CHAPTER VI

Aug. 26.

June.

It might have seemed that, with the recall of Dupleix and the dismissal of Bussy from the court of Salabad Jung, French ascendency in India was already shaken to its foundations. Such, however, was very far from the fact. On the news of Bussy's withdrawal the French governors both at Pondicherry and at Masulipatam had sent him reinforcements, which he contrived by rare skill and daring to join to his own troops, and to use so effectively that within three months of his dismissal he was re-established at Hyderabad with all his former titles, dignities, and honours. For the rest of the year he was fully occupied in the reassertion of his position at the Viceroy's court and of French influence in the Northern Sirkars, those provinces on the eastern seaboard which, as will be remembered, should by the treaty of 1755 have been restored to their native owners. The most dangerous enemy of the British, therefore, though not removed, was fully employed over his own affairs during the year 1756. No sooner was he free, however, than he was once again busy in mischief, reducing Vizagapatam and the British factories on the Godavery, until new intrigues at the Court of the Viceroy recalled him hurriedly to Hyderabad.
May.

Still farther south, at Trichinopoly, matters remained for a time comparatively quiet. Major Caillaud, who commanded the garrison of the city, had received strict orders to abstain from all hostilities; while the French, though still in occupation of Seringham, had been so much weakened by the detachment of reinforcements[427] for the help of Bussy, that until December 1756 they ceased to be formidable. In the following February, however, the dread of French intrigue at Madura and Tinnevelly had forced Caillaud to lead an expedition to both of these districts; and in April the necessity for collecting the revenues of the Nabob Mohammed Ali led the authorities at Madras to send a further expedition to Nellore on the river Pennar. This latter enterprise was unsuccessful, but has a distinct interest of its own for that it was entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Forde of the Thirty-ninth Foot, an officer who was soon to win for his name a place beside those of Clive and Lawrence. In this his first command, however, he failed; and the French, though they had received orders to attempt nothing before the arrival of reinforcements, could not resist the temptation to take the field while the forces of Madras were divided between two points so remote as Tinnevelly and Nellore. M. d'Auteuil therefore seized the moment to collect four thousand men, one-fourth of them Europeans, together with a train of siege-artillery, and on the 14th of May appeared with this force before Trichinopoly. The position of the British garrison was never more critical during the whole course of the war than at this moment. The best of the troops were absent with Caillaud; and Captain Joseph Smith, who was left in command, had but seven hundred Sepoys and less than two hundred English with which to hold the fortifications and to guard five hundred French prisoners who were still within the walls. D'Auteuil, thinking to capture Trichinopoly at small cost, tried to scare Smith into surrender by bombardment and by incessant petty attacks, but Smith was not easily frightened and held his ground until the 25th. Then Caillaud appeared, having hastened back with all speed from Madura, and by extreme skill and perseverance passed his force by night unnoticed through the midst of the French camp into the city. D'Auteuil thereupon retired to Pondicherry, and Trichinopoly was once more in safety.

[428]
Sept.

Meanwhile the authorities at Madras had initiated a diversion in favour of Trichinopoly, to which the French answered by reprisals in kind; but the operations were of little interest or significance. In September a French squadron arrived which disembarked one thousand regular troops; but even after the arrival of this reinforcement the enemy's movements were of small importance. Indeed their inactivity at this period was no less surprising than welcome to the British, for the Presidency of Madras, in the face of their superior numbers, had been obliged to withdraw all its troops into garrison and to stand strictly on the defensive. The secret of the French forbearance was that the Governor of Pondicherry, having received positive orders from France to await the arrival of further succours, was fain to content himself with the reduction of a few of the outlying forts of the Carnatic. Thus the campaign of 1757 closed with the advantage to the French of the capture of Chittapett, a post thirty miles south of Arcot, and to the British of the acquisition of Madura.
1758.
April.

The year 1758 opened far more seriously for the British. At daybreak on the 28th of April a fleet of twelve sail was seen standing into the roadstead of Fort St. David and was presently recognised to be French. This was the long-expected armament on which the French had built all their hopes for the expulsion of the British from India, and it had consumed nearly twelve months in its passage. It had left Brest originally in March 1757 and had been driven back by foul weather. Then two line-of-battle ships had been taken from it for service in Canadian waters, and the squadron had waited till May for their place to be supplied by two French East Indiamen fitted out as ships of war. Then the Admiral, d'Aché, for all that a British fleet was hurrying after him, loitered on the voyage to Mauritius, and on leaving that island selected a course which kept him three months on his passage to Coromandel. At last, however, the squadron[429] arrived in the roadstead of Fort St. David, having lost by that time between three and four hundred men through sickness. It carried on board Lally's regiment of infantry and fifty European artillerymen, together with Count Lally himself, who had been appointed to the supreme command of the French in India. Lally de Tollendal, or to give him his real name, O'Mullally of Tullindally (for he was of Irish extraction), was an officer who had been of the Irish brigade in the French service, and who enjoyed the credit of having suggested that movement of the artillery which had shattered the British column to defeat at Fontenoy. How far this training would avail him in India remained still to be seen.
April 29.

