On the 14th of June the fleet of Sir Edward Hughes appeared in the offing; and that of Suffren did so much about the same time. The two admirals, often in sight of the hostile lines and of the British camp, tacked and manoeuvred from that day till the 20th, each trying to gain the weathergage of the other. On the 20th, Suffren fired a few shots at long range for twenty minutes, before a gun was fired by the British fleet. Then the broadsides of the latter opened, and the thunder of a heavy cannonade pealed over the sea and up the long salt-water nullah of Cuddalore; but Suffren, who had the advantage of the wind, chose his own

Suffren, made a gallant sortie from the beleaguered fort, but was repulsed with heavy loss. Among the captured was a handsome young sergeant of the French marines, whose appearance and manner attracted the notice of Colonel Wagenheim, of our 15th Hanoverian Regiment, who took him to his tent, had his wounds dressed, and treated him with much kindness, for though but a sergeant, he seemed much above his station, having been bred to the law, yet his parents were humble people of Pau.

Long years after, when the army of France in its great career of conquest entered Hanover under

Marshal Bernadotte, his levée was attended by Wagenheim, then an aged general officer. "You have served, I understand, in India?" said Bernadotte. "Yes." "At Cuddalore?" "Yes." "Do you remember taking a wounded French sergeant there under your protection?" After a time the veteran called the episode to memory, adding, "He was a fine young man, and I should be glad to hear of his welfare." "I was that young French sergeant," replied the marshal, "and now will omit no means of testifying my gratitude." And old Wagenheim lived to see the marine he had protected, Prince and Marshal of the Empire, Prince of Ponte Corvo, Crown Prince of Sweden, and finally Charles John XIV., King of Sweden and Norway.*

On the 1st of July the tidings came of the preliminaries of peace between Great Britain and France, so hostilities at once ceased at Cuddalore as elsewhere between the troops of the two countries, though they were continued against Tippoo Sahib; and yet the cannon boomed against Campbell's little band in their isolated post at Mangalore. On the 19th of July-nineteen days after the treaty of peace was known to the French authorities, and after fifty-six days of open trenches, Colin Campbell received a letter signed "Peveron de Morlay, envoy from France to the nabob, Tippoo Sultan," informing him then, that hostilities had ceased at Cuddalore, and that he was in possession of a letter which he was enjoined to deliver to him in person- a letter which is supposed to have been long in the Mangalore camp before its existence was acknowledged to Campbell; and during all that time the besiegers had been making the most vigorous efforts to obtain possession of the place, too probably with the intention of treating the garrison as that of Bednore had been treated.

The treaty of peace with France, and the consequent intimation from Colonel Cossigny that he and the rest of the French, including MM. Lally and Boudenot, could give him no further aid, filled the despot with transports of rage. By that treaty, which Tippoo would now be under the necessity of concluding, a general restitution of conquests would take place, and consequently Mangalore would return to him without an effort; but his rage and obstinacy at having been so long foiled by Colonel Campbell made him disregard these facts, and still press the siege. Under the cover of admitting Peveron de Morlay—who is said to have been quite capable of any deceit or dissimulation-to deliver his letter, a body of troops landed and won possession of an outwork that commanded the harbour;

* Colonel Wilks.

and though an armistice had been concluded with Tippoo on the 2nd of August, he continued every operation short of an actual assault, with greater vigour than ever. By the third clause of that armistice, a bazaar was to be established, from which the troops were to procure provisions. To the shame of Tippoo, this was evaded, and the result was that Campbell's soldiers were reduced to the verge of starvation.

On the 26th of the preceding April, Sir Eyre Coote had died at Madras, from whence his remains were sent home to Britain, and trophies were erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey and Leadenhall Street.

Brigadier-General Macleod, holding now the chief command in Malabar and Canara, a fortnight after the armistice, arrived with a detachment of Hanoverians to reinforce his comrades. He took up his residence in the town, but found that he had to send the Hanoverians to Tellicherry, while the garrison was still permitted to starve, and the wily Tippoo continued to amuse both Macleod and Campbell, by pretending that he was about to depart with all his troops for Seringapatam, which he had not the least intention of doing; for suddenly he threw off the mask, declared that not an ounce of food should reach the garrison, and proceeded to the repair of his old batteries and the erection of new; so Macleod, full of wrath, sailed for Tellicherry to collect the means of rescue.

