Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/243

Book VIII. with the English, and sent off an agent with letters to Calliaud, proposing to rent the country from them on the security of substantial scroffs. Lieutenant Rumbold received these offers whilst Calliaud was returned to the relief of Tritchinopoly, and, thinking them worth attention, sent a Jemautdar of Sepoys named Ramanaig, with an intelligent Moorman, to confer with Maphuze Khan in his camp. They were accompanied by an escort of 50 Sepoys; but just before their arrival, Maphuze Khan had received information, that the six companies of Sepoys, of the twelve left at Tinivelly and Palamcotah, were ordered to join the camp at Madura; which changed his schemes, and instead of negotiating, he surrounded the two deputies and their escort with his horse, and threatened to put them all to the sword, if they did not send an order to the Sepoys in garrison at Palamcotah to deliver the fort to him. The deputies with their escort stood to their arms, and said, they would rather die; but, just as the fight was going to begin, one of Maphuze Khan's Jemautdars, named Ally Saheb, declared his detestation of the treachery, and joined the Sepoys with the horse of his command; on which the rest recollected themselves, and retired; but Ally Saheb, having still some suspicions for the safety of the deputies and their escort, marched with them to Palamcotah, and delivered them safe into the fort. Soon after the six companies of Sepoys began their march from Tinivelly to Madura, and the harvest began, on which the enemy's army entered the town, where Maphuze Khan proclaimed his dominion, which his agents and dependants exercised with much violence and injustice. Even the shroffs, or bankers, did not escape; although the necessity and neutrality of their occupation protects their persons and property throughout Indostan from the violence either of the despot or the conqueror. The main body of his army invested the fort of Palamcotah, which the Sepoys within easily defended, and with loss to the enemy; but there was danger from scarcity of provisions; to prevent which, Bussaponiague, the commander of the Sepoys, solicited the assistance of the Polygar Catabominaigue, who stipulated the cession of some lands convenient to his districts; which being promised, he took the field with his