Lally's instructions from Versailles directed him first to besiege Fort St. David; and accordingly he himself sailed at once with three ships from that roadstead to Pondicherry to give the necessary orders, while the rest of the fleet worked down two miles to southward and dropped anchor off Cuddalore. But now the consequences of the long protraction of Admiral d'Aché's voyage began to reveal themselves. Commodore Stevens, who had left England with his squadron three months after him, had reached Madras five weeks before him, and joining with Admiral Pocock's squadron in the Hooghly had sailed with it on the 17th of April to intercept d'Aché. Pocock having missed the French squadron on his voyage south bore up to the northward, and on the morning of the 29th came in sight of it at its moorings before Cuddalore. D'Aché at once weighed anchor and stood out to sea; but owing to the heavy sailing of some of the English vessels it was not until the afternoon that Pocock could engage him, with seven ships against nine. The action that ensued though indecisive was decidedly to the disadvantage of the French. They lost six hundred men killed and wounded, while one of their ships of the line was so badly damaged that she was perforce run ashore and abandoned. The British ships lost little over a hundred[430] men, though on the other hand their rigging was so much cut up that they were unable to pursue the enemy. Pocock therefore returned to Madras to refit, while the French fleet anchored some twenty miles north of Pondicherry in the roadstead of Alumparva.
April 30.
May 1.
May 6.

On the self-same day, under the energetic impulse of Lally, a thousand Europeans and as many French Sepoys under Count d'Estaing arrived before Fort St. David from Pondicherry and exchanged shots with the garrison. On the morrow M. de Soupire joined d'Estaing with additional troops and with siege-guns, and on the 1st of May appeared Lally himself, who immediately detached a force under d'Estaing against Cuddalore. The defences of this town were slight and the garrison consisted of five companies of Sepoys only, which were encumbered by the custody of fifty French prisoners. The fort accordingly capitulated on the 4th of May, on condition that the garrison should retire to Fort St. David with its arms, and that the French prisoners should be transported to neutral ground in the south until the fate of Fort St. David should be decided. Two days later d'Aché's squadron anchored again before Fort St. David and landed the troops from on board; and on the 15th the French began the erection of their first battery for the siege.
May 28.
June 2.

Lally had now the considerable force of twenty-five hundred Europeans and about the same number of Sepoys assembled before the town; but his difficulties none the less were very great. The authorities at Pondicherry were disloyal to him; the military chest was absolutely empty; and, long though his arrival had been expected, no preparation had been made for his transport and supplies. In his impatience for action, for he dreaded the return of Pocock from Madras, he had hurried the first detachment forward to Cuddalore without any transport or supplies whatever, with the result that the troops had been obliged to plunder the suburbs for food. Now, since no other means seemed open to him, he took the still more fatal[431] step of impressing the natives for the work of carriage, without respect to custom, prejudice, or caste. For the moment, however, he was successful. The defences of Fort St. David were respectable, but the garrison was too weak in numbers to man them properly, and the quality of the troops was remarkably poor. The Sepoys numbered about sixteen hundred and the Europeans about six hundred; but of the latter less than half were effective, while two hundred and fifty out of the whole were sailors, recently landed from the frigates and most defective in discipline. Major Polier, who was in command, made the mistake of attempting to defend several outworks with an inadequate force, instead of destroying them and retiring into the main fortress. Lally was therefore able to drive the defenders from these outworks piecemeal; and his success sufficed to scare nearly the whole of the Sepoys into desertion. A ray of hope came for a moment to the garrison with the news that Pocock's squadron had arrived at Pondicherry on its way from Madras, and that the French sailors had mutinied, refusing to put to sea until their wages were paid. But Lally, always energetic, contrived to find the necessary funds, and d'Aché set sail in time to prevent any communication between the fleet and Fort St. David. Finally the fort, though not yet breached, capitulated on the 2nd of June, and Lally's first great object was gained.
June 7.

The fall of Fort St. David gave great alarm at Madras, and with reason, for the defence had been discreditably feeble. Polier had formerly proved himself in repeated actions to be a gallant soldier; but making all allowance for the defects of his garrison, his conduct was not such as was to be expected from a countryman of Caillaud and a brother officer of Clive, Lawrence, and Kilpatrick. Moreover, Lally was not a man to be content with a single success. On the very day of the surrender he detached a force under d'Estaing against Devicotah, which was perforce abandoned by the British at his approach; and there[432] was every reason to fear that his energy would now be bent towards the capture of Madras. The government therefore called in all its scattered garrisons in the Carnatic, maintaining only that of Trichinopoly, and concentrated them in Madras; thus adding two hundred and fifty Europeans and twenty-five hundred Sepoys to the strength of that city. On this same day Lally returned to Pondicherry with his army from Fort St. David and made triumphant entry. Te Deum was sung, and thanksgiving was followed by banquets and festivities—all at a time when the public treasury was empty.
June 18.

In fact, however Lally might long for it, there was no possibility for him yet to attack Madras. D'Aché, declaring that his duty summoned him to cruise off the coast of Ceylon, would not spare the fleet to aid in the enterprise against the seat of British power in the Carnatic, and actually sailed for the south on the 4th of June. For a march overland upon Madras Lally's army required equipment; and equipment meant money, which the authorities at Pondicherry averred that they could not supply. Acting therefore on the advice of a Jesuit priest, Lally resolved to march into Tanjore and to extort the cash which he needed from the Rajah. The civil authorities in alarm recalled d'Aché to protect Pondicherry, and on the day following his arrival Lally ordered out sixteen hundred European troops and a still larger number of Sepoys and started with them for the south.
June 25.

