1758.

BOOK IV. Captain Calliaud, with the whole of the European troops, was recalled from Trichinopoly: And before Lally entered Arcot, Chingliput was supplied with a strong garrison. The applications of Lally to the government at Pondicherry for 10,000 rupees, which were necessary, after the acquisition of Arcot, to put the troops in motion for Chingliput, were answered only by representations of the complete exhaustion of their resources; and that General, obliged for want of funds to place the troops in cantonments, returned to Pondicherry, full of mortification and chagrin.*

Joined by
Bussy.

He had been joined by Bussy about the time at which he entered Arcot. That officer, who had conducted himself with such rare ability in the dominions of the Subahdar, and with his handful of French had raised himself to an elevated station among the princes of India, had left the Subahdar on a tottering throne, which nothing but his strong support could much longer uphold. The Subahdar, when informed of the intended departure of the French, was too much amazed to believe the dreadful intelligence; and when too well assured of its ominous reality, he took his leave of Bussy in an agony of grief and despair. Bussy, it is possible, took his departure with the more alacrity, as he hoped, through the representations which in person he would be able to make, that he could prevail upon Lally to send him back, and with augmented force to his important station. Having, on his march, been joined by Moracin, the Governor of Masulipatam, who with his troops was also recalled, he left the march to be conducted by Moracin, and under a safeguard granted him from Madras hastened to the meeting with Lally.

The head of that General was filled with the importance of his own project, the expulsion of the English from India; and with contempt for the schemes of Bussy, as of all other men who had different views from his own. In his letter to Bussy, upon the taking of Fort St. David, he had said, "It is the whole of British India which it now remains for us to attack. I do not conceal from you that, having taken Madras, it is my resolution to repair immediately, by land or by sea, to the banks of the Ganges, where your talents and experience will be of the greatest importance to me." Bussy employed every effort to convince him of the importance of retaining the advantages which he had gained in the dominions of the Subahdar; and the most pressing and passionate letters arrived from the Subahdar himself. But Lally, who had already treated the

* Mem. pour le Compte de Lally, p. 86-99; Orme, ii. 341-370.

† Lally himself informs us, that these letters uniformly began with such expressions as these,

1758.

representations of Bussy as the visions of a madman, and had told the Governor CHAP. IV. of Pondicherry that he thought himself too condescending in reading his letters, lent a deaf ear to remonstrances which inwardly he regarded as the fruit of delusion or imposture.* Apprized of the money which Dupleix had raised on his personal credit, he was not without hopes that Bussy might be possessed of similar resources; and he states as a matter of great surprise, mixed with incredibility, the averment of Bussy, that in this way he was altogether incapable of aiding the general cause.

A high testimony from another quarter was yielded to the merits of Bussy. His rank as an officer was only that of Lieutenant-Colonel. Besides a MajorGeneral, six Colonels had arrived with the army of Lally. The six Colonels, yielding to the nobler impulses of the human mind, signed a requisition that Bussy might supersede them. "Their names," says Mr. Orme, "highly worthy of record on this occasion, were mostly of ancient and noble descent; D'Estaign, de Landivisiau, de la Faire, Breteuil, Verdiere, and Crillon."

To whatever quarter Lally turned his eyes, he found himself beset with the Operations against Magreatest difficulties. The government at Pondicherry declared, as they had fre- dras. quently declared before, that in their exhausted situation it was altogether impossible for them to find the means of subsisting the army at Pondicherry. When a council of war was called, the Count D'Estaign, and other officers, pronounced it better to die by a musket ball, under the ramparts of Madras, than by hunger, within those of Pondicherry. The idea of undertaking a siege, says Lally, the total want of funds excluded from the mind of every one. But it was deemed expedient to bombard the place, to shut up the English within the fort, to obtain the pillage of the black town, and to lay waste the surrounding country.†

The Governor of Pondicherry declared that he was destitute of every species of resource, either for the pay or the maintenance of the soldiers. Lally advanced 60,000 rupees of his own money, and prevailed upon some members of the council, and other individuals in Pondicherry, to follow, in some degree, his example. From this species of contribution or loan, he obtained 34,000 rupees, which, added to his own, made a sum of 94,000. This was the treasure with

66

"Renvoyez moi M. de Bussy avec un corps de troupes; vous savez que je ne peux pas m'en passer;" or, vous savez que je ne peux pas me passer de M. de Bussy; renvoyez le moi avec un corps de troupes, &c." Mem. pour le Compte de Lally, p. 93.

*Letter to De Leyrit, 28th June, 1758. Mem. ut supra, Appen. No. xxxvi.

+ Mem. ut supra, i. 98, 100.

Book IV. which, at the head of 2,700 European troops, and 4,000 Indians, he marched against Madras.

1758.

The expedition was ready for its departure at the beginning of November, but the continuance of the rains retarded its arrival before Madras till the 12th of December, when Lally had not funds to ensure the subsistence of the army for a single week. The English had made active use of the intervening period for providing themselves with the means of defence. When Admiral Pococke quitted the coast in October to avoid the monsoon, he left behind him the marines of the squadron, and was expected back in January. A body of cavalry, under an adventurer of the country, was taken into pay; and so posted, along with the Sepoys from Trichinopoly, as to make war upon the line of the enemy's convoys. The veteran Laurence, who was still in Madras, was put at the head of the troops; and took post with the greater part of the army on elevated ground at some distance from the town. It was not, however, his intention to run the risk of an action; and as the enemy advanced, he gradually yielded ground, till on the 12th he entered the fort with all his army. The command in the fort belonged to the Governor, Pigot. But he was an intelligent, and an active man; and the harmony of the defence experienced no interruption. The military within the walls now consisted of 1,758 Europeans, 2,220 Sepoys, and 200 horse of the Nabob, on whom by experience little dependance was placed. The other Europeans were 150 men, who were employed without distinction in serving out stores, and other auxiliary operations.

