whose character he fostered the strongest prejudices, and the importance of CHAP. IV. whose transactions under the Subahdar he treated as interested pretence and imposture. 1758. Two plans presented themselves for the supply of his wants. All the western and northern districts of the nabobship, evacuated by the English, lay open to his incursions, and in the rents which might be collected offered a certain resource. But the collection of rents was a tedious operation, and the expected produce a scanty supply. The King of Tanjore, when pressed in 1751 by Chunda Saheb and the French, had, among his other efforts to procrastinate and evade, given his bond, which still remained at Pondicherry, for 5,600,000 rupees. This sum, could it only be extorted from him, was a large and present resource; and in Fort St. David, as a prisoner, had been found the pretender to the throne of Tanjore, who might now be employed as an instrument to frighten the Rajah into compliance. The expedition against Tanjore was Expedition of accordingly undertaken; and on the 18th of June Lally took the field.* the French against Tan From the terror of the natives, the alienation of the Europeans, and the want jore. of money, the equipment of the expedition, in attendants, draught cattle, and even provisions and ammunition, was in the highest degree defective. In seven days the army arrived at Carical, not without suffering, at this early stage, both from fatigue and from hunger. At this place Lally was met by a messenger from the King, who was desirous to treat. Lally understood, that some of his predecessors had been duped into impolitic delay, by the artful negotiations of the King of Tanjore. He resolved to display superior wisdom, by a conduct directly the reverse. He proceeded to Nagore, a town accounted rich, about four miles to the north of Negapatnam; but the merchants had time to remove their most valuable effects, and the acquisition yielded only a trifle. On the 28th he arrived at Kiveloor, the seat of a celebrated Pagoda, which Eastern Lally repeats with what regret he postponed the siege of Madras; and shows that it was by earnest persuasions of the Governor, and the Jesuit Lavaur (a missionary of a most intriguing spirit, who had contrived to gain a vast influence in the Councils of Pondicherry), that he undertook the expedition to Tanjore. Mem. p. 62. + Lally was, of course, obliged to trust to the information of those acquainted with the country; and the letters of Lavaur and De Leyrit make it sufficiently appear that they extenuated beyond measure the difficulties of the undertaking; and made him set out upon representations which they knew to be false, and promises which were never intended to be fulfilled. In fact it would have required a cooler, and a more fertile head than that of Lally, to counteract the malignity, to stimulate the indifference, and to supply the enormous deficiencies, by which he was surrounded. 1758. Book IV. exaggeration represented as containing enormous riches, the accumulated offerings of the piety of ages: Had it been plundered by a Mahomedan conqueror, and the transaction recorded by a Persian historian, he would have described his hero as bearing away, in his fortunate chariots, a mountain of gold. Under the vulgar persuasion, Lally ransacked, and even dug the houses; dragged the tanks, and took away the idols; but no treasures were found, and the idols, instead of gold, were only of brass. Six unhappy Brahmens lingered about the camp, in hopes, it is probable, of recovering some of their beloved divinities. The suspicions of Lally took them for spies; his violence and precipitation took his suspicions for realities; and he ordered the six Brahmens to be treated as the Europeans are accustomed to treat the natives convicted as spies; that is, to be shot away from the muzzles of the guns. The King's army took the field; but after a slight show of resistance retreated to the capital, near which Lally arrived on the 18th of July. Conferences ensued: The King offered a sum of money, but greatly inferior to what was required: Lally offered to abate in his pecuniary demand, provided he were furnished with 600 bullocks, and a supply of gunpowder: His agents were more prudent than himself, and suppressed the article of gunpowder, the deficiency of which, if known to the King, was not likely to improve his disposition to compliance: And the bullocks the King observed that his religion did not permit him to grant. The cannonade and bombardment began. After a few days the King renewed his efforts for an accommodation. The obliquities of Eastern negotiation wore out the temper of Lally; and he threatened to carry the King and all his family slaves to Mauritius. This outrage produced in the Hindu a final resolution to defend himself to the last