The march was one long succession of blunders and misfortunes. The harsh measures employed towards the natives on the advance to Fort St. David had alienated every man of them from taking service with the army; so the force started without transport. Gross excesses committed by the French troops in plundering the country drove the villagers to hide away all their cattle; hence neither transport nor supplies were to be obtained on the march. The soldiers were therefore of necessity turned loose to find[433] provisions as best they might, and their discipline, already seriously impaired, went rapidly from bad to worse. When they entered Devicotah they had not tasted food for twelve hours; and finding that only rice in the husk awaited them there, they set fire to the huts within the fort and went near to kindling the magazines. It was not until they reached Carical, after traversing fully a hundred miles, that the troops at last received a real meal. Fresh follies marked the progress of the march. The town of Nagore was seized and its ransom farmed out to the captain of the French hussars, a corps which had only recently arrived in India and had distinguished itself above all others by violence and pillage. Ammunition again, for even this was not carried with the army, was extorted by force from the Dutch settlements of Negapatam and Tranquebar. Finally, two pagodas of peculiar sanctity were plundered, though to no advantage, and the Brahmins were blown from the muzzles of guns. Lally's difficulties were doubtless great, and his methods were those honoured and to be honoured by his countrymen in many a campaign past and future; but it is hard to understand how a man calling himself a soldier could deliberately have led from three to four thousand men for a distance of a hundred miles from his base without making the slightest provision for its subsistence, or the least effort to maintain its discipline.
August.
Aug. 18.

Lally's sins soon found him out. On his arrival at Carical seven thousand Tanjorines under the Rajah's general, Monacjee, advanced to Trivalore to oppose him; and this force was soon afterwards swelled not only by native allies but by five hundred British Sepoys and ten English gunners, who had been lent by Caillaud from Trichinopoly. Monacjee fell back before Lally step by step to the city of Tanjore, but his cavalry never ceased to harass the French foraging-parties, to drive off the cattle which they had collected, and to intercept supplies. Some days were spent in fruitless negotiation, and on the 2nd of August Lally's batteries[434] opened fire on the city; whereupon Caillaud immediately sent to the Rajah a further reinforcement of five hundred of his best Sepoys. On the 8th disquieting intelligence reached Lally of the defeat of a French squadron by the British, and of a British occupation of Carical, the only port from which his army, already much distressed by want of stores and ammunition, could possibly be relieved. On the 10th, having with difficulty repelled a sortie of the garrison, he raised the siege and retreated towards Carical, leaving three heavy guns behind him. Instantly the Tanjorines were after him, hovering about him on every side during his march, swooping down on stragglers and cutting off supplies. The sufferings of the French troops were frightful. It was only with the greatest difficulty that Lally brought them through to Carical, to find on his arrival that the British fleet was anchored at the mouth of the river.
Aug. 28.
Sept.

For on the 2nd of August Pocock had again engaged d'Aché, though with inferior numbers, and after an action of two hours had so battered the French squadron that it had crowded all sail to escape and taken refuge under the guns of Pondicherry. Moreover, d'Aché was so much disheartened that he not only refused to meet the British again, but announced his intention of returning to Mauritius. Lally had received intimation of this resolve during his retreat to Carical, and had despatched Count d'Estaing to d'Aché to protest against it. On arriving with his army at Pondicherry from Carical he repeated his remonstrances, but in vain. D'Aché had secured thirty thousand pounds by illegal capture of certain Dutch ships in Pondicherry roads, and this he was content to leave with his colleagues; but he was resolute as to his departure from the coast, and on the 2nd of September he sailed away.
Oct. 4.

Whatever Lally's indignation against d'Aché for this desertion, it must be confessed that his operations had been little more successful than the Admiral's. He had injured both the health and the discipline of[435] his troops by the raid into Tanjore, and had failed to extract more than a trifling sum from the Rajah. The money taken by d'Aché, however, furnished him with sufficient funds to initiate preparations for a march on Madras; and since the British had seized the opportunity of his own absence to recapture some of the scattered forts in the Carnatic, he despatched three several expeditions to Trinomalee, Carangooly, and Trivatore to clear the way to Arcot, ordering them to concentrate about thirty-five miles south-east of Arcot, at Wandewash. The several columns having done their work, he joined the united force in person at Wandewash and marched with it on Arcot, which having no British garrison surrendered without resistance. There now remained but two posts in the occupation of the British between him and Madras, Conjeveram on the direct road from Arcot to Madras, and Chingleput on the river Paliar, neither of them strongly garrisoned and both therefore easy of capture. Failing, however, to appreciate the importance of these two forts, and finding that his stock of ready money was exhausted, Lally sent his troops into cantonments, and returned to Pondicherry to collect funds. Thereby he threw away his last chance of worsting the British in India.
Sept. 14.

The authorities at Madras accepted his successes in the Carnatic as the inevitable consequence of the fall of Fort St. David, and were therefore little dismayed. Nevertheless the situation had been apprehended to be serious; and early in August appeal had been made to Bengal for assistance. It was refused. Clive was not indifferent to the peril of the sister Presidency, but he had matured designs of his own for a diversion in favour of the Carnatic, which, as shall presently be seen, was brilliantly executed. Madras being thus thrown on her own resources, the authorities resolved at the end of August to recall Caillaud and all the European troops from Trichinopoly, and to leave Captain Joseph Smith in charge of that city with two thousand Sepoys only. After some inevitable delay Caillaud embarked at[436] Negapatam, and on the 25th of September arrived safely with one hundred and eighty men at Madras. A few days before, a still more welcome reinforcement had been received in the shape of Colonel Draper's regiment,[342] eight hundred and fifty strong, with Draper himself, lately an officer of the First Guards, in command. Such an accession of strength made it possible to profit by Lally's omission to capture Chingleput. That post covered a district which, being rich in supplies, would spare Madras the exhaustion of the stock which had been laid up for the expected siege; and in view of its importance the troops at Conjeveram were withdrawn to it, and the garrison gradually strengthened to a force of one hundred Europeans and twelve hundred Sepoys. Further, it was determined to hire a contingent of Mahrattas and of Tanjorines so as to harass the enemy's convoys and lines of communication during the siege.
June 13.

