Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/325

Book IX. ready gained an immense fortune: a few days after he landed, he had sent the Marquis of Conflans to act as second in the army of the Decan; but now, thinking that the capture of Fort St. David had established his own, reputation beyond the imputation of jealousy, he dispatched a letter to Mr. Bussy, to come without delay to Pondicherry, pretending that he wanted his advice; and, suspicious of the intimacy which had always subsisted between Moracin and Mr. Bussy, he likewise, and on the same pretence, recalled Moracin from the government of Masulipatam. Six hundred men of Mr. Lally's regiment, with 200 Sepoys, under the command of Mr. Soupire, formed a camp of observation, between Alamparva and Pondicherry: only 50 able, with the invalids of the army, were to be left in the town; and, to calm the apprehensions which were entertained by the inhabitants, of a sudden descent from the English squadron, it was resolved to recall their own under the walls. The injunction reached Mr. D'Aché off Karical on the 16th; and he anchored the next day in the road of Pondicherry. On the 18th Mr. Lally took the field; but, as before, unprovided with the necessary attendants, bullock-men, and market-people; for the unusual compulsions, which had been practised during the siege of Fort St. David, deterred the natives of such occupations from engaging in the services of the camp; and the inhabitants of the country removed their cattle, from dread of the hussars, who had been permitted to drive in what were necessary for the victualling of the army, without paying the value. The march between Pondicherry and Karical, where the troops were to rendezvous, is intersected by no less than sixteen rivers; six before you arrive at the Coleroon, which are generally fordable, excepting in the rains, but the Coleroon is never so; the others, as all in the kingdom of Tanjore, are arms of the Caveri, most of which near the sea change their extensive surfaces on beds of sand into deep channels of mud, which, even when fordable, cannot be entered without much toil and trouble; to avoid which, such of the heavy artillery, and cumbrous stores as were not to be supplied at Karical, were sent in two vessels by sea. Notwithstanding this relief,