Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/461

Book X. the morning on the 1st of December in a common massoolah, which had only six rowers and the steersman; he was accompanied by Mr. Boswell the surgeon, as his interpreter, and one servant. In few hours after they were at sea, a hard gale of wind arose, in which they could not show the sail, and scarcely use the oars; nevertheless the drift of the wind and current carried the boat by 9 o'clock the second night far as Devi Cotah, which is by the sea one hundred and thirty miles from Madrass, when the rowers were so much exhausted, that no entreaties could prevent them from putting ashore; and they grounded on the strand within half a mile of the fort of Devi Cotah, in which was an officer and some French Sepoys, from whose notice they were preserved by the continuance of the storm, and before day-break put to sea again; but the boatmen would not venture over the larger and outer surf, and continued driving in the hollow sea between the two, until noon, when they landed at Tranquebar. The rains had overflowed the rivers, which remained impassable until the 12th. On the 14th Calliaud arrived at Aimapettah 15 miles from Tanjore, where he was again detained three days by the bad weather. On the 17th he reached the city. The king of Tanjore, when more closely pressed by Captain Joseph Smith to furnish the 1000 horse requested of him by the Presidency in December, pleaded the ravages which his country had lately suffered from the French army, and demanded 200,000 rupees before-hand; at length he more plainly said, that he thought the English did nob care what befel the territory of their allies, provided they could defend their own: but as he could not allege this indifference to himself when attacked by the French, he cited the unconcern with which they had suffered the French to take every fort belonging to the Nabob, and even his capital of Arcot, without making any efforts to protect them; although he knew that the Presidency had not the means, and with the Nabob's were losing their own revenues.

Major Calliaud found the king in the same temper, so prepossessed of the decline of the English fortune, that he neglected the