These preparations were well completed some time before Lally was ready to move. That General was indeed concentrating all the strength of France for his great effort against Madras, but in blind pursuance of this object he had removed the most dangerous enemy of the British from the post in which, of all others, he would have been most formidable. In plain words, he had recalled Bussy, with his army, from the court of Salabad Jung and from the administration of the Deccan. Further, he had ordered him to entrust the occupation of the Northern Sirkars to M. Conflans, an officer who was only just arrived from Europe, together with the smallest possible force that would enable him to maintain it. Bussy obeyed, but in perplexity and despair; for it was hard for him to abandon the work at which he had toiled for so long with unwearied zeal and unvarying success; and it was scarcely to be expected that he should feel cordially towards this new and impulsive commander who, whatever his merits, possessed not a[437] quarter of his own ability. Lally on his side entertained decided antipathy towards Bussy. He looked upon the French authorities in India generally as a pack of rogues, wherein he was not far wrong, but in including Bussy with the common herd he was very far from right. He therefore treated Bussy's supplications to return to Hyderabad as designed merely for the thwarting of his own enterprise, and disregarded them accordingly. The junior officers of the army, with a sounder appreciation of Bussy's powers, generously petitioned that he might rank as their superior, to which request Lally, though with no very good grace, was forced to accede. Thus, for one preliminary disadvantage, there was little prospect of hearty accord and co-operation in the French camp. Then there was the deficiency of funds to be faced, which was only overcome by subscriptions from the private purses of Lally and other officers; though Bussy, the wealthiest of all, declined, if Lally is to be believed, to contribute a farthing. Finally, there were endless troubles over the matter of transport, for which Lally had no one but himself to thank; and, what with one embarrassment and another, it was the end of November before the French troops were fairly on the march for Madras.
Dec.
Dec. 13.

Lally's force comprised in all twenty-three hundred Europeans, both horse and foot, and five thousand Sepoys. The main body moved from Arcot along the direct road by Conjeveram, and a large detachment followed the bank of the Paliar upon Chingleput. Lally in person joined this latter column on the 4th of December, but having reconnoitred Chingleput decided to leave it in his rear, and to continue his march northward to Madras. The defending force collected by the British in that city amounted to seventeen hundred and fifty Europeans and twenty-two hundred Sepoys, the whole under command of Colonel Stringer Lawrence. The Colonel drew the greater part of these troops into the field to watch the French movements, failing back slowly before them as they advanced; and on the 13th[438] Lally's entire force encamped in the plain, rather more than a mile to south-west of Fort St. George. Nearer approach to the fort was barred by two rivers, the more northerly of them, called the Triplicane, entering the sea about a thousand yards south of the glacis; the other, known as the North River, washing the actual foot of the glacis, but turning from thence abruptly southward to join the Triplicane and flow with it into the sea. Lally therefore passed round to the other side of Fort St. George, the British evacuating the outer posts before him as he advanced, and established himself in the Black Town on the north-western front of the fort, and thence along its northern side to the sea. With his right thus resting on the town and his left on the beach, he prepared to open the siege of Madras.
Dec. 14.

The Black Town was rich, and the French troops, with the indiscipline now become habitual to them, fell at once to indiscriminate plunder, with the result that in a short time a great many of them were reeling drunk. Colonel Draper thereupon proposed a sortie in force, and the suggestion was approved as tending to raise the spirit of the garrison. Accordingly, at eleven o'clock on the following morning, Draper with five hundred men and two guns marched out from the western ravelin of the fort, and holding his course westward for some distance turned north into the streets of the Black Town to attack the French right, while Major Brereton with another hundred men followed a route parallel to him, but nearer to the fort, in order to cover his retreat. By some mistake Draper's black drummers began to beat the Grenadiers' March directly they entered the town, and so gave the alarm. The French formed in a cross street to receive the attack, but in the confusion mistook the line of the British advance and awaited them at the head of the wrong street, too far to the westward. Draper therefore came up full on their left flank, poured in a volley, and bringing up his guns opened fire with grape. In a few minutes the whole of the French had taken refuge in the adjoining houses, and Draper,[439] ordering his guns to cease fire, rushed forward to secure four cannon which the French had brought with them. The French officer in charge of them offered to surrender both himself and his guns, when Draper, looking behind him, found that he was followed by but four men, the rest having, like the enemy, fled for shelter to the houses. Had the British done their duty Draper's attack would probably have put an end to the siege then and there; but as things were, the French, hearing the guns cease, quickly rallied, and streaming out of the houses in superior numbers opened a destructive fire. Draper was obliged to abandon the guns and order a retreat, the French following after him in hot pursuit. His position was critical, for he could not retire by the route of his advance, but was obliged to take a road leading to the northern face of the fort. The way was blocked by a stagnant arm of the North River with but one bridge; and it lay within the power of Lally's regiment, on the left of the French position, to reach this bridge before him and so to cut off his retreat. Bussy, however, who was in command on the French left, either through jealousy, or possibly because his men were too much intoxicated to move, took no advantage of this opportunity. Brereton came up in time to cover Draper's retreat, and the British re-entered the fort in safety. They had lost over two hundred men in killed, wounded, and prisoners in this abortive attack; and though the French had suffered as great a loss, yet they were victorious whereas the British were demoralised. Had Lally's regiment done its duty Madras would probably have fallen in a few days. So ended an episode most thoroughly discreditable to both parties.
1759.
Jan.
Feb.
Feb. 9.
Feb. 17.

