Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/584

560 grenadiers and 500 Sepoys to prevent their embarkation. The French troops had gained no certain intelligence of the force with Fischer, and waited on their ground until they could distinguish the number of Yorke's division, who when near sent off the Sepoys to gain their flank, and hastened up in front with the grenadiers as fast as they could march. The French only remained to give one fire, and then ran as fast as they could through the grove, followed almost at the same pace, to gain the Dutch factory, into which they were admitted. Yorke immediately surrounded the factory, which had very slight defences, and Fischer coming up in the evening with the main body, invested it more closely, and peremptorily demanded the French troops, whom, after a very formal protest, the Dutch agents delivered the next day, which was the 28th of December. In the ensuing night Poete sailed with the rest of his detachment 200 men, Europeans and Topasses, all in the snow. From Cocanara the English troops marched on to Vizagapatam, where they arrived on the 16th of January; and a few days after, all the Europeans embarked in two English ships proceeding to Bengal; but the Sepoys were left to pursue their route on shore by Ganjam and through the province of Orixa. Thus nothing remained to fear in the company's possessions and acquisitions to the north of the Kristna. We shall now describe the progress of their officer Mahomed Issoof in the countries towards Cape Comorin.

He arrived at Madura on the 4th of May, and had been absent ten months. The force he left in the country, when called away, was 14 companies of Sepoys, six in the fort of Madura, five in Palamcotah, and three at Tinivelly. Nothing more could be expected from either of these bodies, than to defend the ground in sight of the walls they garrisoned. Accordingly all the districts of both provinces from the forest of Nattam to the gates of Travancore, lay subject to their contributions, or exposed to their ravages. The declension of the English affairs, which began with the surrender of Fort St. David, (on which Mahomed Issoof was recalled,) and continued until the French were obliged to raise the siege of Madrass, kept Maphuze Khan in continual hopes, that he should be joined by a body of French troops, and established