, should be retrenched, ​without delay, and sufficient day remained to accomplish the work; but Robert Gordon, from the false shame of ignorance, would not see the necessity: and in the ensuing night, the enemy made a vigorous attack on all the three posts, which they would have carried, had not the guards defended them, as dearly purchased, with the utmost resolution, until reinforced by the picquets from the camp, when the enemy retreated. Seventeen or eighteen Europeans of the Bombay detachment were killed in this defence; the enemy's loss was not known, but could not be less. Had they attacked with their whole force, the redoubt would have been retaken, for the guards, inferior in number, had no advantage of defences on the side towards the town, and the main body of the army, exhausted with fatigue, and dead with sleep, were at too great a distance to have come up in time to share the contest.
Two days after, the battalion of India retreated from their stations at the hedge near the Ariancopang redoubt; but the usual guard continued in the redoubt, and the usual garrison in the fort of Ariancopang on the other side of the river. But the enemy receiving intelligence that preparations were making in the camp to attack the fort, the garrison evacuated it on the 13th at noon, and as they were going off sprung a mine, which blew up the bastion to the east with part of the rampart, and laid the body of the place open. They retreated to the glacis of the town, were the main body of the army lay encamped, and had been reinforced by the arrival of several small escorts with provisions, which the removal of the English army from Perimbe had encouraged to venture round the Red Hill; the guard still continued at the redoubt of Ariancopang.
The troops which Mahomed Issoof appointed to attack the districts of Dindigul from Madura, were 300 horse, 1500 Sepoys, and 3000 Peons; but as most of them had first to march from Tinnivelly, it was the middle of July before they commenced hostilities, when passing by Sholavanden, they reduced several small posts, commanding defiles, but weakly garrisoned, until they arrived at a more considerable fort, called Battal Gunta, 12 miles to the s. E. of Dindigul, which made more resistance; and the troops of Madura having only ​small guns, with much difficulty made a kind of breach which they stormed, and carried on the first day of August; and immediately began to repair and add better works, but had not compleated them before the troops of Dindigul were reinforced from Mysore, and taking the field encamped within sight of Battal Gunta, in which the troops of Madura had kept a garrison, but the main body lay without the walls.
The equipment and departure of the troops which accompanied the Nabob into the Carnatic, and the subsequent assistances sent to Karical, had left the government and garrison of Tritchinopoly so bare of men, money, and stores, that Captain R. Smith could not undertake the expedition he had proposed against the Mysoreans, until all these wants were supplied, which depended intirely on his own resources, for although the Presidency and Colonel Coote approved and recommended to him the most active exertions against the Mysore territory, he received no assistance either of money from the one nor of troops from the other; so that the preparations necessary for the expedition prevented him from taking the field until the 6th of August. His force was 50 Europeans, with two guns, and four cohorns, 700 Sepoys from the garrison of Tritchinopoly; 600 horse, and 1000 Peons armed with match-locks, mostly sent by Tondiman, a few belonging to the Nabob, the rest to Tanjore; and 3000 Colleries from the neighbouring Polygars, who were content to serve on very slight stipend, in expectation of ample plunder in the fertile districts they were going to invade. This army proceeded along the southern bank of the Caveri, and on the 13th came before Pudicotah, a mud fort, situated on the bank of this river, about 40 miles to the west of Tritchinopoly, which, with other districts, the Nabob had ceded to the Mysoreans, when his allies, in the war of 1753.
On their arrival, a report prevailed, that a large body of troops were marching from Seringapatam to Caroor. The garrison at Pudicotah, converting this news into hourly expectation of relief, stood on the defensive, and having three guns, obliged Captain Smith to raise a battery, which, having nothing but field-pieces to mount, would not have soon produced much effect: but, by ​the time the battery opened, the garrison had lavished away all their powder, and capitulated. The loss sustained in the attack was only three men wounded. The next day Captain Smith, with 400 of the Sepoys, and two cohorns, passed the Caveri to reduce Iloor, a fort situated on the other bank, ten miles beyond Pudicotah; but the garrison evacuated it on his appearance. From hence he marched against Caroor, the principal object of his expedition.
Caroor is situated 50 miles west of Tritchinopoly, and stands on a plain five miles to the south of the Caveri, but near another river, which falls into the Caveri at that distance to the north. The river of Caroor was the ancient boundary between the dominions of Tritchinopoly and Mysore; and this conterminal situation, under the security of a strong fort, and its rule over a rich and extensive district, had formerly rendered it a place of great mercantile resort and opulence, and it still continued populous with some wealthy inhabitants. The river continues at the distance of 800 yards opposite to the south side of the fort, and 1000 yards beyond, turns short, and strikes directly north: along this part, after the turning, and close to the bank, extends the pettah, which likewise has the other course of the river on the south side; but not so near; the extent of the pettah along the river, from south to north, is 1000 yards, and recedes from it about 500, so that the esplanade between the pettah and the fort is 500 yards across. This ground is intersected by two water-courses derived from the river to the south, one of which passes close to the west side of the pettah, and turns along the north-side until it rejoins the river to the east, and thus serves as a ditch on the w. and N.; the other water-course lies midway between the fort and the pettah, and stretches to the north much farther out into the plain. The whole of the pettah is inclosed by a mud-wall with towers, but of little defence.
The fort is built of stone, and is nearly a square of 600 yards. It has square towers in the curtain, and bastions at the four angles, behind each of which stands a cavalier, or round tower of solid masonry, which rises ten feet higher than the bastion. The whole fort is surrounded by a dry ditch, of which the counterscarp is faced ​with stone; and on the other side is lined by the foot of the main wall of the curtain, without berm or faussebraye; excepting along that part of the rampart, which extends from the left of the great gateway in the middle of the eastern side to the bastion in the N.E. angle, and round it half-way along the northern wall; in which extent a slip of dry ground, 20 yards broad on the eastern side, and 40 on the northern, is left as a place of arms, and skirted with a parapet wall, with loop-holes for muskitry; and round this wall the ditch, leaving the body of the fort, continues. There was no glacis, but a clear esplanade of 400 yards round. The garrison consisted of 800 horse, 1000 Sepoys, 1000 matchlock-men, and a great multitude of Colleries which had been drawn from the hills towards Dindigul. Most of these troops were assembled in the pettah, and manned the walls on the appearance of Captain Smith's detachment, which came in sight on the 17th, in the morning, approaching from the eastward: the river, although it had no where more than three feet water, was three hundred yards in breadth.
The necessity of preserving the communication with Tritchinopoly required that the army should command the river during the attack of the fort; which if advancing from a different point of support, they might have attacked outright at once on the western face: and as the possession of the pettah would best secure the river, Captain Smith prudently made this his first object. If the pettah were attacked on the eastern side, the river was to be passed under the fire of this front: if on the north or south, the attack would be exposed to the additional fire in slant or flank from the fort; which outvailed the passage of the river, as the ground on the eastern shore was higher than the eastern face of the pettah, which defended the passage. Accordingly the attack was made on this side. The field pieces were posted in the higher ground. The troops were formed into three divisions. The cavalry composed the left; the auxiliary foot the right; the Sepoys and Europeans the center. All entered the river in this order, supported by a brisk fire from the artillery. The enemy seemed disposed to dispute the passage, and ​from the rampart of the pettah kept up a constant but ill-directed fire against the center division; but the cannon-shot penetrating through their parapet did much execution, and seeing the columns to the right and left far advanced in the bed of the river, they became apprehensive that their retreat to the fort might be exposed to these bodies of horse and foot on each hand; and abandoned the defence, returning to the fort before either of the columns had crossed the river; but they had killed and wounded some Sepoys in the passage.
The plunder was given up to the troops without reserve; but they found little of any value, excepting grain, of which the whole crop of the country was in the town, but no merchants to buy it, nor had the troops means to send it away. The strength of the fort, and the small number of Europeans with Captain Smith, on whom, nevertheless, the success of the attack must depend, determined him to proceed with all the caution necessary to their preservation, by opening trenches; and more artillery was ordered from Tritchinopoly. The convenience of the pettah determined the point of attack against the south-east bastion, and as usual against its salient angle: the esplanade in this line was interrupted about half way between the pettah and the ditch by some staw huts, to which the enemy had set fire, but left the mud-walls standing. The next morning, which was the 20th, a party of Sepoys were posted there, but a strong sally of horse and foot obliged them to retire, and the enemy remained in the post: the field pieces advanced, and drove them from it, and it was again taken possession of by the Sepoys: in a few hours the enemy made a second attempt, but were beaten off with loss. The situation being exactly proper for the breaching-battery, an entrenchment was thrown round it, and a trench of communication continued to it from the pettah, to preserve the troops from the fire of the fort, which was incessant, as well from their cannon as small arms. On the 23d the artillery with much dispatch arrived from Tritchinopoly; they were one eighteen-pounder, two field twelve-pounders, one eight, and one nine-inch mortar, with five cohorns; and by the next morning the breaching-battery, was compleated and another in the rear to the right, to enfilade ​the south curtain with ricochet. Both opened at sun-rise, the breathing with six guns, the mortals and cohorns; the ricochet with two field-piece; the fort returned with firmness, and with much vivacity, and the advantage of a cross fire from the s. w. bastion and cavalier on the left, and from the mass of masonry of the gateway on the right. On the 26th the: approaches were carried on to within forty yards of the ditch, when the fire of the enemy's musquetry growing strong and sure, Captain Smith ordered the remainder of the trenches to be conducted by double sap, which is with earth and gabions on each side. The small number of Europeans in the detachment, with the inexperience of most of them in carrying oil trenches, and the continual tire of the fort by night, as well as by day, rendered the progress of the double sap extremely tedious, insomuch, that seven days were employed in carrying it, although not more than 200 yards of work, to embrace the angle of the counterscarp, and to spring a mine, which blew it into the ditch.
It was perhaps the first time that the Mysoreans had ever seen an enemy advancing under cover to the foot of their walls, and notwithstanding the novelty of the attack, they suspected, which was true, that the fort might be entered by the same means; this apprehension, with the ruin that had been committed in a large tract of country round Caroor by the matchlock-men and horse of Tondiman and Tanjore, and the whole body of colleries, who had every day been making excursions, prompted the governor to propose terms for the cessation of hostilities. He began by disavowing any participation of the King with the body of troops which had joined the French in the Carnatic, and declared Hyder Ally, whom he saied a rebel the author of that alliance and expedition; in consequence, he wanted a temporary and conditional surrender. Several messages passed, in the intervals of which the attack and defence was renewed; at length the eighteen-pounder, the only piece of effectual battery, burst, and the breach was not yet practicable, Which induced Captain Smith to agree to the following conditions: "That an English serjeant, and sixty Sepoys, should immediately be put ​in possession of the bastion attacked, and the English colours hoisted in the fort. That the English army should remain in the pettah, or any where else out of the fort, keeping guards at the counterscarp of the ditch, for twenty days; during which, if no orders arrived from Madrass to deliver the fort again to the governor, it was to be evacuated by the garrison, who, in consideration of their gallant defence, were to carry away their arms and horses; but all provisions and stores belonging to the government of Mysore were to be left in the fort. If in this interval an army approached from Mysore, the garrison were in like manner to evacuate the fort to the English troops: four hostages were to be given by the garrison, until the conditions were ultimately decided, and an European deserter was to be surrendered." This capitulation was signed on the 2d of September, and the English Sepoys immediately took possession of the bastion attacked.
Captain Smith in his interview with Boniapah, the governor of the fort, was convinced that the king of Mysore had no concert in the assistance which Hyder Ally had sent to the government of Pondicherry; and Boniapah having no doubt from the articles of capitulation that Caroor would be restored to the king, proffered to withdraw the garrison to Namcull, a fort 20 miles to the north, and there wait the orders of Seringapatam, and Fort St. George; to which Captain Smith consented under the restriction, that none of the garrison should act against the English until the fate of Caroor was determined at Fort St. George. Accordingly all the Mysore troops evacuated the place the same day. The acquisition was valuable and important; for, besides that its revenues amounted to 44,0001. a year, it highly aggravated the resentment of the ministry of Mysore against Hyder Ally, as the author of the loss.
Hostilities had continued in this arrival between the Mysoreans of Dindigul, and the troops of Madura. The Mysoreans continued the attack of Battle Gunta for six days, and having driven away the troops which supported it without, carried the fort itself by assault; but the defence had been maintained with resolution, for in the course of it 30 Sepoys and 20 horsemen had been killed and wounded; and ​of the Peons 50 wounded, and 40, with an officer of note, killed. The Madura troops retired to a fort three miles distant, called Gadamcotah, one of those which they had taken from the Mysoreans, and were there joined by a reinforcement from Madura, which had marched to relieve Battle Gunta, but came too late; this addition rendered the whole body equal to the Mysoreans, against whom they marched, beat up their camp, took their artillery, recovered possession of Battle Gunta, and advanced to reduce the other posts towards Dindigul.
The capitulation of Caroor arrived at Madrass on the 13th of September. On the same day intelligence was received from Captain Preston, that the body of Mysoreans, which had continued with the French troops at Gingee, had moved from thence with all their baggage; and on the 11th the French troops followed, both proceeding in the road to Thiagar. The presidency were by this time convinced that the king of Mysore and Hyder Ally were at utter variance; but considered, that either they might reconcile their differences, or that Hyder, as was most probable, would predominate; and in either of these cases, other schemes might be formed by the Mysore state to balance, as formerly, the contest between the two European nations, against which Caroor in their own hands would be the best indemnity. They therefore ordered Captain Smith to keep possession, still with profession of amity to the king, but neither to give any assistance, nor oppose any force which the king might send against Hyder Ally, but rather to employ his detachment separately against the troops of Hyder Ally, if the opportunity should occur.
Colonel Coote was not embarked for Bengal, when the news of the success against the bound-hedge arrived at Madrass, and with it Colonel Monson represented the incapacity in which he was likely to remain for several months of acting in the field, and requested that Calonel Coote might resume the command of the army. The Presidency seconding the request, he consented, and arrived in the camp on the night of the 20th; where he found the army in the greatest discontent, especially the black troops, for the want of provisions, owing to the avarice of the renters appointed by the Nabob in the conquered countries, who, foreseeing that the ​price of grain would rise, suffered none to be brought to the camp. Sickness likewise prevailed, and with the wounded there were 600 Europeans in the hospital.