Lally now began the construction of batteries over against the north and north-western fronts of the fort, from the Black Town to the sea. Meanwhile Caillaud was despatched to Tanjore to obtain troops from the Rajah; and Captain Preston, who commanded the garrison at Chingleput, never ceased to harass the French by constant petty attacks and threatening of[440] their communications. At length, on the 2nd of January, the French batteries opened fire, which they continued throughout the month, but with no very great effect. The indiscipline which Lally had permitted during his earlier operations told heavily upon the efficiency of the besieging force; and everything moved slowly and with friction. At length, on the 30th of January, a British ship arrived to hearten the garrison with ammunition and specie, both of which were sorely needed; and on the 7th of February Caillaud, after endless difficulties at Tanjore, joined Preston at Chingleput and increased his force by thirteen hundred Sepoys and two thousand Tanjorine horse. Though half of the Sepoys and the whole of the horse were worth little, yet this growth of numbers in his rear, and the knowledge that Pocock's squadron was on its way from Bombay to relieve Madras, forced Lally to take strong measures against Chingleput. Accordingly, on the 9th of February, he detached a force of nine hundred Europeans, twelve hundred Sepoys and five hundred native horse, with eight field-pieces, to attack Caillaud in earnest. The action was hot, and Caillaud only with the greatest difficulty succeeded in holding his own; but ultimately the French were repulsed, and Chingleput, that terrible thorn, remained still rankling in Lally's side. His position was now desperate. Supplies, money, ammunition, all were failing, and his troops, both native and European, were melting away by desertion. He had succeeded in battering a breach in the fort, but his officers were averse to attempt an assault. Finally, on the 16th the arrival of Pocock's squadron, at once relieving Madras and threatening Pondicherry, brought his darling project to an end. By the morning of the 17th he was in full march for Arcot, leaving fifty-two guns, all his stores and ammunition, and forty sick and wounded men behind him.

So ended the siege of Madras, the last offensive movement of the French in India. It had cost the[441] garrison thirty-three officers, five hundred and eighty Europeans and three hundred Sepoys killed, wounded and prisoners, while over four hundred more of the Sepoys had deserted. Happily Pocock's squadron brought reinforcements which made good the loss of Europeans. The casualties in the French army remain unknown, but, whether they were considerable or not, the survivors were at any rate demoralised. Lally retired with bitter rage in his heart against the authorities at Pondicherry, to whose apathy and self-seeking he attributed his failure. Doubtless if they had seconded his efforts loyally and truly, his difficulties would have been infinitely less, and his chances of success proportionately greater. But even if the hasty and masterful temper which estranged them from him be excused, nothing can palliate his two cardinal errors as a soldier; first, the omission to secure Chingleput while yet the capture was easy, and secondly the neglect to enforce discipline among all ranks of his army. Violence without strength, energy without foresight, imperiousness without ascendency—such are not the qualities that go to make a great leader in the field.
1758.

And meanwhile the counterstroke prepared by Clive had fallen once and was about to fall again with redoubled force. Affairs in Bengal in the autumn of 1758 stood on no very sure footing. Meer Jaffier was not wholly resigned to his puppet-hood; but his nobles were disaffected, his treasury was empty, and he was threatened on his northern frontier by invasion from Oude; so he was obliged reluctantly to throw himself upon the protection of Clive. So unstable a condition of affairs presented no ideal moment for weakening the small force on which British influence in those provinces might depend; but Clive, perceiving that Bussy's withdrawal from Hyderabad gave him a chance to substitute British for French ascendency at the court of the Deccan, determined at all hazards to seize it. The ruler of one district of the Northern Sirkars, the Rajah Anunderaj, had already risen in revolt against the[442] French, seized Vizagapatam, and appealed to Madras for assistance. An agent was sent to concert operations with him; and Clive, making up a force of five hundred European infantry and artillery, one hundred Lascars and two thousand Sepoys, together with six field-guns and as many battering pieces, shipped them off from Calcutta at the end of September. The command was entrusted to Lieutenant-Colonel Forde.
Dec.
Dec. 9.

The voyage was protracted by foul weather, and it was not until the 20th of October that the expedition reached Vizagapatam, from which it marched to join Anunderaj's troops at Cossimcotah. Here more delay was caused by the unwillingness of the Rajah to fulfil his engagement to pay the British troops; but at length on the 1st of December the force advanced and on the 3rd came in sight of the enemy, who were encamped forty miles north of Rajahmundry within sight of the fort of Peddapore and astride of the high road to the south. The French force, which was commanded by M. Conflans, consisted of five hundred Europeans, six thousand Sepoys and a quantity of native levies. Forde's army, on his side, had received the accession of five hundred worthless horse and a rabble of five thousand foot, chiefly armed with pikes and bows, which represented the contingent of Anunderaj. On the 6th Forde advanced along the high road to within four miles of Conflans, but each officer thought the other too strong to be attacked. Inaction continued until the 8th, when both commanders simultaneously framed independent designs for extricating themselves from the deadlock. Conflans's plan was to send six guns with a sufficient force to a height which commanded the British camp, and which Forde had omitted to occupy. Forde, for his part, had decided to make a detour of three miles to Condore, from which he could turn Conflans's position and regain the high road to Rajahmundry. At four o'clock on the morning of the 9th, accordingly, Forde marched away with his own troops only, while the Rajah's army, which though[443] warned was unready to move, remained in the camp. Forde had not proceeded far before he heard the sound of Conflans's guns in his rear and received piteous messages from the Rajah for assistance. Turning back he met the Rajah's rabble in full flight and rallied them; after which the whole force pursued its march and at eight o'clock arrived at Condore.

