Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/582

558 Ganjam, and promising more from Pondicherry. Jaggapetty neither concluded, nor rejected the proposal; but neither he nor his people at Samel Cotah gave even the common assistances of the country to the troops with Moracin; who, for want of provisions, committed violences, were resisted, and most of them were either seized by the officers of the district, or took service with them; which reduced Moracin to re-embark on the sloop with five or six, the remainder of his party; they sailed on the 19th, and a few days after arrived at Pondicherry. The troops remaining at Ganjam were 250 estimated Europeans, but of which half were Topasses, and 100 Sepoys. They embarked under the command of the Chevalier Poete, on the snow and two sloops, rigged and manned with the stores and crew of the Bristol: they arrived at Cocanara on the 19th of December; and Poete sent ashore fifty Europeans, and the Sepoys, to try the inclinations of Jaggapettyrauze: immediately after they landed, a hard gale of wind drove the two sloops ashore. The troops sent from Bengal with Colonel Forde had received repeated orders from this Presidency to return thither from Masulipatam; but they were to march over land the whole way, in order to meet, and attack Moracin's detachment, who it was supposed would be, if not at Ganjam, somewhere on the coast. The rains would not permit the Bengal troops to take the field until the beginning of November; before which, Colonel Forde had sailed in the middle of October from Masulipatam for Bengal, where he arrived just in time to render one more very important service to his country. The command then devolved on Captain Fischer, and varying resolutions detained the troops at Masulipatam until the 5th of December. They were reduced from 500 Europeans, and 1500 Sepoys, to 300 of the one, and 800 of the other: the Europeans, by death and desertion, notwithstanding they had recruited 50 out of the prisoners; but the Sepoys, chiefly by the dismission of 500, who had sailed with Clive on the expedition to Bengal, and were permitted to return from Masulipatam to their homes in the Carnatic.