The next day Colonel Coote caused the gorges of the redoubts in the bound-hedge to be fortified, and fixed posts in proper stations in the higher ground round the camp: from whence on the 23d, a detachment of 200 rank and file, with the company of pioneers, a great number of cooleys and carpenters, marched to a hillock of sand, which stood half a mile from the sea, and at the distance of a mile directly opposite to the Madrass redoubt in the north side of the bound-hedge. Here they were to remain, and raise a large redoubt on the table of the hill, capable of containing five hundred men. On the 27th in the forenoon, Colonel Coote advanced, with his usual escort of three companies of Sepoys, and 300 black horse, towards the Ariancopang redoubt, at which the guard took panic, and firing off the guns before the party were within point-blank-shot, abandoned the post, of which Colonel Coote took possession, and leaving the Sepoys in it, returned in the afternoon with workmen to retrench the gorge; on whose appearance the town cannonaded and threw shells, but without effect, and the gorge was completed the next night. Early in the morning of the 29th, 400 of the enemy's Europeans, with two field-pieces, marched from the glacis to recover the redoubt, and made various attempts, in all of which they were repulsed, until they perceived two companies of Sepoys marching on their right to gain their rear, whom Colonel Coote, who was always early abroad, had sent from the Valdore redoubt; on which the enemy retreated, but as they were going off received the fire of the Sepoys, who were themselves exposed to a strong, but distant fire from the town. The enemy had two officers and seven privates killed, and the adjutant of the Lorrain regiment with 18 wounded. None were killed in the redoubt, and only one Sepoy in the plain. Fifty Europeans were appointed to be the guard in future, as sufficient for the sudden defence, until reinforced; and more would have ​been unnecessarily exposed to the fire of shot and shells, which continued and reached from the town.
In that part of the limits, which is immediately behind the Madrass redoubt, was a regular village of several streets, called, from its intention, the Blancherie, in which all the cloths purchased for the French company at Pondicherry were bleached, and warehouses were built in the village to receive them. As these buildings would not only afford shelter but convenience to the English troops, the enemy resolved to destroy them, and to strengthen the Madrass redoubt, with the ground about it. They began to demolish on the 30th of September, of which Colonel Coote received intelligence, and saw the intention. He went the next day, with his usual escort of Sepoys and black horse, as if he only meant to review the progress of the redoubt he had ordered to be raised to the north, of the hedge, in which Major Joseph Smith commanded for the week. After dinner, both officers mounted their horses, and proceeded with the escort along the strand of the sea, towards the limits of Pondicherry, as if they only meant to reconnoitre. The bound-hedge ceaseth at some distance from the water-mark, and left an opening on the sand, which the enemy had neglected to close or obstruct. As soon as near this opening, Colonel Coote ordered the Sepoys to form in three parties, and the horse to divide equally with them; but the Sepoys having entertained no suspicion that they were led to such an attack, boggled; on which he ordered the horse to cut down whoever refused to advance, or attempted to run away; and the Sepoys, ashamed of their backwardness, recovered their spirit. Two of the divisions went off to the right, one to force through the bound-hedge, 500 yards beyond the Madrass redoubt on its left, the other to attack the redoubt itself, whilst Colonel Coote with Joseph Smith remained along the sea-shore, ready to push, and gain the rear of the hedge, and all the three attacks were to be made at the same time. There were some small pieces of cannon in the redoubt, and several guards of Sepoys along the inside of the hedge, all of which kept up a constant fire, but at too great a distance, whilst the two parties sent to the right were advancing ​to the ground opposite their respective attacks. All bore down properly, as it had been concerted. Colonel Coote's division easily pushed round, and that on the right through the hedge; and as soon as within both advanced, driving the guards before them, to gain the rear of the redoubt, against which the division which attacked it had not succeeded, having more difficulties and resistance to encounter; but as soon as the guard saw the danger approaching from either hand within the hedge, they abandoned the redoubt, and retreated hastily into the warehouses of the bleaching town, which stood within 200 yards inclosed with a high wall. Five Sepoys were killed, and the same number wounded in the different attacks. All the three companies, with an Ensign, were left at the redoubt; Colonel Coote and Major Smith returned, tho Major to his post, the Colonel to the camp, from whence he sent off a party of pioneers with gabions and fascines under the command of Ensign Macmahon, to close and retrench the gorge of the redoubt; but they were first to proceed to Major Smith's post, from whence they were to be accompained by a detachment of European soldiers: but Macmahon, mistaking his orders, did not call for this necessary reinforcement. In war more than in all the other occupations of man, neglect rarely fails to bring on is own punishment.
At midnight, whilst the pioneers were at work, they were suddenly attacked by 400 Europeans, and 600 Sepoys, detached from the town. The Ensign, a Dane, who commanded the Sepoys in the redoubt, abandoned it on the first onset, in which Ensign Macmahon was killed; and the pioneers, surprized and defenceless, escaped as they could; what Sepoys were within the redoubt jumped out; but the greatest part, who were stationed round, encouraged by a Subahdar named Coven Naig, kept with him, and gained the plain at some distance without fright, where they formed, under his direction, and followed him to recover the post. They mounted the outside of the rampart, gained footing on the inside, kept it, and continued a hot fire on the area below, especially towards the gorge. The enemy imputed this resolution to much greater numbers than they expected, and than really were at ​the post, and in this supposition retreated to the bleaching-house. Soon after came up a strong party of Europeans detached on the first firing by Major Smith from his poet to the north. In the different actions from the first assault, three private Europeans, besides ensign Macmahon, were killed, and 30 Sepoys killed and wounded. The enemy the next morning erected a battery of four pieces of cannon at the end of a lane, which joined the street of the Blancherie, leading as well as that in a straight line to the rear of the redoubt, on which they continued firing two days without killing any of the guard, and then having other occupations they desisted; some musketry still continued in the bleaching-house, but were driven out the next day, and abandoned the village.
The acquisition of the Madrass redoubt completed the entire, possession of the bound-hedge from the sea-shore to the north, as far as the river of Ariancopang to the S. E.; and turned against the town, with every advantage, the line of circumvallation intended for its defence. But the ground to the south along the course of the river, from the redoubt of Ariancopang to the sea, was still open, and the river spreading over sheets of sand, which were often dry, was all times, excepting in the rainy season, fordable; and to secure the passage, Mr. Lally had some months before erected a redoubt, which he called St. Thomas, in a small island of sand in the river, opposite to the center of this face of the town, and about 500 yards from the walls. The rains were now approaching, and the redoubt, if immediately taken possession of, could not be maintained by the English army after the river should fill, and as usual overflow the country; for which reason Colonel Coote deferred the reduction of it, until the rains were passed. In the mean time efforts were still to be apprehended to bring provisions into the town; for the French troops which had followed the last division of the Mysoreans to Thiagar, continued there; and although the main body of the Mysoreans had left Thiagar, no intelligence was yet received of their departure to their own country.
The French force which had marched to Thiagar, was 400 European foot, 250 European horse, and 1000 Sepoys. The ​little army of observation, under the command of Captain Preston, was not equal to an open encounter with this force; he, however, with his usual activity, determined to give them all the interruption in his power, and ordered Captain Martin, who, with the free company of 50 Frenchmen, was abroad with the Polygar of Ventivalum in the hills to the south of Gingee, to hang in the rear of the enemy's march; and moved himself with the main body of his division from Ratlagrammon, to watch their motions at Vicravandi, lest they should turn, and lay waste the recovered districts between this place and Verdachilum. Martin knowing the country, and using the night, picked up twelve Europeans of the French troops. They reached the Panar just as it was swelled by a sudden flood; and persisting nevertheless to cross it, some of them were can led away and drowned in the stream, which the Mysoreans had passed with ease before the freshes came down. As soon as Preston was arrived at Vicravandi, the garrison remaining at Gingee marched and assaulted Ratlagrammon, in which had been left only two companies of Sepoys, who defended the post with resolution, and obliged the enemy to retire, after they had lost fourteen Europeans killed in the attack, and leaving an officer and three wounded, who were made prisoners. Preston receiving intelligence, that the French troops and the Mysoreans were assembled at Thiagar, returned from Vicravandi to Ratlagrammon, lest they should return suddenly during his absence, and attempt to move to Pondicherry with the convoy of bullocks which still continued at Gingee.
By this time the presidency knew the cause of the departure of the last body of Mysoreans from Gingee to Thiagar, but were not able, to account for the march of the French troops so far to the westward, at a time when their utmost efforts became every day more necessary to escort the provisions they had collected, into Pondicherry.
In the beginning of the year, Balagerow, the general and regent of the Morattoes, sent an army of 8000 horse, and the same number of foot, with cannon, under the command of an officer of service, ​named Vizvazypunt, which crossed the Kristna in the month of February, and advancing to the southward stopped frequently to exact contributions from forts and strong holds in the way; several of which, on denial, they took. In the beginning of June they halted and encamped at Chinabalabaram, on the confines of Mysore to the N. E. and not far from the hills to the N.W. of the Carnatic, from whence Vizvazypunt sent letters, signifying expectations of money, but proffering assistance to the Nabob Mahomed Ally; and others to the king of Mysore, demanding with more authority the arrears of the chout, or tribute, to which the Morattoe nation pretends a right from all the countries in the peninsula. At this time Hyder Ally, at Seringapatam, the capital of Mysore, had, as if in disgust, resigned his employments of general and minister: he had some time before concluded his treaty with M. Lally, and sent off the body of 4000 Mysoreans, which came to Pondicherry under the command of his brother-in-law Muctoon Saheb; relying on this alliance, and his own courage, he was so assured of his importance and safety, that he abided at a town within three miles of Seringapatam, with all his family of women, attended only by 300 horsemen, who were of proved fidelity and resolution. Agents accompanied the letters of Vizvazypunt, with whom the king concerted, that their master should move with his army to Seringapatam, as if to hasten by intimidation the levy of a large contribution, which the king had privately consented to pay. Hyder Ally supposed, that their approach would, reinstate him in the command of the king's forces to oppose them, and discovered when near, that the Morattoes had engaged to seize his person; on which he mounted in the dead of night, accompanied by some of his horsemen, and left his whole family behind. Some Morattoes followed them, whom he out-stripped, and the next day arrived at Bangalore, a strong city 60 miles to the north of Seringapatam. Being the bringer of his own errand, he had time, and found means to engage some of the officers, who prevailed on the rest to declare they would abide by his fortunes; and in consequence they shut the gates. From this retreat he immediately sent orders to his brother-in-law, to quit the ​Carnatic with all the troops under his command, and to march, avoiding the Morattoes, to Bengalore. Muctoon Saheb had received the letters, when he moved from Pondicherry on the 16th of August; but concluding Hyder Ally to be in safety for a while at Bengalore, and believing either that a reconciliation would take place between him and the King, after the retreat of the Morattoes; or otherwise, that Hyder Ally might think it most expedient to come himself, and join the French, for the sake of the cessions stipulated in the treaty; he determined, although not to return to Pondicherry, to cotinue in the Carnatic, and in consequence employed, as we have seen, his troops against Trinomaly, and other places in that part of the country, until he received, in the beginning of September, farther intelligence from Hyder Ally, which left no alternative to his departure; on which he recalled the 800 horse which were at Gingee, and without solicitation, with an integrity rare in the politics of India, requested the French force to accompany them in order to receive back the possession of the fort of Thiagar, which he without stipulation tendered of his own accord. On their arrival there on the 13th of September, he fulfilled his word, claiming only on occasion their future assistance, and three days after marched away with his whole force to join his brother. The French left 200 European foot, and five companies of Sepoys in Thiagar, and the rest, being the same number of foot, 150 European horse, and three companies of Sepoys, returned to Gingee.
The restitution of Thiagar, and the departure of the Mysore troops out of the province, confirmed the veracity of the king's disavowal of any participation in that expedition, and the Presidency repeated their orders to Captain Smith and the troops of Madura to cease hostilities in the Mysore districts. Previous to the receipt of these orders, Captain Smith had sent a detachment from Caroor, against a fort called Pudicotah, different from that he had taken in his approach. It stands nine miles to the N. E. of Caroor on the south bank of the Caveri. The garrison evacuated it on the appearance of the detachment, who left a party to hold it, and returned to Caroor. The want of money prevented any farther operations; for, although ​the revenues of the country reduced exceeded 300,000 rupees a year, the devastation of the auxiliary horse and foot which could not be restrained, left no contributions to raise. Captain Smith, therefore, returned with a part of his command to Tritchinopoly, and on the way sent off a detachment to reinstate two polygars, who had been driven out of their pollams by the troops of Dindigul, from whom the detachment met no resistance, as the governor of Dindigul had received orders, in consequence of the capitulation of Caroor, to cease hostilities against the possessions of the Nabob. By this time the troops of Madura had taken five other forts between Batal Gunta and Dindigul, in all seven, and continued to keep possession of them until farther orders, encamping their main body at Batal Gunta, and keeping slight guards in the others. Captain Smith arrived in the beginning of October at Madrass, to give an account of his expedition, and the state of the conquered country; and soon after returned to his command in Tritchinopoly.
As soon as it was ascertained that the Mysoreans had quitted the province, Colonel Coote, to save the heavy expence of the black cavalry, discharged 500 of them, mostly those brought by Maphuze Khan, which reduced the number to 800, of which 500 were with Preston, and the rest with himself in the camp. A party, with some bullocks, advancing from Gingee, arrived on the 2d of October at Malamoodi, a village twelve miles from Pondicherry between the river of Ariancopang and the Panar, intending to push into the town in the night under the protection of St. Thomas redoubt On intelligence of their approach, Colonel Coote detached all the cavalry in the camp, which, besides the black, were one of the two troops of Europeans, to lie in their way: of which the party got intelligence, and, leaving their bullocks, returned during the night, and in their return three officers, who lagged behind in their palankins, were taken by some black horse and Sepoys, which Captain Preston had detached to harass the party from Ratalgrammon.
The army had hitherto continued on the ground between Oulgarry and the river of Ariancopang, where they had encamped immediately after the success of the bound-hedge. This ground is always ​overflowed in the rainy season, of which the signs encreased every day; and on the 6th the whole army marched off by the left, and encamped on the ridge of the Red-hill, a mile and half nearer the bound-hedge than their first encampment at Perimbé, but to the left of that ground. The heighth and sandy soil of this situation drained and dried the wet as fast as it fell, and secured at least the troops from this inclemency under foot, and large caserns of mat and bamboo were built to shelter them from the other.
