and 1,000 other natives, furnished chiefly by Mohammed Ali, and a Hindoo chief of Tanjore. Within the walls were no less than 500 French prisoners, and these had found means to communicate with their countrymen outside. Before Caillaud received the letter which desired his return, the latter had commenced operations with 1,000 European infantry, 150 European horse, and 3,000 sepoys, supported by guns, the whole being led by M. d'Auteuil, who threw shot and shell into the town for four days, and summoned it to sur- | render; but the officer in command was resolved to defend it to the last. Ere M. d'Auteuil could attempt to take the place by storm, Caillaud, with splendid rapidity and skill, though so exhausted by the fatigues he had undergone that he could neither stand nor walk, marched his whole force between the besiegers and Trichinopoly, which they entered under a salute of twenty-one guns. This turn of affairs so startled and disgusted M. d'Auteuil, that he withdrew finally to Pondicherry, and in the Carnatic the war now languished till the French suddenly captured the great British factory at Vizagapatam. In the month of September, there suddenly appeared off Fort St. David, a squadron of twelve French ships, commanded by an officer of great reputation, M. Bouvet. He had on board the old 63 Regiment of Lorraine, 30th of the line. They were 1,000 strong, with fifty artillerymen, and sixty volunteers, the whole under Major-General the Marquis de Soupires. They passed on to Pondicherry, and landed there, and the British commanders became much perplexed as to what the object of this expedition was. Bouvet, as soon as he was rid of the troops, fearing that our admiral would bring against him a heavier force than his own, quitted the coast, but in such haste, that he took away with him most of the heavy artillery, and all the ammunition he had brought. "Crowding all his canvas, he bore away for the Mauritius-flying from Admiral Watson, who had been nearly a month in his winding-sheet, and whose fleet, under the command of RearAdmiral Pococke, was still in the Hooghly." By a new expedition from Trichinopoly, about the time of Bouvet's departure, Captain Caillaud took Madura; 170,000 rupees was the sum paid by him to the chief of that place for its surrender, and its possession became of the greatest importance to the British now, on the Coromandel coast. But a stronger expedition than France had yet sent out, and under an officer second only to Clive in energy, though not quite in military talent, was coming to the shores of Hindostan. CHAPTER XII. COUNT DE LALLY.-HIS INSTRUCTIONS."-SEA BATTLE.-SURRENDER OF FORT ST. DAVID.-COUNT D'ACHÉ'S INSTRUCTIONS.-TANJORE ATTACKED. As soon as the war had fairly commenced in Europe, the ministry of Louis XV. prepared a formidable expedition to the East, and the arrival of it was daily looked forward to at Pondicherry. It was not, however, until the 28th April, 1758, that a squadron of twelve ships reached the coast. This squadron was commanded by Count d'Aché, and had on board two regiments of infantry 1,100 strong, a corps of artillery, and a great many officers of the highest distinction, the whole under the command of Count de Lally, an officer who had been since his boyhood in the service of France, and had fought at Fontenoy, where he had taken several English officers prisoners with his own hand. A very accurate account of this leader, whose name was soon to become so famous in the East, is to be found among the papers of Baron Grant, Governor of the Mauritius, privately printed in 1801. "The Count de Lally," says the baron, was the son of a captain in the Regiment of Dillon (in the Irish Brigade) who passed into France after the capitulation of Limerick, and a French lady of distinction. Soon after his birth, which was in 1697, he was entered, as was the custom in the French army, a private soldier in his company. He made a considerable progress in those sciences which formed a principal part of the education of the French nobility. Being the son of an officer of distinguished merit, it was natural for him to make military acquaintances; and being, by his mother's side, allied to some of the first families of France, he had more favourable opportunities than the generality of his companions, to form connections of the first rank. These advantages, added to a fine person, advanced young Lally, at the age of nineteen years, to a company in the Irish Brigade.” At the age of twenty-five, the young soldier of fortune was sent by the court of France to negotiate affairs in Russia, where his handsome face, address, and manner won him the favour of the czarina, and soon after his return he was promoted to the colonelcy of a regiment in the brigade. In 1745, when Prince Charles Edward landed in Scotland, Colonel Lally came to England on pretence of looking after some Irish property, but in reality to serve the Jacobite cause. His presence was discovered by the Duke of Cumberland, who ordered his arrest; but by the interposition of one