extremity. He had early, among his applications for assistance, implored the co-operation of the English; and Captian Calliaud at Trichinopoly was commissioned to make all those efforts in his favour which his own security might appear to allow. That officer sent to him without delay a small detachment, which might feed his hopes of a more efficient support, and afford him no apology for making his peace with the French. But he was afraid to intrust with him any considerable portion of his troops, fully aware that the French might at any time make with him an accommodation, and receive his assistance to destroy the very men who had come to protect him, Upon this last occurrence Calliaud inferred that the time for accommodation was elapsed, and sent an additional detachment. Lally continued his operations, and on the 7th of August effected a breach. At this time, however, only 150 charges of powder for the cannon, not twenty 1758. cartouches a man for the troops, and not provisions for two days, remained in CHAB. IV. the camp. The next morning intelligence was received, that the English fleet, after a fresh engagement with the French, had anchored before Carical, from which alone the French army could derive its supplies. Lally summoned a council of war. Out of thirteen officers, two, the Count d'Estaign, and M. Saubinet, advised an immediate assault, considering the success as certain, and the landing of the English at Carical, while the French fleet kept the sea, as. highly improbable. It was determined, in conformity with the opinion of the other eleven, to raise the siege. Intelligence of this resolution of the enemy, and of the negligence and security in which they encamped, encouraged the Tanjorines to attempt a surprise; which brought Lally and his army into Unsuccessful. imminent danger. After a disastrous march, in which they suffered severely, from the enemy, from fatigue, and from famine, they arrived on the 18th at Carical, and saw the English fleet at anchor off the mouth of the river. the French and English fleets. After the first of the naval engagements, the English fleet, before they could Proceedings of anchor, were carried a league to the north of Sadras; the French, which had suffered less in the rigging, and sailed better, anchored fifteen miles to the windward. The English as soon as possible weighed again, and, after a fruitless endeavour to reach Fort St. David, discovered the French fleet on the 28th of May in the road of Pondicherry. The next day, the French, at the remon strance of Lally, who sent on board a considerable body of troops, took the sea; but instead of bearing down on the English, unable to advance against the wind, proceeded to Fort St. David, where they arrived on the evening after the surrender. The English, sailing badly, fell to leeward as far as Alamparva, where intelligence was received of the loss of the fort. The Admiral therefore, not having water on board for the consumption of five days, made sail, and anchored the * This is the statement of Orme (ii. 27). That of Lally is-qu'il ne restoit au parc d'artillerie que trois milliers de poudre pour les canons, et vingt coups par soldat en cartouche-he adds that he had no other balls for the cannon but those which were shot by the enemy, of which few corresponded with the calibre of his guns; that twenty-four hours' battering were still requisite to make the breach practicable; that he had but a few days' provisions for the European part of his army, while the native part and the attendants were entirely without provisions, and had, the greater part of them, deserted. Mem. ut supra, p. 73. + Lally says, that he had at the same time received a letter from the Commanding Officer at Pondicherry, announcing that a body of 1,200 English, who had marched from Madras, were menacing Pondicherry; and one from Gopal Row the Mahratta, threatening with a visit the territory of the French, if their army did not immediately evacuate Tanjore. Mem. p. 73. Notwithstanding their hardships and fatigues Lally asserts that they lost but little. Ib. p. 81. 1758. Book IV. next day in the road of Madras. The fleet had numerous wants; Madras had very scanty means of supply; and nearly eight weeks elapsed before it was again ready for sea. On the 3d of July three of the Company's ships arrived from Bengal, with money, merchandize, and stores, but no troops. The monsoon had obliged them to make the outward passage towards Acheen, and they came in from the southward. The French Admiral, after touching at Fort St. David, had stood to the southward, to cruize off Ceylon; in opposition to the remonstrances of Lally, who desired the fleet to co-operate in the destined enterprise against Madras. Lally hastened from Fort St. David to Pondicherry, and summoned a Council by whose authority he recalled