Conflans, flattering himself that he had defeated Forde's entire army, followed him quickly, with the idea of preventing his return to his former camp; and in his haste to advance allowed his line to fall into disorder. His European battalion was in his centre, with thirteen field-pieces distributed on its flanks, while his right and left wings were composed each of three thousand Sepoys with some unwieldly native cannon. Forde formed his line in much the same order. In his centre he posted the British, now represented by the Hundred-and-First and Hundred-and-Second Foot, with six guns on their flanks, and his Sepoys, in two divisions each of nine hundred men, on either wing; and he bade the Rajah's troops keep out of the way in the rear. He then advanced under a heavy cannonade from the enemy for some distance before Condore, and halted with his centre in rear of a field of Indian corn, which entirely concealed the Europeans, but left the Sepoys uncovered on the plain on either hand. These Sepoys, being from Bengal, were dressed in scarlet instead of in the white clothing worn by their brethren in the hotter climate of the south. The French had never seen the scarlet except on the bodies of European troops, and Forde was fully aware of the fact; for he ordered the Sepoys to furl the old-fashioned Company flags, which they still carried, as also their regimental colours, that they might be the more easily mistaken for a regular battalion of British.

In the ardour of their advance the enemy's infantry out-marched their guns and moved forward without them. Their line, from its superiority in numbers, far outflanked the British on both wings; but as it drew[444] nearer, the French battalion in the centre suddenly inclined to the right towards Forde's left wing of Sepoys. Conflans had swallowed the bait laid for him by Forde. The French battalion evidently mistook the Sepoys for Europeans, for before engaging them it dressed its ranks, and then opened fire by platoons at a distance of two hundred yards. Long though this range was for the old musket, the Sepoys seeing Europeans in front and natives menacing their flank hardly stood to deliver a feeble volley, but immediately broke, despite all the efforts of Forde, and fled away pursued by the enemy's horse. Conflans at once detached several platoons of his Europeans to join in the pursuit; when to his dismay a second line of scarlet filed steadily up from behind the Indian corn to the ground whereon the Sepoys had stood, halted and fronted as coolly as if on parade, and then with equal coolness opened fire by volleys of divisions from the left.[343] The first volley brought down half of the French grenadiers, and by the time that the fifth and last division had pulled trigger the whole of Conflans's European battalion was broken up, and flying back in disorder to its guns, half a mile in rear.

Forde, unable to curb the eagerness of his men, allowed them to pursue in succession of divisions, the left leading; but every division marched too fast to preserve order excepting the fourth, which was kept well in hand by Captain Yorke as a rallying-point in case of mishap. But no mishap was to come. The French rallied behind their cannon, but had not time to fire more than a round or two when the British fell upon them, drove them from their batteries and captured every gun. The Sepoys and native levies of the French made little or no stand after the defeat of their Europeans, and the British Sepoys of the right, together with some rallied fugitives from the left, advanced to join their victorious comrades. No sooner were they come than Forde made fresh dispositions, and marched on without losing a moment to[445] attack Conflans's camp. The remnants of the French battalion, which were posted in a hollow way before it, made some faint show of resistance; but seeing the British guns coming forward, turned to the right about and fled, with the British in hot pursuit. Many of the fugitives threw down their arms and surrendered; the rest, together with the remainder of the French army, ran away in hopeless confusion. Conflans, after sending off his military chest and four field-guns, jumped on a horse and galloped away, not stopping except to change horses till he reached Rajahmundry, forty miles distant. Of his Europeans seventy-six officers and men were killed, many wounded, and fifty-six taken. Thirty cannon, seven mortars, and the whole of his baggage and transport were captured. The British loss amounted to no more than forty Europeans and over two hundred Sepoys killed and wounded. Had the Rajah's cavalry been of the slightest value, the losses of the French would have been far greater; but Forde's promptness in following up his first success made his victory sufficiently complete. This brilliant little action marked the rise of yet another great leader among the British in India.
Dec. 10.
Dec. 11.

The British battalion being much fatigued was halted after the engagement in the French camp, but on the same evening Captain Knox with the right wing of Sepoys was sent forward to Rajahmundry. On the following day a further reinforcement of Sepoys joined him; and the French, still under the influence of panic, evacuated the fort. Knox at once entered it, and turning the guns on to the fugitives, though far out of range, set them running once more. Thus Rajahmundry, the gate and barrier of the district of Vizagapatam, passed into the hands of the British, with all its artillery, ammunition, and stores. Forde arrived there with the rest of the army on the 11th, eager to pursue his success by an advance on Masulipatam. This, the most important town and the centre of French influence in the province, was doubly important to the enemy as a[446] base from which they might at any time recover their lost territory. Forde, however, was in want of money, for which he had relied on the promises of Anunderaj. The Rajah, as is the way of his kind, now refused either to supply funds or to set his rabble in motion to accompany him. At length after six weeks of negotiation this deplorable potentate was induced, partly by favourable terms of repayment, partly by a severe fright, to fulfil his undertaking; but fifty precious days had been lost, and the French had gained time to recover themselves.
1759.
Feb.
March.