in power-said to have been the Prince of Wales -he was preserved from a prison, and permitted to return to France; and from that time, till the appointment of Lally to the rank of lieutenantgeneral in the East, his life offers little that merits attention. At this time, so high did he stand with the court of Versailles, that he received the most extraordinary powers over all the French possessions and establishments in India; and it was confidently anticipated, that when his troops were added to those of the Marquis de Soupires, the French supremacy in the Carnatic would be completely restored. Lally had with him a chest containing two millions of livres, when he landed at Pondicherry on the 28th April, and the following were the "instructions" issued to him by the French East India Company : "The Sieur de Lally is authorised to destroy the fortifications of all maritime settlements which may be taken from the English; it may, however, be proper to except Vizagapatam, in consequence of its being so nearly situated to Bimlipatam (a Dutch factory), which in that case would be enriched by the ruin of Vizagapatam, but, as to that, as well as the demolishing of all places whatsoever, the Sieur de Lally is to consult the governor and superior council of Pondicherry, and to have their opinion in writing; but, notwithstanding, he is to destroy such places as he shall think proper, unless strong and sufficient arguments are made use of to the contrary, such, for example, as the Company's being apprehensive for some of their settlements, and that it would then be thought prudent and necessary to reserve the power of exchange in case any of them should be lost. "The Sieur de Lally is to allow of no English settlement being ransomed; as we may well remember, that after the taking of Madras, last war, the English Company in their Council of the 14th July, 1747, determined that all ransoms made in India should be annulled. In regard to the British troops, the officers and writers belonging to the Company, and to the inhabitants of that nation, the Sieur de Lally is to permit none of them to remain on the coast of Coromandel; he may, if he pleases, permit the inhabitants to go to England, and order them to be conducted in armed vessels to the island of St. Helena. But as to the officers and writers belonging to the East India Company, as well as soldiers and sailors, he is to order them to be conducted, as soon as possible, to the island of Bourbon, to work for the inhabitants of that place, according to mutual agreement; though the sending of them to the French islands is to be avoided as much as possible, to prevent them becoming acquainted with the coast, as well as the interior part of the islands. "If the exchange of prisoners should be by chance settled at home, between the two nations, of which proper notice will be given to the Sieur de Lally, and that the islands of France and Bourbon should have more prisoners than it would be convenient to provide for; in that case it will be permitted to send a certain number to England, in a vessel armed for that purpose. "No British officers, soldiers, &c., are to be permitted to remain in a place after it is taken; neither are they to be suffered to retire to any other part of the settlements. The Sieur de Lally is not in the least to deviate from the above instructions, unless there should be a capitulation which stipulates the contrary; in which case the Sieur de Lally is faithfully and honestly to adhere to the capitulation. "The whole of what has before been said, concerns only the natives of Britain; but as they have in their settlements merchants from all nations, such as Moors, Armenians, Jews, Pattaners, &c., the Sieur de Lally is ordered to treat them with humanity, and to endeavour, by fair means, to engage them to retire to Pondicherry, or any other of the Company's acquisitions, assuring them at the same time that they will be protected, and that the same liberty and privileges which they possessed before among the English will be granted them. "Among the regiments furnished to complete the Regiments of Lorraine and Berry (71st of the French line) there are 300 men from Fitscher's recruits, lately raised, and, as it is feared there will I be considerable desertions among these new 1758.] THE INVESTMENT OF FORT ST. DAVID. 