Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/589

Book XI which existed on every side, could not be all opposed at the same time, unless a greater army were embodied than all the revenues of the two provinces could defray. But the king was the least inveterate enemy to the English; because the polygar of Vadagherri had provoked his resentment, by continually employing his Colleries to make depredations in his country on the other side of the mountains, through the pass of Shencottah, which lies 15 miles to the south of Vadagherri. On this ground of common enmity, Mahomed Issoof opened a negotiation with the king; who consented to a conference at the gates of his country near the promontory. They met in the end of August, and the interview passed with much politeness and seeming cordiality. The king, at least publicly, demanded nothing, and agreed to desist from his inroads into the districts of Tinivelly, and to act with a considerable force in conjunction with Mahomed Issoof against Vadagherri, and the pulitaver. On the 3d of September, Mahomed Issoof still remaining at the gates of Travancore, was joined by 1000 of the king's Sepoys, armed with; heavy muskets made in his own country, and disciplined, although aukwardly, in the European manner; but they were well supplied with stores and ammunition. He then returned to Tinivelly, and marching from thence with his whole force, in deference to the king, proceeded directly against Vadagherri, although 20 miles beyond Nellitangaville, the residence of the Pulitaver: when arrived near Shencottah, he was joined by an army full as large as his own, consisting of 10,000 more of the king's troops of various kinds of infantry, who had marched through the pass. This was perhaps the greatest force that had been assembled for some centuries in this country. Vadagherri defended his woods for a day, in which about 100 men were killed and wounded on both sides; but in the night abandoned his fort, and escaped away to the Pulitaver at Nellitangaville.

The arrival of such a guest, who, for the first time, had been reduced to such distress, frightened the Pulitaver; and set his cunning to work to divert the storm from himself. The repulse of the English troops at the attack of the pettah at Vandiwash on the 30th of