Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/491

Book XI not suffer them to rest until they took refuge in the Mysore country, where they remained, proposing schemes, and soliciting assistance; but meeting little encouragement from this government, Hussein Cawn offered to join the Rheddi, who had retaken Terriore, in making incursions into the Nabob's country: but the Rheddi, making a merit of refraining from the mischief in his power, proffered money and regular terms of submission to the Nabob, who, for the sake of the money, and to save the expence of defending the distant villages, accepted his obedience, and confirmed him in the government; in which this was his fourth installation, and the other Rheddi had lost and resumed it as often.

The countries # of Madura and Tinivelly had relapsed into their former state of anarchy and confusion, after Mahomed Issoof, with so large a part of his force, was recalled out of them in the month of July. All that the seven companies of Sepoys left in the city of Madura could do, was to collect from the country provisions sufficient for their subsistence. The incursions of the Nattam Colleries from the north, and of those under the Polygars along the hills to the west, ruined or appropriated whatsoever cultivation or revenue arose in the districts at a distance from the city. To the southward, in the Tinivelly country matters were much worse. Maphuze Cawn forgot all his former professions of reconciliation, united more firmly than ever, and took up his residence with the Pulitaver, who led the western Polygars; and Catabominaig, with Etiaporum, who were the heads of the western, concluding from the superiority of the French in the Carnatic, that the affairs of the Nabob and the English would never recover, seized whatsoever country lay convenient for them: nor did the five companies of Sepoys left in the fort of Palamcotah, and bereft of all alliance, venture any opposition to their encroachments, or even to maintain the town of Tinivelly; of which Maphuze Khan and the Pulitaver once again took possession. The Sepoys contented themselves with preserving Palamcotah, where they were often obliged to defend the wails against the skirmishes of the Pulitaver's Colleries, which consumed their ammunition; and, as none of their letters reached the Carnatic, or even Tritchinopoly