Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/366

358 upon his mind, and prepared to march away to Tanjore. The guards at Elimiserum and the other out-posts were drawn off: 100 of the battalion were sent into the city to augment the garrison to 400 Europeans, and the rest of the army set out the 23d, at two in the morning, proceeding through Tondiman's woods.

Orders at the same time were sent directing the reinforcement which was waiting at Devi Cotah to march and join the army at Tanjore. The party which had been sent under the command of lieutenant Frazer to raise the siege of Palam Cotah, returned in the month of January to Devi Cotah, from whence another was sent in the month of February to make an incursion into the districts of Chillambrum, where the French had just collected a very large harvest of rice: this detachment consisted of thirty Europeans, and 200 Sepoys, commanded by a volunteer of no experience. They destroyed and set fire to a great quantity of grain, which they found piled up in stacks in the fields; but hearing that the enemy's principal magazine was at Manarcoile, a pagoda, twelve miles south-west from Chillambrum, they marched against the place, and summoned the French serjeant who commanded in it. The man perceiving that they had no battering cannon, answered their summons by a defiance. The English officer believing, nevertheless, that he should by the fire of his musketry alone oblige the garrison to surrender, remained before the place, making some very aukward and insufficient dispositions to reduce it. The French garrison at Chillambrum apprized of this by the Serjeant, marched and came upon them by surprize, and the Serjeant sallying at the same time with 100 Sepoys, the party was entirely routed, and the officer, with nine of his Europeans, were made prisoners. The detachment, under the command of captain Pigou, arriving soon after this at Devi Cotah, deterred the enemy for some time from committing any hostilities in this part of the country; but finding at length that these troops, whilst waiting for orders to march to Tritchinopoly, did not venture to make any incursions into their territories, Mr. Dupleix re-assumed his intentions of reducing Palam Cotah; and in the end of April, a party consisting of eight hundred Sepoys and seventy Europeans, with three