On the 28th of January Forde resumed his march, and on the 6th of February occupied Ellore, forty-eight miles north of Masulipatam. Here again he was compelled to halt by the dilatoriness of the Rajah in sending forward supplies; but he was not on that account idle. Conflans, having got the better of his panic after Condore, had replaced garrisons in Narsipore and Concal, two outlying strongholds to the north of Masulipatam, and had organised an army of observation, consisting of two hundred and fifty Europeans and two thousand Sepoys, under M. du Rocher. The dispositions of this latter force were so faulty as to leave Narsipore in isolation, and Forde lost no time in sending Captain Knox with a detachment of Sepoys to capture it. The French commander of the post was no sooner warned of Knox's approach then he evacuated Narsipore and joined the army of du Rocher. Then came more delay; and it was the 1st of March before Forde was again able to move. Two days later Concal was taken, though most gallantly defended by a French sergeant; and on the 6th Forde came in sight of Masulipatam. Conflans occupied a strong position before the town, which he might have held with advantage; but his heart failed him, and he retired within the fortifications.
March 7-25.
March 27.
April 1.

The defences of Masulipatam had been improved by the French since their entry into possession in 1751, and now formed an irregular parallelogram, open on the south side, where a broad estuary furnished sufficient[447] natural protection, and closed on the three other sides by mud walls faced with brick and strengthened by eleven bastions: there was also a wet ditch and a narrow palisaded space between ditch and parapet, but no glacis. On the landward side the fort was surrounded everywhere by a heavy swamp, the road to the town being carried on a causeway to the main gate on the north-west front. This causeway was covered for a distance of a hundred and twenty yards from the wall by a parapet ending in a ravelin, which commanded the whole length of the road. The only sound ground within reach of the fort was to be found on some sandhills to east and west of it; of which those on the eastern side, being within eight hundred yards of the wall, were selected by Forde for his position. Regular approaches for a formal siege were out of the question for so small a force, so Forde was fain to begin the erection of batteries on the sandhills, to play on the works from thence as best they could. The whole of the eighteen ensuing days were devoted to the work of construction, the siege-guns being landed from ships which had followed the movements of the army along the coast. During this short period it seemed as though fate had laid itself out to raise every possible obstacle against Forde's success. No sooner had he invested Masulipatam than du Rocher's army of observation woke to sudden activity, and moved round upon Rajahmundry and the British communications with the north. The officer in charge of that fort, being unable to make any defence, was obliged to send away to safer custody a large sum in specie which had been received from Bengal; and thus Forde's supply of ready money was cut off. Du Rocher then advanced a little to the northward of Rajahmundry, vowing vengeance against Anunderaj's country, and so terrified the pusillanimous Rajah that he declined to employ either his money or his credit for the service of the British army. Forde was left absolutely penniless. He had already borrowed all the prize-money of his[448] officers and even of his men, and knew not whither to turn for cash for the payment of his troops. The soldiers became apprehensive and discontented, and on the 19th the whole of the Europeans turned out with their arms in open mutiny, and threatened to march away. With great difficulty Forde persuaded them to return; and the men, once conciliated, went back to work with all their former ardour. But the batteries had not been completed two days when news arrived that the Viceroy, Salabad Jung, was arrived at the river Kistnah, not more than forty miles away, with an army of forty thousand men, to expel the intruders who had dared to invade the provinces under his suzerainty. Messengers arrived from him requiring Anunderaj to quit the British immediately and to repair to his standard; and the terrified Rajah actually started to return to his own country. He was only with difficulty recalled by Forde's representations that his one chance of retreat was to remain with the British. In the faint hope of gaining time Forde proposed to open negotiations with Salabad Jung, who to his great relief consented to receive his emissary and undertook for the present to advance no farther. Here, therefore, was a respite, though not such as could be counted on for long endurance.
April 6.

Meanwhile, ever since the 25th of March, Forde's batteries had maintained a hot fire; and, though the damage done to the works by day had been regularly repaired by the besieged at night, three of the bastions had been sufficiently ruined to give foothold to a storming party. But now the weather changed, and on the 5th of April the southern monsoon broke with a flood of rain that soaked the morass around the fort to its deepest. On the morrow the storm ceased, but the day was ushered in by the gloomiest of tidings for Forde. Salabad Jung was advancing from the Kistnah, and du Rocher was on the point of junction with him. Finally, on the same evening, the artillery-officers reported that but two days ammunition was left[449] for the batteries. Here, therefore, was the climax. Before Forde was a fortress with a garrison of greater strength than his own army; behind him was a force which outnumbered his own by more than ten to one; his communications were cut, and his ammunition and his funds were exhausted. It was open to him to embark and retire ignominiously by sea, or to stake all on a single desperate venture. He chose the bolder course and resolved to storm the fort.

During the progress of the siege it had been remarked that at the south-western corner of the fort, adjoining the sound, no ditch had been constructed; the ground without being a mere waste of mire, which might well be accounted a more difficult obstacle than any ditch. Natives, however, had more than once been seen traversing this quagmire; and Captains Yorke and Knox on making trial of it found it to be stiff and heavy indeed, but not more than knee-deep. This, therefore, was a point at which at least a false attack could be made, and Forde resolved to take advantage of it. Another point at which a feint might be directed was the ravelin outside the main gate. The true attack must of necessity be delivered against the front which had been damaged by the batteries; and the north-east bastion, known as the Chameleon, was the place selected. The necessary dispositions were quickly settled. The Rajah's troops were some of them to guard the camp, and the rest to make a demonstration against the ravelin. Captain Knox with seven hundred Sepoys was to conduct the feint attack upon the south-west angle, and the remainder of the troops were detailed for the true assault on the Chameleon bastion. The Europeans, who numbered but three hundred and forty-six, including the gunners, and thirty sailors borrowed from the ships, were told off into two divisions, the first under Captain Callendar, the second under Captain Yorke; while of the seven hundred remaining Sepoys part formed a third division under Captain Macleane, and the remainder a reserve under Forde himself. It was[450] ordered that both the true and false attacks should begin simultaneously at midnight, when the tide would be at ebb and no more than three feet of water in the ditch; and the last stroke of the gongs within the fort was to be the signal for the storming parties to advance.
April 7.
April 8.