On the 13th the enemy remained on the plain, and reconnoitred the place. On the 14th, early in the morning, they took possession of the black town, where the soldiery, from want of skill, or authority, on the part of their commander, abandoned themselves to intemperance and disorder. In hopes of profiting by. this opportunity, the English made a strong sally with 600 chosen men. They penetrated into the black town before the enemy were collected in sufficient numbers; but were at last opposed by a force which they could not withstand; and had the division of the enemy, which was under the command of Bussy, advanced with sufficient promptitude to cut off their retreat, it is highly probable that few of them would have made their escape. Lally adduces the testimony of the officers who commanded under Bussy, that they joined in urging him to intercept the English detachment; but that he, alleging the want of cannon, absolutely refused. Mr. Orme says that he justified himself by the delay of Lally's orders, without which it was contrary to his duty to advance. To gain however a great advantage at a critical moment, a zealous officer will adventure somewhat under

some deficiency both of cannon and of orders. The loss on the part of the CHAP. IV. English was not less than 200 soldiers, and six officers. In mere numbers that of the enemy was nearly the same.

The capture of the black town had furnished to Lally for the demands of the service only 80,000 livres, lent to him by an Armenian merchant, whom he had saved from plunder; and to these were added 12,000 livres furnished by an Hindu partizan. With these funds he began to construct his batteries, in the intention, as he repeats, of only bombarding the place, when intelligence was brought, on the 24th of December, that a frigate from the islands had arrived at Pondicherry with a million of livres. It was this circumstance, he says, which now determined him to convert the bombardment into a siege.

With only two engineers, and three artillery officers, excepting the few who belonged to the Company, all deficient both in knowledge and enterprise; with officers in general dissatisfied and ill-disposed, with only the common men on whom he could depend, and of whose alacrity he never had reason to complain, he carried on the siege with a vigour and activity which commanded the respect even of the besieged, though they were little acquainted with the difficulties under which he toiled. By means of the supplies which had plentifully arrived from Bengal, and the time which the Presidency had enjoyed to make preparation for the siege, the English were supplied with an abundance both of money and of stores. The resolution to defend themselves to the utmost extremity, which has seldom been shared more universally and cordially by any body of men, inspired them with incessant vigilance and activity. The industry of the enemy was perpetually counteracted by a similar industry on the part of their opponents. No sooner had those without erected a work, than the most active, and enterprising, and often skilful exertions were made from within to destroy it. Whatever ingenuity the enemy employed in devising measures of attack was speedily discovered by the keen and watchful eyes of the defenders. A breach, in spite of all those exertions, was however effected; and the mind of Lally was intensely engaged with preparations for the assault; when he found the officers of his army altogether indisposed to second his ardour. Mr. Orme declares his opinion that their objections were founded on real and prudential considerations, and that an attempt to storm the place would have been attended with repulse and disaster. Lally, however, says that the most odious intrigues were carried on in the army, and groundless apprehensions were propagated, to shake the resolution of the soldiers, and prevent the execution of the plan; that the

1758.

1759.

Book IV. situation of the General was thus rendered critical in the highest degree, and the chance of success exceedingly diminished; yet he still adhered to his design, and only waited for the setting of the moon, which in India sheds a light not much feebler than that of a winter sun, on the very day on which an English fleet of six sail arrived at Madras.

Madras relieved by arrival of an English fleet.

The fleet under Admiral Pococke, which had left Madras on the 11th of October, had arrived at Bombay on the 10th of December, where they found six of the Company's ships, and two ships of the line, with 600 of the King's troops on board. On the 31st of December the Company's ships, with all the troops, sailed from Bombay, under the convoy of two frigates, and arrived on the 16th of February, at a critical moment, at Madras. "Words," says Lally, "are inadequate to express the effect which the appearance of them produced. The officer who commanded in the trenches deemed it even inexpedient to wait for the landing of the enemy, and two hours before receiving orders retired from his post."

Lally was now constrained to abandon the siege. The officers and soldiers had been on no more than half pay during the first six weeks of the expedition, and entirely destitute of pay during the remaining three. The expenses of the siege, and the half pay, had consumed, during the first month, the million of livres which had arrived from the islands. The officers were on the allowance of the soldiers. The subsistence of the army for the last fifteen days had depended almost entirely upon some rice and butter, captured in two small vessels from Bengal. A very small quantity of gunpowder remained in the camp; and not a larger at Pondicherry. The bombs, three weeks ago, were wholly consumed. The Sepoys deserted for want of pay, and the European cavalry threatened every hour to go over to the enemy. The defence of Pondicherry rested upon 300 invalids; and, within twelve hours, the English, with their reinforcements, might land and take possession of the place. On the night of the 17th the French army decamped from Madras; and the English made no efforts to molest their retreat.*

We may judge of the feelings, towards one another, of Lally and his coun

* Orme, ii. 383-459; Mem. pour Lally, p. 99-117. Of the sick and wounded, those who were too ill to be removed, to the number of thirty-three, according to Lally's own account, to that of forty-four according to Mr. Orme's, were left behind, and recommended by a letter of Lally to the English commander. They were treated, as Lally himself declares, with all the care which the laws, both of war and of humanity, prescribed.