Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/572

548 of the Carnatic. As his troops were unpaid, and since the disaster of Nazirjing were afraid of serving in the Carnatic, Mr. Bussy should immediately lend him four lacks of rupees to be distributed amongst them as the only means of engaging them to march. If this agreement should not take effect after his arrival at Arcot, he and his army should be reconducted out of the province with friendship and good faith." The tenor of these terms bore the strongest marks of Sampetrow's advice: Mr. Bussy answered them by other proposals, which left the issue of every one made by Bassaulut Jung uncertain, and liable to future discussions and arrangements. The personal conferences only widened the difference, by discovering more clearly to each the views of the other; but Bassaulut Jung took no personal disgust to Mr. Bussy, and at his solicitation issued patents subjecting, at least in words, the whole province of Arcot to the government of Mr. Lally, and enjoining all the chiefs and feudatories to pay him the usual tributes and obeisance. In the same plain where Bassaulut Jung and Bussy were encamped, were likewise lying two other considerable bodies of troops, the one a detachment of 3000 Morattoes appointed to guard that part of the territory of Cudapah, which had been ceded the year before the last to the Morattoe Jurisdiction; the other was a body of 2500 Pitan horse, belonging to the Nabob of Cudapah. Mr. Bussy, by former intercourses, knew the officers of both. The Pitans lent him money, which enabled him to inlist 100 of their horse, the same number of Bassaulut Jung's, and 200 of the Morattoes; and to supply the immediate wants of the French troops attending Bassaulut Jung, and his own detachment, which he now joined into one body under his own command. This whole force collected, consisted of 350 European infantry, 100 European horse, 2500 Sepoys, of which 500 were Arabs or Abyssinians, 800 black horse, and 10 pieces of cannon; with which he marched away on the 16th of November, five days after his arrival, returning by the same way he had come. On the 10th of December, he arrived at Arcot, from whence his approach had obliged Captain Moore and Wood to return with their detachments to Covrepauk, and from