All through daylight of the 7th of April the British batteries maintained a fierce fire, playing impartially upon the three bastions of the eastern front. At length night came to silence the guns, and at ten o'clock the troops fell in for the assault. Knox having the longer distance to traverse was the first to move off, and his column presently disappeared into the darkness. The minutes flew by, and the time came for the advance of the European troops; but Captain Callendar, the leader of the first division, was not to be found. There was anxious enquiry and search, but the missing officer could not be discovered; and at length, after a precious half-hour had been lost, Captain Fischer took his place and the column marched off without him. The men were still struggling through the morass towards the Chameleon bastion when the sound of firing told them that Knox, punctual to a second, had opened his false attack. Quickening their speed as best they might, they plunged heavily on, knee-deep in mire over the swamp, waist-deep in mud and water through the ditch; when, just as Fischer's column reached the palisade, a sharp fire from the breach and from the bastions on either hand showed that they were discovered. All the more eagerly Fischer's men hewed and hacked at the palisade; while Yorke's division engaged the St. John's bastion to his left and Macleane the Small-gate bastion to his right. The men fell fast, but presently the palisades were cleared away, and the first division swarming up the breach swept the French out of the Chameleon bastion. Fischer halted for the arrival of Yorke with the second division, and then the two officers parted, Fischer to the right to clear the northern, and Yorke to the left to clear the eastern face of the fort.

[451]

Finding a field-gun with its ammunition in the Chameleon bastion, Yorke at once trained it along the rampart to southward, and was preparing to follow in the same direction himself, when he observed a party of French Sepoys advancing between the rampart and the buildings of the town to reinforce the Chameleon bastion. Instantly he ran down, and seizing the officer at their head bade them lay down their arms and surrender. Startled beyond all thought of resistance they obeyed, and were at once sent back to the captured bastion; while Yorke, taking the way by which they had advanced, pressed on against the St. John's bastion. The French guard, which had sought shelter within the angles from the raking fire of Yorke's field-gun, fired upon him and struck down not a few of his men, but surrendered immediately afterwards. They too were sent back to the Chameleon bastion, where the Sepoys took charge of them; and Yorke pursued his way to the next bastion to southward, named the Dutch bastion, where the same scene was repeated and a fresh consignment of prisoners was sent back to the custody of the Sepoys. The Fran?ois bastion, the most southerly of all, alone remained untaken, and Yorke was eager to prosecute his success; but now the men hung back. The division had been not a little thinned by previous losses and by the detachment of guards for prisoners and for the captured bastions; and the handful of men that remained with the Captain began to wonder where such work was going to end. By threats and exhortations Yorke after a time induced them to follow him; but while passing an expense-magazine a little way beyond the Dutch bastion, one of the men caught sight of powder-barrels within it and cried out "A mine, a mine." Immediately every man rushed back in panic to the Chameleon bastion; and Yorke was left alone, with his black drummers by his side vainly beating the Grenadiers' March. Fortunately the guards in the captured bastions stood fast; and Yorke returning to the fugitives, who were on the point of leaving the fort,[452] stopped the panic by threatening death to the first man who attempted to run. Rallying thirty-six men he went back to complete his work; but the delay had given the French in the Fran?ois bastion time to train a gun upon the line of his advance. Waiting until his party was come within close range they fired, killed sixteen of them outright and wounded several more, including Yorke himself, who was brought to the ground with a ball in each thigh. The survivors picked him up and carried him off; but with his fall the attack in that quarter came, for the time, to an end.

Fischer meanwhile had been even more successful on the northern front. He cleared the two first bastions without difficulty, and on reaching the third, by the causeway, seized the gate and cut off the troops in the ravelin from the fort. Captain Callendar, the missing officer, suddenly appeared, no man knew from whence, in the middle of the affair, but was instantly shot dead; and Fischer was still pushing on, when he received orders from Forde to halt. Conflans throughout the attack had remained by the south front of the fort, quite at his wits' end, and adding to the general confusion by a succession of contradictory orders. Knox's attack distracted him on one side, the Rajah's troops made an unearthly din by the ravelin, and the true assault on the eastern front fairly broke his spirits down. At the very moment when Yorke's men were returning discomfited from the Fran?ois bastion, he sent a messenger to Forde, offering to surrender on honourable terms. Forde was far too shrewd to betray his own weakness. He replied that he could hear of nothing but surrender at discretion; and Conflans, concluding his position to be hopeless, acceded. Five hundred Europeans and two thousand French Sepoys laid down their arms, and the British were masters of Masulipatam.

So ended this daring and marvellous adventure, with the loss to the British of but eighty-six Europeans and two hundred Sepoys killed and wounded. Salabad Jung was within fifteen miles, and du Rocher even[453] nearer at the time of the assault; but the victory was sufficient to paralyse them also. The Viceroy quickly consented to open negotiations, and though he haggled, after the manner of his race, for a whole month, finally concluded a treaty whereby he granted to the British eighty miles of the coast, and engaged himself not only never to entertain French troops again, but even to compel such as remained to evacuate the Sirkars. Thus not only was the district secured, but French influence was displaced in favour of British at the court of Hyderabad. Such were the prizes gained by the will, resource, and resolution of one man, who had strength to rend the toils that fate had woven about him just when they seemed to have closed upon him for ever.