Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/458

 •i24

Il[ST(JJiV OF INDIA.

[Book TIT.

A.D. 171S

Arrival of a French squadron.

New attempt on Cudda- lore re- pulsed.

Arrival of a powerful BritiBh axmameut.

A more honourable warfure than that to which Dupleix had thus stooped was now anticipated. A Frencli squadron of" seven large shij)S and two smaller vessels, which had sailed from the Mauritius in the end of April, were seen on the 10th of June sailing in the direction of Fort St. David. The English fleet in the roads consisted of three ships of sixty, three of fifty, three of forty, and one of twenty guns, and could scarcely have failed, if the enemy had been brought to action, to gain a victory. Unfortunately the aflmiral and several of his officers were on shore, and so much time elapsed before the ships put to sea, that the opportunity was lost. The French commander, aware of his inferiority, had never intended to fight, and had only assumed the appearance of it, the better to disguise his main object, which was to land 400 soldiers and £200,000 in silver at Pondicherry. Having succeeded in this, he at once quitted the coast, and left Admiral Griffin, after a vain attempt to discover him, to reap the fruits of what he called his bad fortune, but many designated by a harsher name. The latter was the view taken by a court-martial in England, and he was suspended from the service.

The English fleet, while engaged in its fruitless search of the hostile squadron, had arrived at Madras. From the state of wind, some days must neces- sarily elapse before it could return to Fort St. David ; and so bent was Dupleix on effecting the capture in which he had been so often baffled, that he deter- mined to avail himself of the interval in making another attack on Cuddalore. The force employed consisted of 800 Europeans and 1000 sepoys, who, by pur- suing a circuitous route from Pondicherry, airived in the morning of the 7th of June at the hills of Bandapolam. Cuddalore was only three miles distant, and the plan was to halt till the night; and then come upon it by surprise. Major Lawrence, made aware of what was intended, determined to meet strata- gem by stratagem, and caused all the cannon to be brought from Cuddalore into the fort. His object was to make the French believe that he had taken this step because he thought the place untenable, and meant to abandon it without a struggle. The stratagem succeeded ; and the French, advancing under the fidl belief that they were about to make an easy conquest, had actually applied their scaling-ladders to the walls, when a fire of musketry from all the ramparts, and four or five pieces of cannon loaded with gi'ape-shot, opened upon them. The caimon, openly removed by day, had been secretly replaced at nightfall, and the garrison had at the same time been reinforced. Of these facts the French were of course ignorant, and hence their consternation was extreme. The panic seized officers as well as men, and the whole rushed off in headlong flight.

The Indian struggle had hitherto attracted comparatively little notice in England ; but at last both the government and the Company had awakened to a full sense of its importance, and resolved to make adequate preparations. A fleet consisting of seven shii)s of the nav}^ with a bomb-ship and tender, and