Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/489

Book XI expected to receive. This detachment in their way summoned the three northern Polygars as friends to the English, to pay their shares of the chout, or tribute, which Gopaul Row had demanded, and had not time to exact in the preceding year. The king of Tanjore fired guns, and congratulated on the fortune and prowess of Madrass; and the Presidency, encouraged by his professions, proposed to him to assist them in a plan to surprise the fort of Karical, when the squadron should arrive on the coast: to which he answered, that the last hostilities of the French had ruined his country, and that the crop at present on the ground would likewise be destroyed, if disturbances were renewed; but that, as the English had beat off the French army from Madrass, they should immediately drive them out of Pondicherry, when Karical would fall of course. He was then requested to let beeves be purchased in his country as provisions for the squadron; which the strictness of his religion regarded as an abomination, nor would he suffer the interpreter to go on in reading the letter written to him on this subject.

The Nabob, ever since his arrival at Tritchinopoly, had continued sick. His disorder was a jaundice, produced by excess of vexation at the late humiliations of his fortune: the repulse of the French attack on Madrass conduced not a little to the recovery of his health; but his mind retained much solicitude for every future contingency. However, the vigilance of Captain Joseph Smith had preserved the districts dependant on the city in peace and cultivation, and their revenues were more than sufficient to defray the necessary expences of the garrison, as well as of the Nabob's family. The great number of French prisoners in the city, who were 500, whilst the European force in the garrison did not exceed 70 men, had been an object of constant anxiety, and plots were continually discovered of their intentions to break out of their dungeons; which obliged Captain Smith to confine them with the utmost severity. The Rheddi of Terriore, whom he had driven out of that town and district in the month of July of the preceding year, went away with those who escaped with him, to the borders of the Mysore country, where he was, at different times, joined by such as