Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/333

Book IV who had promised the regent to make a more successful attack upon the city; but finding the garrison alert they retreated without attempting any thing.

The king of Tanjore, who, notwithstanding the alliance he was entering into with the French, knew nothing of their intentions to storm Tritchinopoly, was not a little astonished at the news, and the loss which they sustained in the attempt made him repent that he had shewn so much inclination to abandon the Nabob and the English: the French finding that their misfortune produced a change in the intentions which the king had began to entertain in their favour, determined to waste no more time in negociating with him, but prepared to send a party of Morattoes to ravage his country. The king having intelligence of their design sent a body of troops under the command of his uncle Gauderow to Tricatopoly, a fort eighteen miles east of Tritchinopoly, where they were ordered to remain and punish the Morattoes: for this phrase, in the vain language of the princes of Indostan, is synonimous to fighting, and is not seldom made use of even by those who lose the battle. The king making a merit of this resolution to the Nabob, pretended that Gauderow only waited on the frontiers until the whole army was assembled, which would then immediately march to Tritchinopoly. Major Lawrence, willing to put the sincerity of this profession to the test, wrote to the king that his troops would be of little service whilst they were commanded by so unexperienced an officer as Gauderow, and desired that Monac-gee might be reinstated in the command, of which he was the only man in the kinorloni capable. This commendation served to confirm those suspicions of the general which had been raised in the king's mind by the artifices of his minister; and major Lawrence being informed of the alarm which the king had -taken from his remonstrances in Monac-gee's favour, resolved to make no farther mention of his name, lest the consequences should be fatal to him: but requested that the Tanjorine troops might join him without delay, even under the command of Gauderow. None however came; for the Morattoes having sent a small party to amuse Gauderow, their main body of 1200 men penetrated into the kingdom at the end of December by another