Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/515

Book XI got on board, and determining not to run, before he had tried the strength of the ships, waited to exchange a broadside, which discovering them to be stouter than his own, he again hauled the wind, and working more dexterously got again out of their reach, but continued in the offing. The two French ships anchored again in the road, and in the night sent a catamaran, which they had brought with them, on shore, with letters to Mr. Conflans, signifying, that they were the Harlem and Bristol from Pondicherry, with 300 troops Europeans and Topasses, besides the crews: they were the aid of which advices had been received before. No answer being returned, they suspected the loss of the place, and early the next morning stood out again after the Hardwicke, which bore away for Bengal, and before noon all three were out of sight. The army of Salabadjing was at this time within 15 miles of Masulipatam; and imagining, that the French ships would return to land the troops, sent forward all the Morattoes towards the shore. Colonel Forde, notwithstanding the great number of prisoners which were to be guarded, divided his force, and leaving half in the fort to take care of them, encamped with the other on the ground he had occupied before. This countenance kept the Morattoes out of cannon-shot, but they burnt and slew all around for several days; when Salabadjing, seeing no probability of retaking Masulipatam, began to treat in earnest; and Colonel Forde went to his camp, and was received with much attention. But another motive of equal weight concurred to induce this change in Salabadjing's disposition towards the English. Some account of the assassination of Mr. Bussy's Duan, and of Nizamally's flight to Brampour, had reached Bengal before the departure of the present expedition; and Clive, judging that the atrocity of the injury which Nizamally had committed would carry his detestation of the French nation beyond the reach or wish of reconciliation, wrote letters to him, requesting his assistance to the army with Colonel Forde in exterminating the French out of the provinces they had dismembered from the sovereignty of the Decan. Colonel Forde dispatched these letters, with his own to the same purport, and Nizamally