At one the next morning, firing of cannon and musketry was heard in the road of pondicherry. Besides smaller craft, three French ships, the Hermione, the Baleine, and the Compagnie des Indes were at anchor before the town, as near the surf as prudence permitted, and under the command of 100 guns, mounted along the works on this side, and the strand, to protect the road. These ships were intended to wait until the stormy weather, and then sail to ports to the southward, and return with provisions, of which the prevention would in that season become precarious, even should the English squadron be able to continue in sight of Pondicherry. Mr. Stevens had for some time determined to cut them out of the road. His squadron always continued at anchor before Cuddalore. A fortnight before the present, a night had been fixed; but the ships beginning to hoist out their boats before it was dark, they were perceived by telescopes from Pondicherry; and men were immediately sent from the shore to reinforce the French ships; which was likewise discovered by the squadron, and obliged Mr. Stevens to defer the design, until the enemy's suspicions should have ceased. In the mean time the Tyger of 60 guns was sent to continue near Pondicherry, and anchored a little to the south, two miles from the shore. On the night of the 6th, the enterprize was resumed. The boats, six and twenty, were hoisted out after dark, and manned with 400 sailors, mostly volunteers, and sailed to the Tyger, where all assembled at 12. Soon after they perceived the lights in the great cabin of the nearest ship, the Hermione, extinguished, and concluding that the officers were gone to rest, set off for the attack. The boats moved in two divisions, one allotted to the Hermione, the other to the next ship, the ​Baleine; tho attack of the Compagnie des Indes was to depend on the success of these. To prevent deviation, the boats of each division moved in a line, holding to one another by ropes. The niches of the oars were covered with fresh sheep-skin, to prevent creaking. The watch-word by which the men were to know one another in the attack, was Cathchart, a sound which few Frenchmen can pronounce. It lightened continually, as usual in the nights before the change of the monsoon; nevertheless, the division to the Hermione got within pistol-shot of her stern, before they were discovered; when the boats separating, ranged up equally on each side of the ship, and two went forward to the bows to cut the cables. During this approach, all hands in the ships were up, and firing musketry on the boats and shot came from the guns of the Compagnie des Indes, which lay to command both the other ships. The Hermione was boarded in as many parts as there were boats round her. The crew, which were 70 Europeans, behaved well, defending themselves and the ship with pikes and pistols, when the attack came hand to hand. The man who first attempted to cut the cable had his head cut off by an officer standing to guard it in the bows; nevertheless numbers prevailed, and the crew were all driven or tumbled down the hatch-ways; for no concert of surrender could take place, or be trusted. As soon as they were all down, the hatches were closed and centinels fixed over them, and then the mizen topsail, the only sail bent, was set to carry off the ship, which several boats were likewise ready to tow: but by this time, the shore, which had waited until the firing of the attack had ceased in the ship, began a violent cannonade, of which the lightning directed the aim; and shot continually struck: one destroyed the wheel of the rudder, killed the two men who were steering, and cut the tiller rope. The prisoners confined below deterred every one from going down into the gun-room to fix another rope to the rudder, and the single sail was not sufficient to steer the ship; the boats remained the only means of carrying her off, and they tugged with such violence, that they continually snapt the towing-ropes. Mean while the fire continued from the shore. At length, some imagined ​that the ship had no motion, and resisted by a cable and anchor concealed under her keel; on which the officer who commanded the attack, resolved to leave her. The prisoners below were told, that it was determined to set her on fire, on which they came up readily to be carried off in the boats, which rowed away with them to the Tyger. When arrived on board, the Captain, Digby Dent, said he should send his own men, if the division did not immediately return to bring off the ship. This spirited rebuke prevailed, all the boats set off again and met the ship half a mile nearer; for the land-wind had sprung up and was driving her out.
The dispositions for the attack of the Baleine, were the same, and succeeded more easily. The crew made little resistance; only two men were killed before they surrendered. The rudder of the ship was ashore, but several sails were bent to the yards which sufficed to move and steer her, and she was brought, and anchored near the Tyger, before the Baleine came up. No attempt was made on the Compagnie des Indes.
By this time the want of provisions pressed so hard, that Mr. Lally assembled a general council, and proposed the immediate expulsion of the black inhabitants, who represented that their fidelity alone to those who might condemn them to this severe calamity had left it in their power to inflict it: by their removal likewise, all the Europeans would be deprived of their domestics: and from these considerations the assembly broke up without decisions: but some from fear of the other inconveniences of the blockade during the stormy weather, requested permission of Colonel Coote to send away their families either to the Danish or Dutch settlements on the coast, which were neutral in the war; and passports were granted.
Intelligence was received on the 11th, that the garrison intended to march out a detachment of 400 men, to storm the Madrass redoubt in the bound-hedge, and then push on to attack the large redoubt, which the English army had raised to the north of it; on which the picquets of the camp marched, and took post half-way, in order to fall on the rear of the detachment: being discovered, the ​enemy made no motion, but the next day the town fired hotly, but without execution, on the Ariancopang redoubt.
The winds had for some days veered and strengthened; and on the 22d and 23d, the two Admirals sailed out of the road of Cuddalore with all the ships, excepting four, which two days on suspicion of stormy weather, went away likewise. Their departure was unexpected, because contrary to Mr. Steven's declaration, that he would not quit the coast until compelled by the utmost necessity, which had not yet come. As soon as they disappeared; the Compagnie des Indes, and a sloop which was in the road, prepared as had been foreseen to put to sea. The ship sailed on the 30th to bring provisions from Tranquebar, and the sloop armed with several guns was intended to cruize in the offing for the grain-boats, which at this season of the year come with the wind and current from the northern to the southern parts of the coast, and generally sail in sight of the shore. The four men of war which left Cuddalore on the 23d, anchored on the 1st of November off Alamparvah, from whence they fell down on the 4th to the road of Pondicherry, and gave information, that Mr. Stevens was gone with the other 12 ships of the squadron to refit them in the bay of Trincomaly.
Captain Preston, on the 18th of October, detached some black horse and Sepoys from his post at Ratlagrammon, who came back with 400 head of cattle of those collected by the French, which were grazing in the country round the pettah of Gingee: The detachment was neither opposed or pursued, although a considerable party of the French troops was then in the pettah ready to march. This party moved on the 21st; they were 200 Europeans and Coffrees, 400 Sepoys, 100 European and as many black horse. They crossed the river Panar on its decline, and on their arrival at Thiagar, a detachment larger than their number was formed, and marched away, to attack the fort of Chandamungalum, which stands half-way towards Trinomallee: the fort was garrisoned by four or five companies of Sepoys, with a few Europeans from Chittapet, who repulsed the assault with uncommon ability, having killed ten Europeans and 40 Sepoys, and wounded 50 Sepoys and 20 ​horses; after which the French party attempted nothing more, but returned to Thiagar.
Captain Preston, on the first intelligence of their motion from Gingee, set out, as before, to follow them with the greatest part of his force from Ratlagrammon, but when arrived on the 24th near Villaporum, found the river swelled, and continued on the bank, in expectation of its fall; and on the 1st of November, the garrison of Gingee, being stronger than the force he had left at Ratlagrammon, again detached a party of 25 European horse and 20 foot with three companies of Sepoys and some black cavalry, to drive away all the cattle about this place, which by the late captures and purchases made for the camp were many herds. Captain Robert Fletcher, who commanded during the absence of Preston at Ratlagrammon, waited until the enemy began to retreat with the cattle they had gathered, when he appeared with 50 black horse, and three companies of Sepoys in their rear, and followed them six miles, but as if cautious of coming too close to their fire; which continually drew it from them; when, perceiving that they had almost expended their ammunition, he approached nearer, and engaged them regularly, which they scarcely sustained, and soon broke, and all their Sepoys flung down their arms. Fifteen of them were killed, and 30 with a Subadar or Captain made prisoners: of the Europeans, six were killed, or fell wounded, and 150 muskets were collected. The next day, Fletcher, with a stronger force, marched again from Ratlagrammon, and contriving his time, arrived at night, and entered the pettah of Gingee, which has but a slight wall, by surprize, set fire to it in every part, and met no resistance, excepting the uncertain fire of the cannon from the hills above, and on his return he drove off a greater number of their cattle than the enemy had taken the day before.
The frequent, although slender attempts and enterprizes, which had been made by the body of French troops in the field, in order either to supply Pondicherry with provisions, to gain plunder, or to create diversions of the English force, had in the whole expended more than three hundred Europeans; most of the rest were now at ​Thiagar, and from the force remaining at Gingee, including what the garrison might on occasion spare, no attempt of convoys to Pondicherry beyond the provisions of a few days were to be apprebeaded They had lost, if ever it lay open, the opportunity, when they were in full force. Nevertheless the number of troops remaining at Pondicherry, with the defences and ammunition, still secured the town from every danger, excepting famine; and Mr. Lally not imprudently preferred that the troops he had detached, should remain abroad where they might do some service, and would subsist themselves, rather than return to consume in Pondicberry the slender stock of provisions, of which they had supplied so little. He now wished even to add more to their number for another purpose, on which ill fortune and necessity obliged him to rely as the likeliest means that remained of relieving the distresses of Pondicherry.
The French squadron, which had left the coast on the 1st of October of the preceding year, arrived on the 15th of November at the isle of France. This island never furnished provisions sufficient for the settled inhabitants, and had been so much exhausted of the stores collected from abroad, by victualling the squadron at their departure for the coast, that little remained to afford them on their return; and this scarcity had been injudiciously encreased by the equipment of two vessels, which had been sent to attack the English factories in the gulph of Persia. In this distress, it was resolved to follow the example of the preceding year, and to send three ships of burthen, under the convoy of the Centaur of 74 guns, belonging to the French Company, to purchase provisions at the Cape of Good Hope. But Mr. D'Aché proposed to give the command of the Centaur to the captain of the King's ship the Actif; on which all the captains of the Company's ships of war protested against this. preference, as derogatory to their own rights; and whilst the tedious disputations usual on such occasions were carrying on in writing, with much acerbity and little public zeal, the the annual tempest of the elements in this climate arose in the night of the 27th of January, and lasted without intermission, and with the utmost excess, for 36 hours. Thirty-two vessels in the port of Mauritius were torn from their ​anchors; but all, excepting one of 30 guns, were stopped by the ooze of the bay from driving on the rocks which fraize the shore; on which all the smaller craft were stranded and wrecked. The ruin was greater on the land. All the vegetation of provisions above the surface was destroyed. The cattle and fowls were washed away by the torrents, or perished by the inclemency, and of the magazines of grain, which are all built of wood, some were overthrown, and the rest opened by the wind to the rain. Three months were employed in repairing the damages of the marine and shore. In this interval, some few provisions were brought by some trading vessels of the Colony from Madagascar, and the surplus of the island of Bourbon. On the 26th of May it was determined to send four ships of war, as fast as they could be equipped, in order to subsist at Foul-point in Madagascar. On the 8th of June, arrived a vessel from France, apprising, that an armament was fitting out in England to attack the two islands of Mauritius and Bourbon; in consequence of which, the French government had sent the regiment of Cambray, of 700 men, to reinforce them; and the squadron, if at Mauritius, was ordered to continue there; and, if gone to the coast, to be immediately recalled. These orders determined Mr. D'Aché to remain with the greatest part of his ships for the defence of the island, but to send away those before allotted to Madagascar; which, to save the consumption of victuals, were not to return to the isle of France until the 20th of August: if at this time they received no directions how to act, the council of war might proceed to the execution of any service, of which the condition of the ships might be deemed capable: meaning to intimate, that they might, if they chose it, go to the coast of Coromandel. The Centaur sailed for Madagascar on the 16th of June, but the other three not in less than a month after, by which time the regiment of Cambray was arrived in several of the Company's ships from France. The news of the storm was brought to Pondicherry by the Hermione and Baleine in July, but by detaining the sailors for a while on board, the report was keqt secret, until others properly fabricated and given out, persuaded the colony, and the enemy at their ​that the squadron strongly reinforced from France might be every day expected on the coast. In the middle of October, letters despatched from Mauritius to Mahé, on the coast of Malabar, arrived from hence, with information of the departure of the four ships to Madagascar, and dubious assurances of their intention to come at all events to Pondicherry. Mr. Lally had always regarded the operations of the squadron as so unzealous and indecisive, that he was convinced these ships would not make the effort. He, however, concealed this opinion, and the intelligence concerning the supposed attack of Mauritius from England; but gave out that the ships gone to Madagascar, and more, might be expected at Pondicherry with the regiment of Cambray on board. But, despairing of the relief he pretended, he persuaded the Council to conclude a treaty for the assistance of the body of Morattoes under the command of Vizvazypunt, which had lately returned from Seringapatam in Mysore to the confines of the Carnatic.
Vizvazypunt, on his first approach from the Kristna, had in April sent letters to Pondicheny, tendering the same assistance to the French as he was offering to the Nabob and the English: a vague correspondence had continued in consequence of these overtures; but, on his nearer approach, Mr. Lally sent two agents to his camp. The Morattoe required a sum of ready money in hand, and the cession of the fortress of Gingee, which, besides the influence it would give Balagerow in the province of Arcot, was the wish of a national point of honour, since Gingee had, until the beginning of the present century, been the capital of a race of Morattoe kings, whose dominion extended from the Coleroon to the Paliar. The Council empowered the agents to agree that Gingee should be delivered, to him as soon as the English army retreated from Pondicherry, and that 500,000 rupees should be paid him when his own appeared in sight of the town. All the French troops abroad were to join the Morattoes as soon as they passed the hills, and entered the province. If these terms were not readily accepted, the agents were to insinuate that, although the distresses of Hyder Ally had broke any farther expectations of assistance from him, the king of Mysore himself ​would be glad to obtain Gingee on the same terms; when the Morattoes would be precluded from the probability of gaining any advantage by their expedition to the Carnatic.
But as the negotiation might be protracted, and provisions, even for a few days, were become of great importance, Mr. Lally ordered the troops abroad to make what effort they could before the rains ceased; and as Gingee was so closely watched by Preston's command, he directed the main body to continue and act from Thiagar, from whence, by the distance, and the nature of the country between, their motions would be less liable to be ascertained and interrupted. In the mean time, as well to save the consumption in the town, as to convince the Morattoes that the troops in garrison were more than sufficient to defend it, he resolved to send out more to join those already in the field. Accordingly, on the night of the 1st of November, 100 Europeans crossed the river of Ariancopang in boats, and were proceeding along the sea-shore, from whence they intended to turn inland, and gain their way to the west between the two rivers, expecting no interruption, as the rains were almost continual, and had drenched the plain: but in the close of the evening, a guard of Sepoys had been advanced from the fort of Ariancopang, and took post on the strand of the sea; they fired on the first alarm upon the French party, who, imagining their force greater, and that it had been stationed on purpose to intercept them, hurried back to their boats, and regained the town: only one of the Sepoys was killed; the enemy's loss was not known, but was supposed to be more.