the fleet. The injunction reached the Admiral at Carical on the 16th of June, and he anchored the next day in the road of Pondicherry. Had he continued his destined course to the southward, he could not have missed the three English East Indiamen from Bengal, and by their capture would have obtained that treasure, the want of which alone disconcerted the scheme of English destruction. On the 25th of July the English fleet were again under sail; and on the 27th appeared before Pondicherry, where the French lay at anchor. They put to sea without delay; but the difficulties of the navigation, and the aims of the commanders, made it the 2d of August before the fleets encountered off Carical. The French line consisted of eight sail; the English, as before, of seven. The fight lasted scarcely an hour; when three of the French ships being driven out of the line, the whole bore away, under all the sail they could carry. The English Admiral gave chase; but in less than ten minutes the enemy were beyond the distance of certain shot. Toward night the English gave over the pursuit, and came to anchor off Carical. The French steered for Pondicherry, when the Admiral declared his intention of returning to Mauritius. Lally sent forward the Count D'Estaign to remonstrate with him on the disgrace of quitting the sea before an inferior enemy, and to urge him to renewed operations. D'Estaign offered to accompany him on board, with any proportion of the troops. Lally himself moved with the army from Carical on the 24th of August, and, having passed the Coleroon, hurried on with a small detachment to Pondicherry, where he arrived on the 28th. He immediately summoned a mixed Council of the administration and the army, who joined in a fresh expostulation to the Admiral on the necessity of repairing to Madras, where the success of an attack must altogether depend upon the union of the naval and military operations. That Commander, representing his ships as in a state of the greatest disablement, and his crews extremely enfeebled and diminished by disease, would yield to no persuasion, and set sail with his whole fleet for Mauritius on the 2d of Sep- CHAP. IV. tember.* 1758. Arcot. If we trust to the declaration of Lally, his intention of besieging Madras, Lally takes still more his hopes of taking it, were abandoned from that hour. Before the fleet departed, an expedition against Arcot, with a view to relieve the cruel pressure of those pecuniary wants which the disastrous result of the expedition to Tanjore had only augmented, was projected and prepared. Arcot, the capital of Carnatic, had been left under the government of one of the principal officers of Mohamed Ali, the English Nabob, with a small body of Sepoys and native cavalry. With this officer, Raja Saheb, (the eldest son of the late Chunda Saheb,) now decorated by the French with the title of Nabob, had opened a correspondence; and a treaty was concluded, by which the Governor should deliver up the place, should receive as a reward 10,000 rupees, and be taken, along with his troops, into the pay and service of Lally. As auxiliary measures, the previous possession of the secondary forts of Trivatore, Trinomalee, Carangoly, and Timery, was deemed expedient. Lally divided his army into four parts, to two of which the forts of Carangoly and Timery surrendered without resistance; Trivatore and Trinomalee were taken by assault. On the terms of a pretended capitulation, on the 4th of October, Lally, amid the thunder of cannon, made his entrance into Arcot. The fort of Chingliput, the occupation of which, from want of funds, or ignorance of its importance, Lally had postponed to the acquisition of Arcot, covered the country whence chiefly, in a case of siege, Madras would find it necessary to draw its provisions. In the consternation under which the English had withdrawn their troops from the country forts, upon the arrival of Lally, Chingliput among the rest had been left in a very defenceless condition; and when the French marched against Carangoly, they might have taken Chingliput by escalade in open day. The English, awakened to a sense of its importance, left Arcot to its fate, and made all their exertions to save Chingliput. A fleet had arrived from England in the middle of September, which brought 850 of the King's troops, and with them Colonel Drapier and Major Brereton: * These events are minutely recorded by Orme, ii. 197-352. The sketches and criticisms of Col. Wilks, p. 379-398, are professional and sensible. Cambridge, p. 135-185, goes over the same ground. A spirited abstract is given, p. 96-102, by the author of the History and Management of the East India Company. For the operations of Lally, his own Memoir, with the original documents in the appendix, is in the highest degree instructive and entertaining. |