Two fleets, one from the south and another from the north, were, on the 22nd of November, seen standing into the roads. Relief was now at hand. "The signal was made that the troops would land to the southward," wrote Colonel Campbell; "they were discovered in the boats; any moment promised a speedy attack. Confidence and joy appeared in every countenance; even the poor, weak, emaciated convalescent, tottering under the weight of his firelock, boldly stood forth to offer what feeble aid his melancholy state admitted of." But again the cunning of Tippoo prevailed; he entangled Macleod in a correspondence; and the latter, after arranging that the garrison should have a month's food, sailed again on the 2nd of December, without seeing it sent in. Scurvy now began to afflict both officers and soldiers, who, on the 20th December, were put on the shortest allowance compatible with life.

in strength to justify a march on Seringapatam, and was so far from being able to oppose the whole power of Tippoo, that we could not afford to garrison even Darapooram, and were obliged to destroy the fortifications. Yet we might assuredly have reduced the rich tract that lies below the mountains of Mysore, which would have compelled Tippoo to raise the siege of Mangalore, and march his main body against us; or if Tippoo had persisted against Mangalore, we should have amply subsisted the army, have reduced a valuable territory, and prepared for more important conquests. But General Stewart's orders to march towards him at Cuddalore obliged me to relinquish these advantages."

In Dindigul, a formidable fortress we have already described, and which he had stormed with remarkable bravery, Fullarton left a garrison to keep his communications open, and facilitate a retreat to the heart of Mysore; and Colonel Forbes, whom he had left in his rear in the south, perfected all his arrangements with great ability, and established friendly relations on every hand; and now, to enable Fullarton to resume the prosperous campaign which Stewart's orders had interrupted, Lord Macartney, when our troops were withdrawn from Cuddalore, reinforced him with 1,000 Europeans, and four regiments of sepoys.

Advancing into Tinnevelly, an extensive district comprising 5,800 square miles, still displaying vast tracts of forest, waste, and jungle, the population of which are Hindoos of the most primitive kind, and whose chiefs are called Polygars, he reduced them to quiet and tribute, after destroying one of their chief fastnesses, a great forest. These Polygars, taking advantage of the war with Tippoo, had broken into rebellion against us, and been ranging the country from Madura to Cape Comorin. After subduing them, and also the hill Colleries, who had been committing the most dreadful excesses, Colonel Fullarton, at the head of 16,000 troops, and many more thousands of camp-followers, came marching by the stupendous rock of Dindigul, and by Darapooram, but without other supplies than such as he could extort from the natives. Money he had none; but he had in plenty, cannon and munition of war, collected from the captured places, while the Rajah of Travancore, who had befriended Colonel Humberstone, undertook to supply provisions, in case of his marching into the possessions of Tippoo on the southern coast.

With the Zamorin of Calicut (the lineal representative of that ancient Hindoo sovereign who received Vasco de Gama), and with several other rajahs who had been dispossessed by the conquering Hyder in

times past, and who by him had been most barbarously treated, a successful correspondence was now opened up. Eager for repossession and sanguinary revenge, these petty potentates agreed to contribute all the aid they could to overthrow the second tyrant of Mysore. But the prudent Fullarton took other means to ensure their goodwill and adhesion, by surrendering some petty duties which his predecessors had been in the habit of levying upon all articles sold to the troops in camp or cantonments; by checking all pillaging with a strong hand; by paying all respect to the superstitions or deeprooted religious prejudices of the castes and races among whom he found himself. He also made a great alteration in the mode of marching his troops by sections. The old way had been the Indian file," following each other in succession (vulgarly called by the soldiers "goose-file "), by which means a large army was often miles apart from van to rear, and this led to many disasters. He established an intelligence department, and so complete and effective was it, that he was kept constantly informed of the strength and whereabouts of the enemy, and also where grain was to be found anywhere within 200 miles of his front or flanks. "Several hundred people, cunning natives, who have a natural genius for the occupation of scouts and spies, and who after inspection can model you a fortress in clay, and show to a nicety its weak points, were constantly employed on these services, and confidential intelligences were thus established at every considerable town in Mysore, in the durbars of the rajahs and the very camp of Tippoo."

Colonel Fullarton, in the midst of his triumphant career, halted near Darapooram, to await intelligence of the commissioners, whom he knew Lord Macartney had sent to Tippoo; but on the 16th of October, when, by an official letter from Tellicherry he was informed that Tippoo was playing "fast and loose" with General Macleod, and, despite the armistice, had commenced active measures against Campbell's famished band in Mangalore, his mind became inspired with soldierly indignation, and he resolved to resent the state of affairs sharply.

He had conceived two plans of operation. To march right across the peninsula of Hindostan, through a hostile country 500 miles in extent, to Campbell's assistance. 2. To make a dash at Seringapatam, and hurl the dynasty of Hyder from the musnud, or compel Tippoo to abandon Mangalore in order to save his capital.

