Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/176

168 jing, with his uncle's treasures, moved from Gingee with only a detachment of his own army and 300 of the French troops, who marching without apprehension of danger, observed little military order: Mr. Benjamin Robins, at that time just arrived from England to superintend the company's fortifications as engineer-general, proposed to the governor, Mr. Saunders, that 800 Europeans should march out and attack them in their return: discovering in this advice the same sagacity which had distinguished his speculations in the abstruser sciences, and which renders his name an honour to our country; for there is the greatest probability that the attack, if well conducted, would have succeeded, and the treasures of Nazir-jing have been carried to Fort St. David, instead of Pondicherry. Mr. Saunders much approved the project, but when captain Cope, the commander of the troops, proposed it to the officers, they unanimously declared it rash and impracticable. Mahomed-ally, still more perplexed and dispirited than the English, had no hopes of preservation but in their assistance, which he pressingly solicited at the same time that he was capitulating with Mr. Dupleix for the surrender of Tritchinopoly: and the English, apprehensive of the conclusion of such a treaty, which would have left them without any pretence to oppose Mr. Dupleix and Chunda-saheb, at last took the resolution of sending once more to Tritchinopoly a detachment to encourage Mahomed-ally to defend the city; it consisted of 280 Europeans, with 300 Sepoys, who arrived there under the command of captain Cope in the beginning of February. About the same time Chunda-saheb marched from Pondicherry with an army of 8,000 men, horse and foot, which he had levied in the province, joined by a battalion of 800 Europeans; and with this force proceeded to Arcot, where he received homage as Nabob; and there was scarce a strong hold to the north of the river Coleroon of which the governor did not acknowledge his sovereignty. Mortiz-ally of Velore, who had temporized, and affected obedience to Nazir-jing from the time that prince entered the Carnatic, immediately after his death reassumed his connexion with his relation Chunda-saheb, and was the first to reacknowledge him; and his example determined most of the other chiefs.