Excessive rain stopped any farther operations between the English camp and the French troops for several days, during which, both continued intent only on the sea. To oppose the armed boats of the town, some were equipped in the like manner at Cuttdalore, which on the 7th took a boat coming with paddy from Tranquebar, and another going thither with effects of value; and intelligence being received that the ship la Compagnie des Indes, with a schooner and several smaller vessels, were taking in provisions there, Commodore Haldan detached two of the men of war with orders ​to seize them, and every other vessel which had more than the provisions of their own diet on board. They came into the road on the 8th, where they found the Salisbury of 50 guns arrived from Triconomaly, which had anchored close to the Compagnie des Indes, and kept her under command, waiting orders from the Commodore. The Compagnie des Indes struck on the first summons; and the schooner, which was loaded with 400 bags of wheat, and some barrels of salted meat, ran ashore. The smaller vessels in the road escaped to the southward; and the Salisbury sailed away with the prize to rejoin Admiral Stevens at Triconomaly. The news of this loss was received in Pondicherry with as much concern as a disaster in the field. The Danish government sent deputies to Colonel Coote, with a protest against the infraction of the neutrality of their port; but were shewn intercepted letters, which proved their assistance to the French agents, and silenced their remonstrances.
On the 9th of the month, a ricochet battery of four eighteen-pounders was finished in a ruined village, 1400 yards to the north, between the sea-side and the bleaching town: the shot plunged along the east face of the town, and were answered very hotly by twelve pieces of cannon, which as well from the distance, as the parapet of the battery, by which the guns were entirely concealed, could do no mischief.
On the 12th, Colonel Coote received information, that a convoy was advancing from Thiagar; they were 24 European and 100 black horse, escorting 100 bullocks, laden with salted beef, and each of the horsemen likewise carried a parcel of it at the croup of his saddle. They crossed the Panar on the 13th, at some distance above Trivadi, and proceeded between this and the river of Ariancopang; but imprudently lost time in driving 300 bullocks more, which they had taken up in the way. At four in the morning they came up near the fort of Ariancopang, and were immediately surrounded by a detachment of 100 European foot, 40 European and 150 black horse, which were waiting to intercept them. The officer with one of the troopers was killed, and ten, with more than half the black horse, surrendered; but the other 12 of the European ​horse pushed to the river, and were ferried over to the town under the guns of St. Thomas' redoubt. To prevent such attempts in future, 50 Europeans, with a company of Sepoys, were stationed and retrenched on the ship of sand on the sea-shore, opposite to the bar of the river.
By this time the waters of the Panar were run off, and, as the troops at Ratlagramon with Captain Fletcher were deemed sufficient to oppose what the enemy had at Gingee, Captain Preston, with the main body of his command, marched away from Villaporum to attack Elavanasore, to which the officer at Thiagar sent a reinforcement, chiefly of black troops; but after Elavanasore was invested did not advance to its relief. The only guns fit for battery with Preston's division, were two field twelve-pounders, which are too slight against strong defences; but, as the last thing which is done in country forts is to repair them, a breach was easily made, and the garrison capitulated at discretion, although they were 11 Europeans, 19 Topasses, and 400 Sepoys, with three field-pieces besides the guns of the fort.
Preparations had for some time been making at Madrass to convert the blockade of Pondicherry into a regular attack; and on the 16th, the Admiral Watson, a ship of 500 tons, laden with all kinds of stores, arrived, and anchored off the north redoubt, and the massoolas of Cuddalore repaired thither to unload her. On the 18th, Mr. Call, the chief engineer, arrived in the camp, to conduct the trenches.
There were remaining in Pondicherry about 50 horses belonging to the cavalry, for which no forage could be procured either within or without the walls; and, as the grain they consumed was so much taken from the sustenance of the garrison, Mr. Lally resolved to send them with the best riders to Thiagar. Colonel Coote received intelligence of the intention, but not of the time. At two o'clock in the morning of the 21st, 200 grenadiers, with the horsemen, passed the river on rafts, near the bar, opposite to the retrenched guard on the spit of sand, from which the Europeans had been withdrawn, and only the Sepoys were remaining; on whom the ​French grenadiers immediately advanced, and gave their fire, whilst the horsemen went off as fast as they could over the plain, taking the road to Trivadi. On the alarm, the pickets of horse in the camp mounted, and crossing the river, which chanced to be fordable at Villenore, went in pursuit, and took thirteen, whose horses were too feeble to keep pace with the others.
Major Preston, following his success, marched from Elavanasore, against a fort called Rishavandum, which stands 15 miles to the N. E. of that place: it surrendered to him, after little resistance, on the 22d: the garrison consisted of 200 Sepoys, and five Europeans. From hence he marched against Chacrapollam, a mud fort, 15 miles north of Thingar; which surrendered to him without making any defence; for the garrison was only a company of Sepoys, with a Serjeant. In the mean while, the French troops remaining at' Gingee, exclusive of the garrison there, went against Chittamoor, a fort 10 miles to the s. E. and were repulsed, with the loss of 20 Sepoys and four Europeans, killed and wounded.
The landing of the stores from the Admiral Watson had been impeded by the desertion of the boatmen, who ran away, because they had not been regularly paid; but the blockade continued with the utmost vigilance, and nothing, since the last convoy, had attempted to get in by land; several boats coming from the southward, with salt provisions and arrack, were intercepted by armed boats equipped at Devicotah. The encreasing distress determined Mr. Lally to consult nothing any longer but necessity; and on the 27th, he turned out of the gates all the blacks remaining in the town, excepting a few who were domestics to the principal inhabitants. The number expelled were 1400, of both sexes, and every age. They wandered in families and companies towards all parts of the limits, hoping the mercy of being suffered to pass away; but they were every where stopped by the advanced Sepoys, and ordered to go back; on which they retired, and assembled round the foot of the begging admittance, and many of them attempting to pass over into the covered-way, were fired upon by the musketry and cannon, and some were killed. At night they were quiet; but the next day, and for ​six more, they repeated the same importunities to the town and the English post, and received the same repulses. Examples of this severity rarely occur; and in civilized war is never exercised but with the utmost reluctance. At length Colonel Coote, finding Mr. Lally inflexible, let the whole multitude pass. Their only sustenance, excepting the little they had brought out of the town, secreted about their persons, had for eight days been the roots of grass they picked up in the fields, in which they lay. They were all extenuated by famine, and few had homes or friends to go to; nevertheless their thanks were inexpressible, even for this chance of preservation.
The Nabob was present at this act of mercy, and concurred in it. He left Arcot on the 15th of November, and went to Madrass to confer a few hours with Mr. Pigot, from whence he arrived in the camp on the 3d of December. On the 2d and 3d, two vessels, a sloop, and a pinnace remaining at Pondicherry, sailed away for Tranquebar, but the pinnace was taken by the boats of Devicotah.
Four ricochet batteries, which were first to open against the town, were finished on the 8th. We have already given some description of Pondicherry, when attacked by Mr. Boscawen in 1748. All the bastions remained in their first form, which, for a town of this size, was very confined; but counter-guards had been made before three of them, and ravelins raised before the three gates to the land; a rampart of earth had been added to the curtains, which before were only walls of brick five feet thick. A wet ditch had been compleated on the three sides to the land, excepting in an extent of 200 yards on the south side towards the sea, where the ground rising higher required a deeper excavation, which for this reason, as being more laborious and expensive, had not yet been dug; to the extremity of this higher ground where the ditch ceased, came a large creek from the river of Ariancopang, which supplied the ditch all round with water. The berm within the ditch was 25 feet broad; the covered way was narrow, and the glacis not sufficiently raised. The face to the east being within a few yards of the surf, and exposed only to an escalade by surprize, had no ditch, but its curtain was flanked by projecting batteries, which likewise commanded the road. The citadel ​was a pentagon with five bastions, but too small to endure bombardment; two of its bastions over-looked the east curtain, and added to the fire on the sea. The town was very commodiously laid out in straight streets which traversed it entirely in both directions.
The ricochet battery of four guns, which had opened on the 10th of November, had for some time been quitted, and the guns removed to the north redoubt beyond the bound-hedge; because their effect was not equal either to the expence of ammunition, or the fatigue and risque of the guards. The four batteries which were now opened were thus situated. One stood near the beach to the north, 200 yards in front of that which had been abandoned and about 1200 from the walls; it mounted four 18 pounders, and enfiladed the east front of the town. Another of two 24 and two 18 pounders, with three mortars of 13, 10, and 8 inches, was raised on the other side of the morass, which spreads to the west; it was 1400 yards from the walls, and bore, but a little to the left, upon the west flank of the bastion in the north-west angle, which mounted 10 guns, and had before it, within the ditch, a strong and extensive counter-guard, mounting 25 guns. The two other batteries were to the south. One on the edge of a large island, formed by the river of Ariancopang; this battery mounted only two guns, of which, one bore on the bastion next to that in the s. w. angle of the town, the other on St. Thomas redoubt, which stood on the opposite bank of the river lower down; the other battery was raised in a smaller island below the Coco-nut, from which it is separated on one hand, and on the other from the spit of sand, which forms the strand of the sea from the bar of the river. This is called the Sand Island; the battery bore upon St. Thomas redoubt, and on the curtain of the town between the two bastions on this side nearest the sea.
All the four batteries were only intended to harrass the garrison by a cross fire of ricochet shot along the streets or ramparts; ​for none of them were on the perpendiculars on which the breaching batteries were intended to be erected. They opened at midnight, between the 8th and 9th, firing all of them at the same time, and in vollies, on the signal of a shell. A little before the first volley, Colonel Coote, with two or three officers, approached towards the glacis of the north front, in order to observe what effect the firing would produce upon the garrison. They beat to arms, but without confusion, and seemed to have every thing in proper order on their bastions; they raised blue lights in different parts of the town, but did not fire a shot. Captain Fletcher, who was with the Colonel, very imprudently quitted him without notice, and went to the foot of the glacis, where he fell in with the centinel of an advanced guard of Sepoys, whom he seized and disarmed, and was bringing off; when the guard, hearing the struggle, ran into the covered-way, from whence immediately came a hot fire of musketry upon Colonel Coote's party; but Fletcher brought off the Sepoy, who gave no intelligence that was not better known before.
The batteries ceased before day-break, and the guns were kept masked until the afternoon, when they recommenced, and the town returned with great vivacity, but the firing ceased on both sides in two hours. The two batteries to the south prevented the enemy from launching a large boat which they had fitted on the shore near the bar, and drove them likewise from their guns in St. Thomas's redoubt, which were only mounted in barbette.
The firing was variously renewed in the six following days, but diminished much on the 18th from want of powder; but the purpose of wasting the garrison with fatigue, which their scanty allowance of provisions rendered them little able to endure. On the 19th, a party of pioneers appeared at work with great eagerness, to raise and convert the barbette of St. Thomas's redoubt into a parapet with embrasures. The battery on the sand island fired to interrupt them by night as well as by day, but they persevered. On the 20th, some powder arrived in a vessel from Madrass, ​and the enfilade and bombardment recommended from all the batteries as before; and was constantly answered with the same vivacity from the town. On the 23d, the ship Duke, of 500 tons, arrived from Madrass, laden with 17 pieces of battering cannon and their shot, with all kinds of stores for the siege; but so few of the boatmen had returned to their massoolas, that very little could be landed until others were assembled from the neighbouring ports on the coast, and even from Madrass: this delay, however, appeared of less detriment, because the materials for the trenches, and for the batteries which were to dismantle the defences and breach the body of the place, were not yet collected, and the engineers reported, that they should not be ready to open this fire before the third of January; but the batteries already constructed continued theirs. On the 26th, Admiral Stevens in the Norfolk, with three other ships of the line and the Protector fire-ship, returned into the road from Trinconomaly.
The French troops assembled at Thiagar were so much superior to the little forts around, that they became the terror of the country, and their smallest parties brought in provisions in plenty, and without risque. Major Preston, having no longer any apprehensions that the troops at Gingee would either be able to push any convoys through the circumvallation of the English army, or even to distress the posts under the protection of Captain Fletcher at Ratlagrammon, resolved, by cutting off the daily supplies of Thiagar, to oblige the troops there to employ large escorts, which he hoped to intercept. He marched from Rashivandum on the 1st of December, and encamped in the evening three miles to the N. w. of Thiagar. On the night of the 3d, all the French cavalry, amounting to 200, led by Major Allen, an officer of Mr. Lally's regiment, pushed out of the pettah, and went to the west of Trinomalee. Being sure of provisions abroad, they intended to remain in the hills, waiting the event of the negociation, which Mr. Lally was carrying on with the Morattoe Vizvazipunt, whose troops, if it succeeded, they intended to accompany to Pondicherry. A few ​days afterwards, they were joined by a party of 100 European infantry whom, to alleviate the consumption of provisions, Mr. Lally had sent out of Pondicherry in the two vessels which sailed on the 2d and 3d of the month, and escaped to Tranquebar; from whence, headed by the bishop of Hallicarnassus, they marched to escort him to the camp of Vizvazipunt at Cudapanatam, with whom the bishop was empowered to conclude the negociation. They proceeded to Combaconum, by the same road as the Nabob and Major Joseph Smith had come to Karical, and received no molestation in their journey through the country of Tanjore. From Combaconum, they crossed the Coleroon, and then passed between Volcondah and Thiagar, out of the reach of Preston's troops; but 10 or 12 of them deserted, and travelled to Tritchinopoly, where they offered to serve, but were not enlisted; because Captain Smith had at this time discovered a conspiracy of the French prisoners to rise and overpower the garrison; in which the number of Europeans did not exceed 100, and most of them were invalids or foreigners; whereas the prisoners were 500; being the collection of all that had been taken at Karical, Chillambrum, and Verdachilum, by Colonel Monson, and in the different actions at Seringham and it's districts, by the two Smiths from Tritchinopoly.
The King of Mysore, not thoroughly convinced that his protestations of good-will to the English would induce them to restore Caroor, sent a large body of troops to the confines of its territory, in order to second the terms of his negociation by the appearance of renewing hostilities, if not accommodated; and other troops proceeded to reinforce those at Dindigul; from whence the governor on their arrival marched, with 1000 horse, 2000 Sepoys, as many common peons, and some cannon, against Agarpatty, the nearest and last of the forts, which the troops of Madura had taken, but having left it only 40 Sepoys, it surrendered on the 4th day of the attack. From hence the Mysoreans marched against Narasingapore, another of the forts, six miles farther, which they likewise battered for four days, when they were attacked themselves by a strong body detached from ​Madura, who beat them off the ground, and drove them back to Dindigul, with the loss of 50 men killed and wounded. The colleries of Nattam, encouraged by this renewal of hostilities, made incursions into the northern districts of Madura, and stopped the whole road of the pass with trees, which they felled on either side, and with much labour dragged and laid them across the road with so much contrivance, that a single person could not pass without continual difficulty.
