Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/585

Book XI. with their assistance in the government of those countries; and the administration of Pondicherry, by their letters and emissaries, encouraged him to think so. Waiting this fortune, he remained with the Pulitaver, styling himself, and styled a sovereign; but without any other means of subsistence than what the Pulitaver chose to supply, who, never regulating his money by words, scarcely furnished him with common necessaries. The return of Issoof Khan bettered his condition; as the Pulitaver was afraid he might at length listen to a reconciliation with the Nabob, and Maphuze Khan, always governed by the love of ease, felt no resentment at the humility to which he had been reduced. He presided, at least in appearance, in the councils of the eastern Polygars; who resolved to meet Issoof with their united force, and invited the western to the common defence; who having joined them against Palamcotah in the late distresses of the English affairs, expected no pardon, and took the field. The western league consisted of six polygars: Catabominaigue, their former leader, was lately dead, and had been succeeded by a relation, who took as usual the same name, and bore, instead of the indifference of his predecessor, an aversion to the English. Etiaporum was always the next to him in importance, and now in activity.

The force which accompanied Mahomed Issoof from Conjeveram, consisted only of six companies of Sepoys, and 60 horse, but he had on his march requested troops from Tondiman and the two Moravers, with whom he had always continued on good terms, and 3000 men, horse, colleries, and Sepoys, from the three polygars, joined him on his arrival at Madura, where he nevertheless immediately began to make farther levies, and by shifting and garbling out of all that were with him, composed a body of 300 horse, and 700 Sepoys, who had seen service, which he sent forward to ravage the districts of Etiaporum, where they were to be joined by three of the companies of Sepoys from the garrison of Palamcotah, which had restored its losses by new levies. This body of troops were to maintain their ground until the last extremity, in order to prevent the junction of the western with the troops of the eastern polygars, until Mahomed Issoof himself could follow with the main