Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/570

546 a man, six days provisions, colours flying, and drums beating: the Sepoys were disarmed, but likewise set free. Four of the nine guns belonging to the French had been dismounted, two Europeans were killed, and five dangerously wounded. The Sepoys had suffered more. The loss of the English troops was Lieutenant Campbell of the artillery; a grenadier, a Sepoy, and a Topass mortally wounded.

On the 12th, the army encamped again at Vandiwash; where they were joined the same day by Captain More, with his detachment from the northward. These troops had advanced, accompanied by those at Tripetti as far as Nelore, and were joined on the road by the party of Europeans stationed there with Lieutenant Elliot; but the troops of Nazeabullah although ready had not stirred a step from the walls; he nevertheless pretended that the dread of his preparations had been the principal cause of Bassaulut Jung's retreat out of the Carnatic. All alarms having ceased in this part of the country, Captain More sent back Elliot's party to Nelore, and those which had come from Tripetti, and returned with his own division by the way of Tripassore to Conjeveram. Colonel Coote, when marching against Vandiwash, had ordered Captain Wood, if to be done with safety, to advance from Covrepauk, and take post in the city of Arcot, in order to prevent the French garrison in the fort there from collecting provisions. Wood arrived in the town on the 28th, with 300 Sepoys, 50 Europeans, and 50 black horse, who, without the least opposition, took possession of the Nabob's palace and the adjacent streets, although not half a mile from the fort; where they obliged the French renter and the principal inhabitants to redeem the rest of their property by furnishing at the market-price a large quantity of rice, of which the scarcity was increasing every day by a general failure of the harvest in this part of the country. Captain More's detachment was ordered to join Captain Wood's on their return, and both to make preparations for the attack of the fort of Arcot, against which Colonel Coote intended to march as soon as he had reduced Carangoly. They had collected fascines and other material's, and had even begun to construct one of the batteries, when they were obliged to