No events of great importance had happened during the course of this year, in the country of Tinivelly. The commandant, Mahomed lssoof, after the repulse before Washinelore in the end of the preceding year, was from the want of battering cannon, no longer in a condition to attack the stronger holds of the polygars; and contented himself, until supplied, with posting the greatest part of his army in stations to check the Pulitaver and the eastern polygars; but remained himself with the rest at Tinivelly, watching Catabominaigue and the Western. The departure of Maphuze Khan from Nellitangaville in the month of January, left the Pulitaver and his allies no longer the pretext of opposing the authority of the Nabob in support of the rights of his elder brother; and they debated whether they should treat with Mahomed lssoof, or wait the event of Maphuze Khan's journey, who they supposed would return to them, if not received on his own terms by the Nabob. In this uncertainty, they formed no vigorous designs, and employed their colleries in night robberies, wherever they could elude the stations of Mahomed lssoof; but attempted nothing in the open field or day. Nevertheless, their depredations were so ruinous to the cultivation, that Mahomed lssoof thought it worth the expence, to draw off some of their dependants and entertain them in the Company's service, as best able to retaliate the same mischief on those by whom they had been employed; and towards the end of April, several of these petty leaders, with their followers, amounting in the whole to 2000 colleries, joined him at Tinivelly, and faithfully entered on the duties for which they had engaged. Nothing, however, like regular fighting happened until the end of May, when Catabominaigue appeared at the head of two or three thousand men, near ​Etiaporum, and stood the attack of seven companies of Sepoys, drawn from the limits towards Nellitangaville, by whom they were dispersed, but with little loss. In May Mahomed Issoof received intelligence of the hostilities commenced by the Mysoreans from Dindigul, and the orders of the Presidency to oppose them; in consequence of which he sent the detachment we have mentioned of 1500 Sepoys, 300 horse, and 3000 peons. They were scarcely gone, when a new and unexpected alarm arose in the Tinivelly country. The Dutch government at the island of Ceylon had received a large reinforcement of European troops from Batavia, which assembled at the port of Columbo, opposite to Cape Comorin, from whence a part of them arrived in the beginning of June at Tutacorin, a Dutch fort on the continent, 40 miles east of Tinivelly. Two hundred Europeans, with equipments, tents, and field-pieces, immediately encamped, giving out that they should shortly be reinforced by more than their own number, and that 400 other Europeans had left Batavia at the same time with themselves, and were gone to Cochin on the Malabar coast, in order to join the king of Travancore. The natives were frightened, and pretended to have discovered, that the force they saw was intended to assist the polygars in driving the English out of the country of Tinivelly, and to begin by attacking the town. Mahomed Issoof immediately sent to the Dutch chief at Tutacorin, to demand an explanation; who answered, that he should give none. A few days after the troops advanced inland, and halted at Alvar Tinivelly, a town in a very fertile district, situated 20 miles s. E of Tinivelly, and the same distance s. w. of Tutacorin; and at the same time, another body of 200 Europeans landed from Columbo at Manapar, 20 miles to the s. E. of Alwar Tinivelly. Mahomed Issoof had previously drawn troops from the eastern stations, and marching with 4000 Sepoys, and some horse, appeared in sight of the Dutch troops at Alavar Trinevelly in the evening of the 18th of June; who, in the ensuing night, decamped in strict silence, and marched back to Tutacorin; those at Manapar went away thither likewise in the same embarkations which brought them; and no more was heard of this alarm. ​The depredations of the Polygars continued; but, deprived of Maphuze Khan, and hearing how closely Pondicherry was invested, they ventured nothing more: the Pulitaver's colleries were as usual the most active in the robberies; and to repress them, Mahomed Issoof again stationed the greatest part of his force towards Nellitangaville, which in December encamped at the foot of the hills within three miles of this place, and Mahomed Issoof joined them from Tinivelly on the 12th; he had purchased several eighteen-pounders at Tutacorin, and had the two mortars sent to him the year before from Anjengo, but no shot or shells for either, and was moreover in want of gun-powder and flints, all which he expected from Tritchinopoly, and, whilst waiting for them, made such preparations as the country afforded to attack Nellitangaville in form. On the 20th of the month, the colleries, with the Pulitaver at their head, attacked his camp, sallying, as usual, on all quarters at once, and persisted until 100 of them fell; but they killed ten of Mahomed Issoof's men, and wounded seventy, and some horses.
At this time the Mysoreans on the frontiers of Caroor, although professing peace, and disavowing the operations of the governor of Dindigul, did not prohibit their own horse from foraging in the districts, of which they had consented that the English should collect the revenue until the Presidency and their king had agreed concerning the restitution of the fort. The crop on the ground was plentiful and ready to be cut; and as the renewal of hostilities would only aggravate the evil they meant to revenge, Captain Richard Smith resolved to remain quiet until the harvest was gathered. Such was the state of the southern countries at the end of the year.
The consumption of provisions in Pondicherry had ever since the month of August exceeded the supplies received. In November, when the black inhabitants were turned out, the soldiery were put to an allowance of a pound of rice a day, with a little meat at intervals. In the beginning of December, Mr. Lally caused a strict search to be made in all the houses of individuals, and what could be ​found in them was brought to the citadel, from whence they were distributed equally to the military and inhabitants. Two colonels lately arrived from France, men of family, deemed the search in their apartments an affront, and sent word to Mr. Lally, that they would no longer act as officers; but on every occasion as Volunteers. But the event justified the severity; for by the end of December, notwithstanding some supply from the sea, the public stock did not exceed the consumption of three days; and Mr. Lally, guided by certain information, determined another search; on which father Lavaur, the superior of the Jesuits, who knew all the secrets of the town, prevailed on him to defer it, promising to produce a sufficiency for fifteen days more, but gave no expectation of further supply; but the French agents with Vizvazypunt sent hopes of succeeding in their negociation; and on the last day of the year intelligence was received in the English camp, and somewhat credited, that a large body of Morattoes, with all the French horse, were arrived from Cudapanatam at Trinomalee, and were going to Thiagar, from whence they intended, at all events, to push with provisions to Pondicherry.
The rains had ceased for some days, and the weather was restored to its usual temperance; the sky bright, although the winds sometimes strong, which always, at this season, blow from the north, and near the coast in the day from the sea, and at night from the land: but on the 30th of December, although the weather continued fair, a large swell came from the s. E. and the surf beat so hollow and heavy, that no boats could pass; which encreased in the night. The next morning the wind freshened, and the sky was close, and dusky, but without that wild irregularity which prognosticates a storm; and this aspect did not change till noon, nor the wind encrease until eight at night. There were in the road eight sail of the line, two frigates, the fire-ship, and the ship with stores from Madrass, in all 12 sail. From eight o'clock the wind blew in squalls, every one stronger than the last, until 10, when the Admiral's ship, Norfolk, cut her cable, and fired the signal for the other ships to ​do so too; but the signal guns were not heard, and the ships, in obedience to the discipline of the navy, rode until their cables parted with the strain, when they with much difficulty got before the wind, none able to set more than a single sail, and none without splitting several. Every minute increased the storm until twelve, by which time the wind had veered from the N. w. where it began, to the N. E.: when it suddenly fell stark calm with thick haze all round. In a few minutes the wind flew up from the south-east, and came at once in full strength with much greater fury than it had blown from the other quarter.
By the delay of not getting early under sail whilst the storm was from the north, most of the ships lost the opportunity of gaining sufficient sea-room before it came on from the south-east. The first gust of this wind laid the Panther on her beams, and the sea breaking over her, Captain Affleck cut away the mizen; and this not answering, the main-mast likewise, which broke below the upper deck, tore it up, and continued some time encumbering over the side of the ship without going clear off into the sea, until the shock of a wave sent it away. The ship then righted, the reefed foresail stood, and brought her back into fourteen fathom water, when she dropped the sheet anchor; but not bringing up, which means turning to ride with her head to the anchor, they cut away the fore-mast, which carried away the bowsprit, when the ship came round; and thus rode out the storm. The America, Med way, and Falmouth, cutting away all their masts on the different necessities with the same prudence, rode it out likewise, after they had anchored again nearly in the same soundings as the Panther.
The Newcastle, the Queenboroug frigate, and the Protector fire-ship, returning with the s. E. storm, mistook their soundings, and drove towards the shore 4, without knowing where they were, or attempting to anchor. The roaring of the surf was not to be distinguished in the general tumult of the elements; and the danger was not discovered until it was too late, and the three ships came ashore about two miles to the south of Pondicherry; ​cherry; but only seven in all the crews perished, who were knocked overboard by the shock of striking aground.
The Duke of Aquitain, the Sunderland, and the Duke storeship, unfortunately preserved all their masts through both the storms, until they were driven back to the necessity of anchoring; and in bringing up with them standing, all the three either broached to, or overset, and went to the bottom. Eleven hundred Europeans perished in these ships; only seven, and seven lascars, were saved out of the crews, who were picked up the next day, floating on pieces of wreck.
The difference of the element prevented the destruction from being equal at land; but the ravage in proportion was not less. All the tents and temporary caserns of the camp on the Red-hill, and its out-posts, were blown to pieces. The ammunition abroad for immediate service was ruined. Nothing remained undamaged that was not under the shelter of masonary, either at the redoubts of the bound-hedge, in the buildings at Oulgarrey, or in the fort of Villenore, where the main stock of gun-powder was deposited. The soldiers, unable to carry off their muskets, and resist the storm, had left them to the ground, and were driven to seek shelter for their own persons wheresoever it was to be found. Many of the black attendants of the camp, from the natural feebleness of their constitution, perished by the inclemency of the hour. The sea had every where broken over the beach, and overflowed the country as far as the bound-hedge: and all the batteries and redoubts which the army had raised were intirely ruined. But these detriments might be repaired. The great anxiety remained for the other ships of the squadron, whose fortune was not yet known.
The town of Pondicherry beheld the storm and its effects as a deliverance sent from heaven. The sun rose clear, and shewed the havock spread around. It was proposed by some to march out immediately, and attack the English army; but this operation was impracticable; because no artillery could move through the inundation nor could the troops carry their own ammunition dry; otherwise three hundred men, properly armed, would not, for ​three hours after day-light, have met with 100 together in a condition to resist them. The wish of every one then turned to expectation that the ships from Madagascar might arrive in the interval before the English ships in the road were repaired, or others joined them from the sea: but the excellence of the opportunity did not alter Mr. Lally's mistrust of the resource; and letters were immediately dispatched to the agents at Puliacate, Tranquebar, and Negapatam, ordering them to send away provisions with instant expedition, at every risque, on any kind of embarkation.
The anxiety for the missing ships continued until sun-set of the next day, when the Norfolk with Admiral Steven's flag was discovered in the offing. The ship, prepared at all points, before the south-east storm arose, scudded before it with a stay-sail, without losing a mast, and without being obliged to anchor until the wind fell, when in the morning they discovered Sadrass. The apprehension of more bad weather made the Admiral put out again to sea; when he met the Liverpool, entirely dismasted. This ship, having parted her cable, and got under sail before the others, had gained more sea-room than any of them; but the south-east storm had carried away all her masts; soon after they were joined by the Grafton, who gave the welcome information that she had left, on the 28th of December, the Lenox, Admiral Cornish, with the York, and Weymouth, 30 leagues off the land: they were all returning together from Trincomaly: the Grafton, after parting with them, met hard weather during the hours in which the storm was raging near the coast. The Admiral, leaving her to take care of the Liverpool, anchored in the road of Pondicherry the next morning, and they in the afternoon. The other three ships came in the next day. On the 7th came in the Salisbury, with the prize la Compagnie des lndes, likewise from Trincomaly, and the Tyger from Madrass, where the violence of the storm had not reached. No more were to be expected; for the Elizabeth and the Southsea-castle, wanting the dock, were sailed for Bombay, with the two other prizes, the Hermione and Baleine. But by this time, the four dismasted ships, although not quite refitted, were again in a condition to ​act on necessity; and thus in a week after the storm, which had raised such hopes of deliverance in the garrison of Pondicherry, they saw their road again blockaded by eleven sail of the line, and although three of them were only of 50 guns, all were manned above their complements by the addition of the crews which had been saved from the three stranded ships. Their boats continually cruizing, intercepted, or drove away whatsoever embarkations came towards the road with provisions; but several Boats which were launched from the town in the three nights immediately after the storm, favoured by the wind, the current, and the darkness, escaped to the southward. In one of them Mr. Lally sent away Rajahsaheb, the son of Chundasaheb, who, ever since the defeat of Vandiwash, had resided with his family in Pondicherry; he landed at Negapatam, and from thence passed to Ceylon in the character of an elephant merchant.
Every diligence was exerted to restore the works and stations of the army to the condition from which they had been dismantled by the storm. Reports of the Morattoes continued, and the advantages of the present opportunity increased the apprehensions of their attempts to throw provisions into the town. The bound-hedge and its redoubts remained as before a sufficient defence as far as they extended; but the south side of the blockade along the river of Ariancopang was laid open by the ruin of the two batteries on the coco-nut and sand island, and of the star redoubt on the spit of sand over against the bar; which could not he restored in ten days; and the torrent of the river prevented the immediate transport of men and materials to set about the work. Colonel Coote therefore determined, as soon as the river subsided, to surprize St. Thoma's redoubt, which, whilst it remained as at present without opposition on the other shore, would protect the passage'-of what convoys the garrison might expect; but if taken, would preclude their approach even more efficaciously than the posts on this side the blockade which the storm had ruined. The waters fell sufficiently on the 5th, and the detachment intended for the attack, having previously assembled at the Ariancopang redoubt, which stood above at the extremity of ​the bound-hedge, and on the same side of the river, marched down after it was dark under the bank, which was steep and skirted by a sand. The redoubt stood at the opening, but on the farther side, of a channel, which strikes to the north from the main body of the river, and carries water into the ditches of the town. A French officer, with three troopers of his nation, who had taken service in the English army, crossed first, whilst Colonel Coote himself, with the rest of the detachment, halted on the nether side of the channel. The officer was challenged, and answered that he came from the town with a party, which Mr. Lally had sent off in haste, on intelligence that the English intended to attack the redoubt this very night. He was believed, and admitted; and Colonel Coote hearing no bustle or firing, immediately sent over the front of his party, who, as soon as their numbers were sufficient, declared themselves, and threatened to put the whole guard to death, if a single man made the least noise, or attempted to escape. All obeyed, excepting one Caffre, who stole away unperceived. They consisted of a serjeant, five gunners, five Caffres, and some Sepoys. The chief engineer, Mr. Call, followed with the pioneer company of 50 Europeans, and 100 Lascars, carrying gabions, fascines, and tools, with which they immediately set to work to close and ratrench the gorge; over which it was intended when necessary to turn the guns against the town. At one in the morning blue lights appeared over the ramparts along the south front, as if the garrison apprehended some attack on their walls. Soon after they began to fire single shot upon the redoubt, which came with such good aim, that the party at work threw the guns out of their carriages on the ground, to preserve them. At two, every thing was quiet in the town, and the work forward, when Colonel Coote went away to get rest at his head quarters at Oulgarry, leaving a Lieutenant, of artillery, with the 40 Europeans, and 100 Sepoys, in the redoubt, which the officer was ordered to defend to the last extremity. The workmen had finished, and were withdrawn at four o'clock. At five, the redoubt was attacked by the four companies of grenadiers from the garrison: they assaulted on every ​side at once, few fired, and all pushed with fixed bayonets through the ditch over the parapet. The resistance was not equal either to the strength of the post, for it was closed on all sides; or to the number of the guard, which were, including the Sepoys, 170 men. Some escaped by jumping over the parapet; a few were killed, and the greatest part, with the officer, surrendered themselves prisoners. At noon, Mr. Lally sent back all who had been taken, to the English camp, for want of provisions to feed them; but on condition, that they should not act again. This discovery of the distress of the garrison could only be required or warranted by the utmost necessity. However, Mr. Lally might suppose, that the prisoners had not time to learn the worst of what the town was enduring, and that they could not tell so much as deserters.