65 recruits, the Sieur de Lally may, if he pleases, leave | Fort St. David, two of our frigates there, the them on the Isle of France, where they will be safe only ships on the station, the Triton and Bridgefrom desertion, and replace them from the troops water, commanded respectively by Captains Townly of the island." and Smith, were run on shore, and, to save them from the enemy, were burned by their crews, who retired, with their arms, into the fort. Such were the instructions given to the count, and their whole tenor fully displays the high and perfect confidence of conquest entertained by the ministry and East India Company of France. But Lally, says Nolan, was not destined to be so fortunate as when at Fontenoy, and he writes of him with perhaps too great severity when he adds, that “England, whom in his remorseless bigotry he hated, was destined to triumph over him on a distant field, and cause the sun of his glory to set soon and for ever. Lally was not so skilful as he was brave, although he possessed many of the finest intellectual qualities of a good soldier. He was rash, vehement, impatient, and tyrannical; he chafed at obstacles which might have been patiently surmounted had he preserved his temper. A furious religious animosity towards the English, as the chief Protestant nation, blinded his judgment as to present means and probable results, and threw him into acts of precipitancy, from which even his great valour and resources in danger could not extricate him.” His orders had reference, in the first place, to the immediate reduction of Fort St. David, and great was his indignation when he found that no preparations had been made for the transport of provisions, stores, or cannon. In this state of affairs, prudence would have suggested some delay; but his resolution was formed, and obstacles only made him more obstinate to proceed. On the very evening of his arrival in Pondicherry Roads, he learned that the Count d'Estaing, with 2,000 Europeans and sepoys, was on the march for Fort St. David already, without even ascertaining the correct route, or bringing with him provisions. The result was, the troops lost their way, and arrived in the morning worn out by fatigue and hunger; and next day, when other troops were dispatched, with cannon, stores, and baggage, still greater errors occurred, for Lally, in utter violation of the religious prejudices of the natives with regard to caste and rank, compelled them, without distinction, to supply the place of bullocks, and to become hewers of wood and drawers of water. He was thus regarded by them with such abhorrence that they deserted from him on every available occasion; and while he was erring thus in policy, the fate of his whole armament was trembling in the balance. On the 24th of March, Admiral Pococke had been joined by a reinforcement from home under Commodore Stevens. On the 17th of April he was cruising to windward of Fort St. David in order to intercept D'Aché, and on the 29th he got sight of the enemy at anchor in the roads, and our two frigates, still smoking where they had been beached the night before. Immediately on our fleet coming in sight, that of France weighed and put to sea, on which Pococke threw out the welcome signal for a "general chase;" but, soon after, perceiving that the Count d'Aché formed line with a disposition to engage, he signalled to draw into line of battle ahead. The captains of the Cumberland (fifty-six guns), Newcastle (fifty guns), and Weymouth (sixty guns), mistook the signal, and delayed the admiral from coming to close quarters till four in the afternoon, when the battle began. Our fleet consisted of eight sail, four of them being of the line, armed with 424 pieces of cannon; that of the enemy consisted of nine sail, four of which were of the line, armed with 492 pieces of cannon. The conflict was maintained with great spirit until after dark, when M. d'Aché, on being joined by the Comte de Provence (seventy-four guns), Captain de la Chaire, and a frigate from Pondicherry, and finding his ships much shattered and disabled, hauled his wind and bore away. At night he came to anchor off Alamparva, where the Bien Aimée (fifty-eight guns) was totally lost. As was frequently the case in battles with the French, our fleet was too crippled aloft to follow, so the admiral contented himself with keeping the weather-gauge of them. Our total losses in this indecisive action were 118 killed and wounded; those of the enemy were 562, so crowded were their ships with men. And now the investment of Fort St. David was pressed with vigour. Its garrison consisted of 619 Europeans, of whom only 286 were effectives; 250 seamen from the two frigates, and 1,600 sepoys, topasses, and lascars. The officer commandingafter the siege operations were fairly commenced by the erection of a breaching battery-indulged in a reckless waste of ammunition, by permitting his garrison, according to Orme, to blaze away day and night " on everything they heard, saw, or suspected." In this useless process they disabled On the appearance of D'Ache's squadron off twenty of their own guns. commanding, that if not relieved, the place must | d'Aché's courage had been cooled by the recent soon have to be surrendered. He was not without hope of relief, as he knew that Pococke was off the coast, and he knew that officer would not permit Fort St. David to fall, if he could help it. encounter, and he only quitted the protection of the shore on getting from Lally a reinforcement of 400 Europeans, and as many sepoys, for small-arm service. On this he steered at once for Fort St. David, while Pococke was unable to pursue. One Orme states Lally's force before the place to have of his ships, the Cumberland (fifty-six), Captain |