Upon the latter and boldest movement he resolved, though not by the regular route, which offered no secure retreat in case of disaster, but by another, which was more circuitous, and possessed

several military advantages. Palicaud, or Palaghautcherry, sixty-eight miles south-east of Calicut, and near the coast, had been completely rebuilt by Hyder. It possessed all the approved features of European fortification; it was deemed one of the strongest places in India, and commanded a pass amid mountains covered by thick forests of teakwood. No passage lay through these, and the plains and deep rice-grounds-cut and intersected in every direction by the Paniany river-especially during the rainy season, might be defended, by a few companies of resolute infantry, against all the cavalry of Mysore.

Fullarton saw that by the possession of this fort he commanded the avenues to Malabar and Coromandel, to Calicut, Cochin, and Travancore, and the hoisting of our colours on its ramparts would give fresh confidence to the Zamorin, and all who were anxious to effect the downfall of Tippoo. The colonel also saw that it would leave him free to veil his movements and to advance against Seringapatam either by the way of Coimbatore and the Gujelhetty Pass, or by Calicut and through that of Dumalcherry.

Fullarton, for all these weighty reasons, resolved that Palaghautcherry should be his, and on the 18th of October, 1783, he began his march against it, at the head of 13,636 men, confidently believing that he should halt finally under the walls of Seringapatam. Storming several petty forts in his way, he marched through a rich country abounding in all supplies, till he reached a district where the streams run east and west to the seas of Malabar and Coromandel. From thence he had to cut his way through a dense forest, twenty miles in length, filling up nullahs, cuts, and watercourses as he went, for the transmission of his cannon and cattle. Trees were cut down, roads actually made, and fourteen days of indescribable toil were spent by the army in their passage through this forest alone. To add to the sufferings and misery of the troops, the rain began to fall in such torrents as are alone known in India, and never ceased till they were clear of it.

In the leafy waste amid which the torrents poured, no tents could be pitched; the nullahs became gorged with water, the oxen lost their footing, and the soldiers had to take the drag-ropes to get the guns and baggage on. After toils that no pen could describe, the indefatigable Fullarton found himself before the great fortress of Palaghautcherry, and after the battering train was in position against it, on the 15th of November, the garrison surrendered, timidly delivering up a place capable of the most protracted resistance.

245

Fullarton found in it 50,000 pagodas in money, together with a great supply of grain, cannon, and all the munition of war; and the son of the old Zamorin of Calicut, who rode on the colonel's staff during the siege, now begged to have restored to him the dominion of which Hyder had divested his father; but the colonel averred the restoration would be more completely effected if he moved on Calicut, yet as a pledge of his good faith he gave him the territory of Palaghaut, which had been an ancient appanage of his family.

During these varied operations, Fullarton maintained a constant communication with General Macleod, who had been liberated by the Mahratta pirates after a short captivity at Gheriah; and he also contrived to do so with Campbell at Mangalore, to whom he intimated his intention of approaching their coast, and his anxious desire for a combined movement of all their commands upon Seringapatam, and thus, perhaps, to end the war by one vigorous stroke.

For some reason not known now, the British residency at Tellicherry either could not, or would not, furnish the artillery and stores requisite for such an expedition; and Sir Edward Hughes, who was there with his fleet, was unwilling to detach a vessel with them to the river Paniany. On the other hand, General Macleod urged that, though he fully concurred in the views of Fullarton, being without bullocks, and other equipage, he could not get his troops on the line of march in less than two months. The enterprising colonel was forced, therefore, to relinquish the idea of marching by the sea-coast to Calicut, and took the route that led to Coimbatore by the Pass of Gujelhetty, which is commanded by a fort on the left bank of the Mayar.

In his march he was harassed by the cavalry and rocket-men of Tippoo, till the 26th November, when he broke ground before Coimbatore (or Kogmatura), a fort and town on high ground on the declivity of the Eastern Ghauts. Near it is the granite temple of Iswara, covered with a profusion of Hindoo carving, which was plundered of all its gold and jewels by Tippoo. In the fort, which surrendered to him before his batteries opened, he found great stores of grain and ammunition. Encouraged by the presence of Fullarton's force, every rajah now rose in arms, or promised to do so, for by the acquisition of Coimbatore he won great prestige, as it was a place sacred to the Hindoos, who loathed Tippoo for his desecration of their temples; and there the ancient gods of India had never been disturbed till the death of Hyder. So, between the Eastern Ghauts and the sea the whole