On the failure of this attempt, a large portion of the working parties was allotted to complete the redoubt on the spit of sand, which was to replace that which had been washed away. It was raised for the advantage of higher ground, three hundred yards in the rear of the former; its scale sufficient to contain 400 men, and to mount 16 guns in different directions. Equal attention was given to repair and complete the Hanover battery, where, from the lowness of the situation, much labour was requisite to clear the water, which had filled the trench that communicated with it from some inclosures in the rear. The only fire from the town was to interrupt the workmen here, but with little effect. On the 7th, the Company's ship Falmouth arrived from Madrass, laden with battering cannon, ammunition, and stores, to replace what had foundered in the Duke: and on the 9th another ship brought Mr. Pigot the governor, with Mr. Dupré, one of the council, and captain Robert Barker, who had been to Madrass to superintend the embarkation of the stores and artillery, which Captain Hislop and he were now to direct against the town.
At this time the Nabob received intelligence that his agents had concluded a negotiation with the Morattoe general Vizvazypunt. Allen, and the bishop of Halicarnassus, had added the offer of Thiagar ​to Gingee, and the payment of 500,000 rupees for their assistance, and proffered substantial shroffs as security; how this wary tribe of money-changers were induced to this venture, when there was not so much in Pondicherry, nor likely to come, remains unaccountable. Either Vizvazipunt himself must have encouraged them to stand forth in appearance, that he might obtain the highest terms from the Nabob; or some secret enemy of the Nabob, who was to gain advantage by the march of the Morattoes into the Carnatic, and the supprt of Pondicherry, must have proved to the shroffs the certainty of producing the money before the payment should fall upon their security; in this case we see no one but Hyderally to conjecture. The Nabob's agents were so perplexed by the fact, that they rose by degrees from the same sum of 500,000 rupees with which they had began, and concluded for two millions, of which one was to be paid in 20 days, and the other in nine months; on which Vizvazipunt told the French representatives, that they had no assistance to expect from him; and Allen and the Bishop went away with their troops, who were 200 Europeans mounted, and 100 on foot, to Hyderally in Bengalore, which is five days from Cudapanatam. The Nabob, on this important occasion, as indeed on all others ever since he was convinced of the probability of taking Pondicherry, enlarged himself with more decision and spirit than he had ever exerted since his government, and first connexion with the English nation; and as the smallest undissembled excesses of the mind tell more than the whole composure of political reason, he never failed to ask Colonel Coote every day, whether he was sure, and when, Pondicherry would surrender. Advices were at the same time received from Captain Preston, that he had attacked the pettah of Thiagar, which stands on the plain, and after some resistance carried both the mud-walls; on which the French troops who defended it ran to the rock, and saved themselves in the fortifications above, which could only be assaulted by surprize, or reduced by famine or bombardment: he had already begun to throw shells from two howitzers, and was waiting ​for mortars from Madrass. These advices removed any farther apprehensions of succours getting into Pondicherry from the land.
By the morning of the 10th, the Hanover battery was completed; but before it opened, Colonel Coote, with several officers, advanced from the Villenore redoubt, to reconnoitre the bastions of the town. As they were standing about 80 yards from the walls, a flag appeared approaching. Colonel Coote sent forward his aid-de-camp lieutenant Duespe, (not the officer we have mentioned at Vandivash) to receive his message or letters. Two other officers accompanied Duespe, and went on in the avenue leading from the Villenore redoubt to the glacis, until they were challenged by the centries, and ordered to retire; but not obeying, a shot was fired from a six-pounder on the Villenore gate, which trussed them, bub unfortunately struck and killed Duespe, as he was talking to the messenger. Colonel Coote sent to demand satisfaction for the outrage, supposing it unprovoked. Mr. Lally confined the officers on duty at the gate, and the next day sent his aid-de-camp to explain the mischance, for which he expressed much concern.
A few hours after Duespe was killed, the Hanover battery opened with ten guns, six were twenty-four, and four eighteen-pounders, and with three mortars, two of thirteen and one of ten inches. The six guns on the left fired upon the west face of the N. w. bastion, and of the counter-guard before it. The two next upon the next bastion on the left, which was small, and mounted only three guns: it was called St. Joseph. The two other guns on the right battered the two projecting towers standing on each side of the Valdore gate, which had a good ravelin in front between them. The mortars fired variously. The fire of the cannon ceased in three hours, but the mortars continued at intervals throughout the day. The garrison returned very sparingly. The next day, the 11th, the battery, having been damaged by its own use, fired less, and the town more, with the addition of shells from two mortars in the Valdore ravelin, which several times fell in and near the Hanover battery; which nevertheless opened again the next morning quite repaired, and with ​great vivacity; but the enemy neither in this nor the preceding night had given any repair to the N w. bastion, and its counter guard; which, in consequence of this neglect, had very little-fire to return, nor did much come from the bastion of St. Joseph, or the works of the Valdore gate. Many deserters came over in these two nights, and their accounts agreed of the dismal distress of the garrison. The English army, on the contrary, received the confirmation of a report, that more forces from England (sent by the same spirit as the others) were arrived at Anjengo, on the coast of Malabar. Six hundred men, the remainder of the Highland regiment, had embarked in the month of May in five of the company's ships and two men of war of the line. Three of the company's and one of the men of war arrived at Anjengo on the 15th of December, and the others were daily expected there.
The redoubt on the spit of sand to the south was completed by the night of the 12th, and the workmen and tools recalled, to serve at the opening of the trenches, for which all the materials were by this time collected. The Hanover battery fired little through the 13th, and received only a few shells. In the beginning of the night, all appointed for the trenches were assembled at the bleaching town. They were 700 Europeans draughted from the rank and file, 400 lascars, the pioneer company of 70 Europeans, and 200 coolies: there were likewise 400 oxen, with their drivers, one to three. The ground was opened, under cover, just within the skirt of the bleaching town, in the part nearest the beach. After three short returns, the trench was brought to the outside of the houses, and from hence pushed on obliquely in one straight line, until it passed cross the high road leading from the Madrass gate, on the other side of which road, the intended battery was to be erected. This oblique trench was 480 yards long, and from its termination was continued another of 280 yards, parallel to the defences of the town. Two short trenches continued, one from each end of this parallel, and fell in with the two ends of the intended battery, which was to be constructed 40 yards in front; and the parallel in the rear was to be the station of the main guard for ​the support of the battery, if attacked. All this work, comprehending 800 yards, sheltered on the left by gabions, fascines, and sand-bags, was executed by the European soldiery, divided into companies, all working at the same time according to the trace, on the different ground allotted to each division; whilst the 400 lascars, and the 200 coolies, were employed in bringing the materials, not only to them, but to the battery, where the pioneers were at work, as requiring more knowledge and exactness; who before morning had finished six embrasures in the battery; to which, likewise, the oxen had brought the cannon from the artillery-park, which had been formed near the sea-shore, just without the boundhedge. It was scarcely possible for the same number of hands to have done more work in the same time. Colonel Coote, and the principal officers, passed the night in the trenches, and were accompanied by Mr. Pigot and Mr. Dupré. The town, to their great surprize, although blue lights often appeared on the walls, did not fire a single shot to interrupt the work Care had been taken to lessen the usual noise, by not driving the picquets of the gabions into the earth with the entrenching tools; nevertheless, so many persons continually busy, the sound of the carriages and oxen, and the call of their drivers could scarcely remain unheard; as the battery was within 450 yards of the walls. Just before day-light all the workmen were withdrawn, and 100 Europeans, with 300 Sepoys, were posted in the parallel, and another party of the same number in the cover of the village at the tail of the trenches, in order to support the foremost guard. The embrasures that were finished were left masked; because there had not been time to lay down the platforms for the guns. Nevertheless, it was expected, that the garrison would fire hotly the ensuing day, were it only to damage the parapet of the battery.
They were doubtless astonished at the work they saw done; but only fired now and then, and only single shot at a time; observing which, the chief engineer sent carpenters, who laid down the platforms, without receiving any hurt. The Hanover battery fired throughout the day, with all its artillery and redoubled vivacity, ​which before night silenced all the guns against which it opened; on the N. w. bastion and its counter-guard, on St. Joseph's, on the two demi-bastions, and on the ravelin of the Valdore gate.
At night the pioneers, with 300 Lascars, went to work again at the royal battery; and the town, having well marked the aim, kept up a smart fire of shot, grape, and musketry, which killed or dangerously wounded twelve men in the battery. Several showers of rain fell in the night, which gave apprehension that the enemy would sally; but they refrained, and before day-light the battery was completed. It was called the royal, and contained 11 twenty-four pounders, and on the left three heavy mortars. It opened early in the morning, and, seconded by the cross and enfilading fire of the Hanover battery with 10 guns, soon silenced all the defences which bore upon it; excepting a gun or two on the bastion next the beach. Inactivity joined necessity in this unaccountable abandon of defence; which was so great, that, what rarely happens until all commanding works are entirely demolished, men were set, and continued at work throughout the day, along the whole line of the trenches, fixing more securely the gabions, ramming down the earth, and smoothing the tops of the parapet, that the troops, if sallied upon in the ensuing night, might fire over them with certainty and safety. A party was draughted to begin, as soon as it was dark, another battery of six guns, 300 yards nearer to the beach, and 150 nearer the walls: it was intended to destroy the flanks of the several bastions, which the royal battery could only take in reverse.
As the sun was setting, Colonel Coote coming, as was his custom, to supervise the batteries, saw a flag advancing in the Villenore avenue; who, being challenged, announced the approach of a deputation. They came on foot, the town having neither horses or palankin bearers to carry them, and Colonel Coote received them at his head-quarters at Oulgarry. The deputies wore Colonel Durre, commandant of the king's artillery, father Lavaur, superior of the Jesuits, Moracin and Courtin, members of the council, with Tobin serving as interpreter. ​Colonel Durre delivered a memorial signed by Mr. Lally of the following purport: "That the English had taken Chandernagore against the faith of the treaties of neutrality which had always subsisted between the European nations in Bengal, and especially between the English and French; and this at a time, when that settlement had just rendered the English the most signal services, as well by refusing to join the Nabob Surajah Dowlah in the attack of Calcutta, as by receiving and succouring the inhabitants of this colony, after their defeat and dispersion; by which protection they were enabled to remain in the province, and by this continuance to recover their settlements; as Mr. Pigot had acknowledged in a letter to the government of Pondicherry. — " That "the government of Madrass had refused to fulfil the conditions of a cartel concluded between the two crowns, although Mr. Pigot had at first accepted the cartel, and commissioners had been appointed on both sides to meet at Sadrass, in order to settle amicably whatsoever difficulties might occur in the execution." — "This conduct of the English (Mr. Lally goes on) puts it out of his power, as responsible to the court of France, to propose any capitulation for the city of Pondicherry." — " The troops of the king and company surrender themselves, for want of provisions, prisoners of war to his Britannic Majesty, conformably to the terms of the cartel, which Mr. Lally claims for the civil inhabitants and citizens, and for the exercise of the Roman religion, the religious houses, hospitals, chaplains, surgeons, domesticks, &c. referring to the two courts to decide a proportional reparation for the violations of treaties so solemnly established." — " In consequence, Mr. Coote may to-morrow morning at eight o'clock take possession of the Villenore gate, and on the same hour the next day, of the gates of the. citadel (Fort Louis); and as he has the force in his own hands, he may dictate such farther dispositions as he may think proper." — " From a principle of justice and humanity alone I demand (these are Mr. Lally's words) that the mother and sisters of Rajahsaheb be permitted to seek an asylum wheresoever they shall think proper, or that they remain ​main prisoners with the English, and be not delivered into the hands of Mahomed Ally Cawn, still tinged with the blood of the father and husband, which he shed, to the shame indeed of those who delivered up Chundasaheb to him, but to the shame likewise of the commander of the English army, who ought not to have suffered such a barbarity to have been committed in his camp." — "Being himself confined by the cartel in the declaration which he is now making to Mr. Coote, Mr. Lally consents that the members of the council of Pondicherry make their own representations, on what may more immediately concern their particular interests, and those of the colony."
Father Lavaur and the other deputies presented another 'memorial, from the governor and council of Pondicherry. "That no hurt should be done to the inhabitants; their houses be perserved, their effects and mercantile goods left to their own disposal: that all who chose might remain in their habitations, and were to be considered as British subjects, and enjoy their former possessions and advantages. In their favour the Roman Catholic religion was to be maintained; the churches, the houses of the ecclesiastics, and the religious orders, whether within or without the city, to be preserved with every thing belonging to them; the missionaries free to go and come, and receive under the English flag the same protection as they had under the French." "No buildings or edifices, and no part of the fortifications, were to be demolished, until the decision of the respective sovereigns." — "The records in the register-office, on which the fortunes of individuals depend, were to remain under the care of the present depositaries, and be sent to France, at their discretion." — "Not only the inhabitants who were French, but of whatsoever other nation established at Pondicherry for their commerce, were to participate of these conditions." — "The natives of Bourbon and Mauritius, in number 41, having served only as volunteers, to return home by the first opportunity." — "Safeguards were to ​be furnished to prevent disorders." "And all these conditions were to be executed with good faith."
