Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/535

Book XI Several of the company's vessels, but none of force, for enough had been sent before, were Likewise arrived from France. The crews of all these ships amounted to 5500 men, and all the provisions which could be collected in the isles, or even drawn from Madagascar, with the supplies sent from Europe, were insufficient to feed this multitude, added to the numbers already in the colony, which they nearly equalled. Several councils were held on this distress, and it was at length determined to send one of the men of war, with eight of the Company's ships, which would take off between 3 and 4000 men, to the Cape of Good Hope, where they were to purchase provisions sufficient for the squadron in the ensuing voyage and, in the mean time, the crews would be supported without breaking in upon the general stock. These ships arrived off the Cape in the beginning of January; and two of them had the luck to fall in with and take the Grantham, an English East-India ship, dispatched from Madrass in September. They purchased, but at a vast expence, a great quantity of meat, grain, and wine, and returned to the Isle of France in April and May; after which, the strength of four of the Company's fighting ships, which had not hitherto mounted the number of guns they were built for, were armed to the full scale of their construction. These alterations, and other equipments, retarded the daparture of the squadron until the 17th of July. They went first to the isle of Bourbon, and then to Foulpoint, in the island of Madagascar, to take in some rice, and other provisions, which had been procured there; and on the 30th of August arrived off Batacola, a port in Ceylon, 60 miles to the south of Trinconomaly; where they received intelligence of the English squadron, and two days after came in sight of them off Point Pedras. The land and sea-winds differing in the same hours at different distances from the shore, the currents likewise various, squalls, a fog, and contrary courses whilst seeking each other when out of sight, kept them asunder, or out of immediate reach, until the 10th of September, when they again fell in with one another off Fort St. David. The French, being farthest out at sea, lay-to in a line of battle a-head, their heads to the East. The English having the wind came down a-breast, and at two in the afternoon were within