Colonel Coote, in answer to Mr. Lally's memorial, said, that "the particulars of the capture of Chandernagore were before his Britannic Majesty, which precluded any discussion on this subject, neither had it any relation to the surrender of Pondicherry." "That the dispute concerning the cartel remaining undecided, precluded his consent that the troops in Pondicherry should be deemed prisoners on the terms of that cartel; but that they must surrender prisoners of war, to be treated at his discretion, which should not be deficient in humanity." "That the gates of the town and citadel should be taken, possession of by the English troops at the hours proposed by Mr. Lally." That the mother and sisters of Rajahsaheb should be escorted to Madrass, where proper care should be taken for their safety, and that they should not on any account be delivered into the hands of the Nabob Mahomedally." To the other deputies Colonel Coote only said, that their propositions were answered In his answer to Mr. Lally: they returned into the town at midnight.
The next morning, it was the 16th of January, the grenadiers of Coote's regiment marched from the camp, and took possession of the Villenore gate. Colonel Coote dined with Mr. Lally; who, apprehensive of tumult or disorders, consented that the citadel should be delivered up in the evening, that the soldiers might be put under confinement before night. Accordingly more troops marched in from the camp; and in the afternoon the garrison drew up under arms on the parade before the citadel, and the English troops facing them; Colonel Coote then reviewed the line, which, exclusive of commissioned officers, invalids, and others who had hid themselves, amounted to 1100, all wearing the face of famine, fatigue, or disease. The grenadiers of Lorrain and Lally, once the ablest bodied men in the army, appeared the most impaired, having constantly put themselves forward to every service; and it was recollected, that from their first ​landing, throughout all the services of the field, and all the distresses of the blockade, not a man of them had ever deserted to the English colours. The victor soldier gave his sigh (which none but banditti could refuse) to this solemn contemplation of the fate of war, which might have been his own. The French troops, after they were reviewed, marched into the citadel, where they deposited their arms in heaps, and were then conducted to their prisons.
The next morning the English flag was hoisted in the town, and its display was received by the salute of a thousand pieces of cannon, from every gun of every ship in the road, in all the English posts and batteries, the field-artillery of the line, and on the ramparts and defences of Pondicherry.
The surrender was inevitable, for at the scanty rate of the wretched provisions, to which the garrison had for some time been reduced, there did not remain sufficient to supply them two days more. Nevertheless the detestation against Mr. Lally, if possible, increased, as the sole author of the calamity, and, no longer restrained by his authority, broke out in the most vindictive expressions of menace and reproach. The third day after the surrender was appointed for his departure to Madrass. In the forenoon of this day a troop of officers, mostly of the French company's battalion, Went up the steps of the government house, towards his apartments, where they were met by his aid de camp, whom they insulted; and were dispersed by the guard, which came up on the quarrel. This troop then assembled and waited below at the gate of the citadel until one o'clock. Mr. Lally did not move until the close of the day; his escort was 15 English hussars, and four troopers of his own guard; he came out in his palankin, and at the gate were gathered a hundred persons, mostly officers, with them the counsellors Moracin and Courtin. As soon as Mr. Lally appeared, a hue was set up by the whole assembly, hisses, pointing, threats, and every abusive name; but the escort prevented violence. Mr. Dubois, the king's commissary, who was to proceed with Mr. Lally, came out of the fort an hour after, but on foot; the same assembly had continued on the parade, and showered the same abuses. Dubois ​stopt, and said he would answer any one. One Defer stept out, they drew, and the second pass laid Dubois dead, who was 60 years of age, short-sighted, and always wore spectacles. No one would assist his servants to remove and bury the corpse; and his death, violent and iniquitous as it was, was treated as a meritorious act: his papers were immediately taken possession of by the register. It was known, that he had, ever since his arrival at Pondicherry, composed protests on the part of the king against all the disorders and irregularities which came to his knowledge in any of the departments of the government, and the collection was very voluminous; but none of his papers have ever appeared.
The total number of the European military taken in the town, including services attached to the troops, was 2072; the civil inhabitants were 381; the artillery fit for service were 500 pieces of cannon, and 100 mortars and howits. The ammunition, arms, weapons, and military stores, were in equal abundance.
On the 4th day after the surrender, Mr. Pigot demanded of Colonel Coote, that Pondicherry should be delivered over to the Presidency of Madrass, as having become the property of the English East India Company. A council of war, composed of the two admirals, and four post-captains of the squadron, Colonel Coote and three Majors of the kinge's troops, assembled to deliberate on this demand; and required the authority on which it was made. Mr. Pigot insisted on the king's patent, dated the 14th of January 1758, which regulates the Company's share and title to captures. The council of war deemed the patent incompetent to the pretension. Mr. Pigot, as the shortest way, declared, that if Pondicherry were not delivered, the Presidency of Madrass would not furnish money either for the subsistence of the king's troops, or the French prisoners. This conclusion barred all farther argument, for neither the Admiral, nor the commander of the king's troops, were authorized to draw bills on the government in England for such a contingency. The council of war, therefore, submitted to the requisition, but protested against the insult it conveyed against the King's prerogative, and declared the Presidency responsible for the consequences. ​During this discussion, Colonel Coote detached eight companies of Sepoys, under the command of Captain Stephen Smith, to invest the forts of Gingee; and a convoy of military stores were sent from the camp to Major Preston, who was continuing the blockade of Thiagar.
The Nabob requested and expected that the army, after the necessary repose, would accompany him aginst such chiefs and feudatories, whom he wished or had pretensions to call to account, either for contempts of his authority, or for tributes unsettled, or withheld. He had not forgiven the rebellion of his half-brother Nazeabulla of Nelore. His indignation had never ceased against Mortizally, the Kellidar of Velore, who, as well as the three greater Polygars to the north, and of Arielore, and Woriorepollam to the south, were suspected of hidden treasures; still more the greater and lesser Moravars; and the king of Tanjore, wealthier than all, scarcely considered the Nabob as his superior.
But the Presidency had other attentios to regard; their treasury and credit was exhausted in the reduction of Pondicherry; the care of 2500 French prisoners required strong guards and no little expence. Bengal was engaged in hostilities, wanted troops, and could send no money. Bombay had extended its military concerns by the acquisition of the castle of Surat in the beginning of the year 1759, which had induced the necessity of other important attentions in that part of the continent; and they were at this time earnestly requesting the return of all the troops they had sent to Coromandel. The factory at Tellichery likewise advised, that they intended to stop the troops which were just arrived and expected in the ships from England, and waited only the orders of their superiors at Bombay to attack the French settlement at Mahé, in which service they requested what assistance could be spared from Coromandel. It was still uncertain what was become of the French squadron; the English squadron wanted their marines, and were enjoined a secret service from England, in which Madrass was to assist. These views and considerations appeared to the Presidency of more immediate importance than the indulgence of the triumphal notions which swelled ​the mind of the Nabob, whose joy at the reduction of Pondicherry, although the arsenal which had forged all the anxieties of his life, was immediately imbittered by this interruption to the future conquests he had so near at heart: and, unwilling to continue in the Carnatic without the entire predominance of his authority, he retired as it were in disgust with victory to Tritchinopoly, where he arrived on the 15th of February.
Four hundred of the French prisoners were sent to Madrass, and the Highlanders, six companies, with some artillery-men, and four companies of Sepoys, marched thither to reinforce the garrison; 200 were sent to Tritchinopoly under the escort of 100 Europeans, and some Sepoys. The rest of the prisoners remained in the dungeons of Pondicherry, until they could be otherwise disposed of; and 300 Europeans, including the pioneer company, and 50 artillery-men, with the troop of European horse, and four companies of Sepoys, were appointed to garrison the town. The troops from Bombay, being 120 of the king's artillery, and 190 common infantry, belonging to that Presidency, embarked in two ships to return thither; the marines were restored to the squadron; the rest of the army went into cantonments at Cuddalore.
The court of France had instructed Mr. Lally to destroy the maritime possessions of the English nation in India, which might fall to their arms. These instructions had been intercepted; and, in consequence of them, the court of Directors of the English East-India Company had ordered their Presidencies to retaliate the same measure on the French settlements, whenever in their power. Accordingly Mr. Pigot, with the approbation of the council of Madrass, resolved to demolish the fortifications of Pondicherry; and as Mr. Stevens signified his intention to repair forthwith to Bombay, in order to refit his squadron, the demolition was commenced without delay, lest a French armament should arrive during their absence, and recover the town, whilst the fortifications remained in a condition to afford any advantage in maintaining it.
Mr. Stevens sailed on the 23d of February, with all the ships, eleven of the line, and two frgates. They took away 400 of the prisioners ​in Pondicherry, all of the regiments of Lorrain and Lally, to be confined at Bombay, or sent to Europe as opportunities should offer As Mr. Stevens intended to aid, if necessary, in the attack of Mahé, the Presidency sent 50 of the company's artillery, and three of their engineers in the squadron.
Mahé is situated four miles to the south of Tellicherry. The fort and town stand not far from the beach of the sea, along the south side of a river, which admits small vessels. Several hills rise near the town, and on the two nearest on the same side of the river are built two small forts, and a much larger, called St. George, on a hill on the other side. The settlement presides over all belonging to the French company on this side of the peninsula, excepting their factory at Surat. These dependencies are five forts to the north of Tellicherry, and a factory house at Calicut.
The five ships from England had landed the troops at Tellicherry by the 5th of January; but from the length of the passage to and fro, the permission from Bombay to attack Mahé did not arrive before the beginning of February; and with it the Presidency sent one of their cruizers, and a bomb-ketch to assist; as none of the ships had been detained. The delay had given Mr. Louet, the governor of Mané, time to make treaties for assistance with several of the neighbouring chiefs of the country, with whom the settlement had long been in commerce; and they promised and swore to assist efficaciously as against a common enemy. The aid was much wanted, for the European military, on whom the stress of the defence was to rest, did not exceed 100, and even they, from the general necessity of the French company's affairs, had not received their pay for several months, and missed no opportunity of deserting. The black troops belonging to the company, were a thousand.
The troops at Tellicherry marched out and encamped on the 8th of February on the limits of Mahé. Their numbers, for the garrison took the field, amounted to 900 Europeans, and 700 natives; they were commanded by major Hector Monro, who determined to direct his first attack against Fort St. George, on the hither side of the river. ​All the solicitations of Mr. Louet were of no avail, when his allies saw the English troops taking the field, and were apprized of their numbers; they did not send a man; and before day-break the next morning, he dispatched a letter to Mr. Hodges, the chief of Tellicherry, proposing terms of capitulation, on which Major Monro was ordered not to commence hostilities. Agents sent to explain doubts and objections, continued going to and fro until the morning of the 13th, when the capitulation was signed. It was agreed, that all the European military should be transported at the expence of the English, either to the island of Bourbon, or to Europe, and when landed there, to be free. The effects, artillery, and military stores, belonging to the French company, were to be surrendered, but the effects and possessions of individuals were to be preserved to them entire, without molestation in the use. The free exercise of the Roman religion was to be permitted as before the surrender; the priests on no account were to be vexed, nor the churches or religious edifices impaired. The forts to the northward of Tellicherry were to be given up on the same conditions as Mahé, and the factory at Calicut was to continue unmolested under the usual neutrality of that town: ample honours of war were allowed to the garrison. Five hundred men under the commad of Major Peers marched into Mahé at noon; and soon after, the garrison were escorted with their honours to Tellicherry. A detachment was then prepared under the command of Major Monro, to take in the forts to the northward, which it was suspected might dispute the terms of capitulation provided for them. The news of the surrender of Mahé arrived at Madrass on the 3d of March.
Captain Stephen Smith, as soon as encamped before Gingee, summoned Macgregor, the commanding officer, who answered, that if he had brought one hundred thousand men, the forts would not be reduced in three years. The troops encamped to the east opposite to the outward pettah on the plain, which, although it had a mud wall, was of much less defence than the inward town, which stands on higher ground, nearly in the center of the triangular valley, extending between the three mountains, The valley ​is enclosed on the three sides by a strong wall with towers of stone, which have a ditch before them, excepting in such parts where the rocks render it unnecessary; but the wall continues up the mountains, and surrounds the three forts, connecting them with each other. Besides this exterior enclosure, the interior and higher defences run double round the two forts to the east; and the great mountain to the west, which is the principal fortification, has four enclosures, one below another towards the town in the valley, but off different spaces and elevations; and the highest is a steep rock in the north-west part of the third enclosure above the valley; this far overtops all the mountains, and in the fort on its summit, although small, is a continual spring of water. The extent of wall in all fortifications measures more than 12000 yards; to defend which the French had only 150 Europeans, topasses, or coffrees, 600 Sepoys, and 1000 natives of the adjoining hills, whom they called Colleries. But they supposed the forts on the mountains to be impregnable, and that the town below would not be attempted, because, if taken, the troops which were to maintain it, would be continually subject to the fire of the defences above.
The wall on the east side of the valley extends 1200 yards from the mountain of St. George on the right, to the English mountain on the left, and nearly in the middle passeth along the side of a heap of rocks on which the French had raised a work, which they called the royal battery; under which on the right towards the mountain of St. George stood a gateway opposite to the outward pettah in the plain: but the pettah extended only from this mountain to the rocks of the battery.
Observation and deserters (of whom several came every day) apprized Captain Smith of the state of the garrison and defences, and that the garrison remained in perfect security as well in the town below, as in the forts above. On the night between the 2d and third of February, he marched from his camp with 600 Sepoys, in two divisions, of which the foremost, 200, carried a sufficient number of scaling ladders, and the others were to support when called for. They left the north wall of the pettah on the left, but passed ​through the intervals of some houses, which adjoined to it and brought them opposite to the middle of that part of the wall of the valley which extends between the royal battery and the English mountain. They crossed the ditch, placed their ladders, and got over the wall unchallenged: the object was now to get possession of the gate on the other side of the royal battery; but the rocks on which it stood extended backwards to the first houses of the town, and it was necessary to go through the first street leading across, in order to pass beyond the rear of the rocks and gain an avenue of trees, which led down to the gateway: they proceeded even quite through the street unperceived; but, as they were coming down the avenue, were challenged and discovered by the guard of the gateway, who fired; which alarmed the other stations in the town, but with so much confusion, that Captain Smith gave no attention to it, but hastened to the gateway, from which he dispersed the guard at the push of bayonet, and opening the gate let in the other division of 400 Sepoys, who were halting not far off in the nearest shelter, and with them took possession of the royal battery. It was now three in the morning, and Smith waited for day light to drive the enemy out of the town, who retired before; some to St. George's, others to the English mountain, but most of them into the enclosure next the town towards the great mountain, where they continued firing from the adjacent rampart throughout the next day upon the guards which were advanced and stationed in the houses of the town and cannon from all the hills continually plunged down, wheresoever they saw or suspected any of the English troops; but with little effect. In the ensuing night the enemy's troops, who had retired to the second enclosure, left it, and retreated to the higher defences of the great mountain.
On intelligence of this success 1000 more Sepoys were sent to Smith, who as the town was very unhealthy, continued more than one half of his force in the encampment on the plain. The desertion continued, and amongst them came a very experienced Jemautdar of the Sepoys, who proffered to lead a party by a path he knew to surprise the forts on St. George's mountain: he was trusted, and ​the next night 200 Sepoys marched under his guidance. We are not apprized of their track, but suppose they proceeded from the camp and went up on the outside of the mountain to the south, to the enclosure of the outward rock which is 80 feet higher than those beneath. They fixed their ladders, and got over the wall before they were discovered, and seized 8 Europeans, but the rest of the guard escaped to the enclosures below; where all continued very alert until day-light, when an officer came down to capitulate, and demanded very liberal terms; but captain Smith knowing that they were at any time in his power, by sending more men up to the rock above them, refused to accept the surrender, excepting at discretion; to which they consented. They were 42 Europeans, of whom six were officers, and 70 Sepoys. A large stock of provisions was found in the forts of this mountain, by which it was concluded, that those in the two others were equally as well provided; and no enquiry gave hopes that either of these fortresses could be taken by surprize, and still less by open attack. It therefore remained to try if time might produce the success which was not to be expected either from force or fortune.
The same day that the mountain of St. George surrendered to captain Smith, the important fortress of Thiagar capitulated to Major Preston, after a blockade and bombardment of 65 days, during which, above 40 Europeans had deserted to him from the rock, 20 had been killed or died, 25 lay wounded in the hospital, and 114 rank and file, with twelve officers, were in a condition to march, so that the whole number of Europeans which had been shut up were upwards of 200, with 300 Sepoys, and 100 Coffrees; they had provisions for two months longer; and the water, which gave the principal value to the fort, continued as usual in plenty, and of a good quality. Nevertheless, the commanding officer only stipulated that the garrison should receive the same treatment as the troops taken in Pondicherry; according to which the officers were to be sent to Europe upon parole, not to serve again during the present war, and the Europeans of rank and file were to be treated at discretion; and they were sent to be confined with those already in the prisons of ​Tritchinopoly; but the Sepoys and Coffrees being excellent were taken into the Company's service.
In the mean time, the detachment from Tellicherry was prosecuting the reduction of the dependencies of Mahé. The first is called Fort Delhi, situated on the strand of a promontory called Mount Delhi, which is a remarkable head-land ten miles to the north of Tellicherry; four miles further on is the mouth of the river of Neliserum, which, descending from the mountains to the east, turns short many miles above, and continues parallel to the beach of the sea, from which it is no where a mile asunder; a mile and a half up this river on the left hand, and on the mouth of another, stands Ramatilly, which is a small fort; on the same side, five miles beyond, is the fort of Mattalavy, which stands strong on a rocky eminence; seven miles farther, on the N. side of the mouth of another river, is the fort of Neliserum, which is much larger; and six miles up this river, to the east, and on its left shore, stands the fifth fort, which is small, and called Veramaly. Fort Delhi, Neliserum and Ramatilly were garrisoned by French troops, but the government of Mahé had delivered up the other two in pledge for debt to two chiefs of the country, who were determined not to part with them until compensated; and as they equally commanded the rivers, which were the channels of traffick, the other three would be of no service, if the two continued in hostility. Delhi and Ramatilly surrendered on the first summons, but at Mattalavy were assembled a large body of Naires, whose bravery is always desperate. The two ships from Pondicherry, which were carrying back the Bombay troops, were at this time working up the coast of Malabar, and had passed beyond the river of Neliserum; and Major Monro, finding more resistance than he expected in his expedition, sent after them for artillery-men and cannon, which came, and two batteries were erected against Mattalavy: but the settlement of Tellicherry had in the mean time been negotiating with the two chiefs who were in possession of Matalavy and Veramally, who consented to surrender them on codition of receiving an annual fine, which for both amounted to 3000 rupees. As soon as these ​forts were delivered, the French garrison at Neliserum, which did not exceed 20 Europeans, submitted without resistance.
On the 5th of April, Captain Stephen Smith received a proposal from Captain Macgregor, who commanded in the great mountain of Gingee, that he would capitulate, if his garrison were allowed the honours of war, the rank and file to be sent to Europe by the first opportunity as prisoners liable to exchange, but the officers permitted to retire, with their arms, baggage and effects, to any of the neutral settlements on the coast, where they were to be subsisted according to their ranks at the expence of the English company, who were likewise to defray their passage to Europe. Three hundred of the English Sepoys had already died in the town, and in the mountain of St. George, from the peculiar inclemency of the air, which has always been deemd the most unhealthy in the Carnatic, insomuch that the French, who never until lately kept more than 100 Europeans here, had lost 1200 in the ten years during which it had been in their possession. Captain Smith, therefore, very readily accepted the terms, and in the afternoon the garrisons marched out of the two mountains. They were 12 officers, and 100 rank and file, Europeans, Coffrees, and Topasses, and 40 Lascars for the artillery, which were 30 pieces of cannon and some mortars. A passport and safeguard was allowed to a Moor of distinction, who had long resided in the great mountain.
This day terminated the long contested hostilities between the two rival European powers in Coromandel, and left not a single ensign of the French nation avowed by the authority of its government in any part of India; for the troops which had gone away to Mysore, were hereafter to be regarded as a band of military adventurers seeking fortune and subsistence. In Bengal they had not a single agent or representative, and their factories at Surat and Calicut were mere trading houses on sufferance. Thus after a war of 15 years, which commenced with the expedition of Delabourdonnais against Madrass in 1746, and had continued from that time with scarcely the intermission of one year, was retaliated the same measure of extirpation, which had been intended, and invariably pursued, by the French councils against the English commerce and power: for such, as is ​avowed in the French memoirs on the events we have related, was the object of Delabourdonnais' expedition, of the whole government and ambition of Dupleix, and of the great armament of naval and land forces, which accompanied Mr. Lally to India, who constantly declared, that he had but one point, which was, not to leave an Englishman in the peninsula. To retard as much as possible the facility of their re-establishment in Coromandel, if restorations should be made at the conclusion of a general peace, Mr. Pigot laid a reperesentation before the council of Madrass, which determined them to destroy all the interior buildings, as well as the fortifications of Pondicherry, of which the demolition was by this time nearly completed: and in a few months more, not a roof was left standing in this once fair and flourishing city.
For two years before, the fortune of France had been declining in every other part of the world; they had lost their settlements on the coast of Africa, half their West India islands, the whole region of Canada; their naval force was utterly ruined, and their armies were struggling under defeats in Germany. The loss of India, as a last hope, excited the public indignation more than any of the former disasters, which was so far from producing any reconciliation amongst the amenable, that it only sharpened their vengeance against each other. Mr. Lally, on his arrival, formally accused Mr. De Leyrit, Mr. Bussy, Mr. Moracin and Courtin, of having wilfully conspired the ruin of the French affairs from their aversion to himself, as appointed by the King to investigate and correct the abuses of the government of Pondicherry. Of 200 persons who were either arrived or returning from hence, not more than 20 were in habits or connections with Mr. Lally; all the others, revolted by the excesses of his temper, or the severity of his authority, bore him either secret grudge, or avowed hatred; all these became voluntary partizans with Mr. De Leyrit and the council, whose resolutions were conducted at Paris as they had been at Pondicherry, by the Jesuit Lavaur. Their first step in public was to present a mainfest to the comptroller-general, in exculpation of themselves, and accusing Mr. Lally of misconduct under nine different heads, which, as they said, proved more ​than incapacity; and in August 1762, they petitioned the King to vindicate themselves juridically from the accusations of Mr. Lally; who some months after was confined in the Bastile. In June 1763, father Lavaur died; this Jesuit had composed in India two memoirs, the one a justification and panegyrick, the other a defamatory impeachment of every part of Mr. Lally's conduct. Arguments taken from this piece were occasionally supplied to propagate the public antipathy, but it had never been authentically published. As Lavaur was rated as an evidence, his papers were taken possession of by the officers of justice, and amongst them this libel was found. Lavaur, as if ruined by the loss of Pondicherry, had petitioned the government for a small pension of subsistence; and it was discovered that he died possessed of 60,000 pounds in gold, diamonds, and bills of exchange. This hypocrisy, with the frauds of another Jesuit, who managed the western missions, conduced not a little to the expulsion of the order; but full attention was given to the memoir of Lavaur, and from its documents the attorney general inserted the charge of high treason, which deprived Mr. Lally of the assistance of council. After he had been confined 18 months, the deponents in the process were brought before him, and he permitted to interrogate them before the recorder. The number of facts deposed against him amounted to one hundred and sixty, for every violent or unguarded expression during the course of his government and ill success was admitted. The number of witnesses must likewise have been many, for Mr. Lally opposed strong reproaches of incompetency to thirty-four of them. The recorder was the same who had given the most sanguinary judgment ever pronounced in France against a young man of family; and Mr. Lally, with his usual indiscretion and intemperance, aggravated the severity of his character, by treating him with haughtiness and contempt during the discharge of his office. Eighteen months passed in the confrontation and interrogatories, when the final decision was to be made by the whole parliament of Paris, which is composed of 120 members. It must be left to conjecture, how many of them went regularly through the immense volume ​of records from which they were to form their judgments, and how few persevered in comparing and combining this multitude of depositions with one another, in a subject so new to them, whether as military operations by land and sea, or as transactions in a strange land, of which they were now to learn the customs, manners, climate, and geography. Nevertheless, with due attention, much of this knowledge, and of the cause itself, might be acquired from the memoirs published not long before the decision, by Mr. D'Aché, Soupires, Bussy, and of Mr. Deleyrit, who was dead, but published by his heirs, with several others of lesser note and importance; and from the more copious justifications of Mr. Lally, written by himself, with the same unconquered spirit of invective against his enemies, as had brought on him the combination of accusations on which the jurisprudence of his country was now to pronounce. But none of these publications alleged, nor did any evidence assert any fact, to warrant the sentence of his judges, who must therefore have been led by the report of the recorder to condemn him to be beheaded, as duly attainted and convicted of having betrayed the interests of the King, the state, and the East India company; of abuse of authority, vexations, and exactions, upon the subjects of the King, and strangers resident in Pondicherry. Before the sentence was made known, he had been divested in the presence of the court of his military orders, and declared degraded of his military rank, in consequence of which he was removed from the Bastile, as a more honourable cofinement, to the common prison of criminals. Herein the morning of the 9th of May, 1766, his sentence was read to him; he threw up his hands to heaven, and exclaimed, Is this the reward of 45 years service! and snatching a pair of compasses, which lay with maps on his table, struck it to his breast, but it did not pierce to his heart; he then gave loose to every execration against his judges and accusers. His scaffold was prepared, and his execution appointed for the same afternoon: to prevent him from speaking to the spectators, a large gag was put into his mouth before he was taken out of prison, when he was carried in a common cart, and beheaded on the Greve. He perished in the 65th year of his age. ​If abuse of authority, vexations, and exactions, are not capital in the jurisprudence of France, they ought not to have been inserted, as efficacious, in the sentence of death. The betraying of interests required that the intention of ruining them should be proved by incontestable facts; but Mr. Lally neither gave intelligence to the English, of which they could take advantage, nor led or commanded his troops to services of destruction without the probability of advantage from their efforts, nor received bribes to influence the general plan of his conduct. The invective of his declaration to Colonel Coote, when offering to surrender, shews how little favour he expected from the English government; and he had personally offended Mr. Pigot in his correspondence. Nevertheless, the imputation of having sold Pondicherry, opened the cry against him in France. Mr. D'Estaign, and Crillon deposed honourably of him. Nor was the sentence of his judges unanimous. Mr. Siguier, admired for his eloquence, and Mr. Pellot, for his application and the clearness of his understanding, declared their conviction of his innocence; another of his judges acknowledged, that he was not condemned on any particular fact, but on the whole together. Mr. Voltaire, who had well considered the cause, has not scrupled to call his death a murder committed with the sword of Justice.
Mr. Lally constantly claimed the right of having his military conduct tried by a board of general officers. They would have seen his errors with discernment, and weighed them with impartiality. That the recall of Mr. Bussy from Salabadjing, and the substituting the insufficient abilities of Mr. Conflans, produced the loss of Masulipatam and the northern provinces. That the siege of Madrass was wrong in the intention, and equally defective in the execution; but that Mr. Lally expected no abler resistance here than he had met at Fort St. David. That the separation of the army, by the large detachment sent to Seringham, which enabled the English to extend their barrier to the south of the Paliar by the acquisition of Vandivash and Carangoly, was contrary to the sound principles of war; but that the motive was, the hope of relieving the want of ​money, and the distress for provisions. That the attempt to retake Vandivash, reduced Mr. Lally to the necessity of receiving battle, which as the English were seeking, he ought to have avoided; but that he had reason to expect greater industry and spirit in the artillery, officers, and engineers, who might have breached the place in half the time. Whether, after this battle, Pondicherry might have been better stored, or whether the provisions collected were injudiciously disposed of, would, after all witnesses, have remained a decision of doubt.
The troops which arrived with Colonel Coote in November 1759, with his immediate activity in the reduction of Vandivash and Carangoly, brought the war nearly to an equality; which justified him in risquing the battle for the relief of Vandivash, although he fought, it with the inexplicit disapprobation of the Presidency in his pocket; but his dispositions had secured resources against mischance. Before this important success, the views of no one had extended to the reduction of Pondicherry: but instantly after, all were impressed with the firmest persuasion of this termination of the war. This fortunate confidence led to the most vigorous counsels. Nothing, it was reasoned, if all advantages are taken, can save Pondicherry, excepting the arrival of their squadron in force sufficient to cope with the English; or the lucky introduction of troops and money by divisions of their ships, if the whole do not venture: whatsoever is gained in the mean time will require so much effort to recover, should the enemy be reinforced; and if they are not, will be so much accomplished towards the ultimate object. The enterprizing sagacity of Colonel Coote lost no time in discovering and taking every advantage. The Presidency seconded his operations by the expedition to Karical, and in supplies to the field; the garrison of Trichinopoly by their activity; the detachment to the westward by its vigilance; the army by their zeal on all occasions. Colonel Coote, by constantly exposing his own person with the Sepoys, had brought them to sustain dangerous services, from which the Europeans were preserved. By this ceconomy, and the reinforcements from England and Bombay, if the armament so much announced had arrived, and landed a ​greater force than France had ever before sent to India, the English on the day of the surrender of Pondicherry, were in a condition to have given them battle, if they had chosen it, under their very walls.
Colonel Coote embarked on the 13th of March, leaving his regiment to follow; and with him, our narrative returns to the affairs of Bengal.
End of the Thirteenth Book,
AND OF THE
SECOND VOLUME.