Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/598

574 superior talents of Mr. Bussy to conduct the war: the battalion of India always thought so. Mr. Lally imputed this rising predilection in the officers to the influence of Mr. Bussy's money, and amongst the soldiers to the intrigues of Father St. Estevan, a crazy, busy Jesuit, who officiated in the camp, and confessed the regiment of Lorrain: his antipathy no longer listened to any restraints. As soon as the army returned to Trivatore, Mr. Bussy asked his leave to retire to Pondicherry for the recovery of a painful disorder, which incapacitated him for fatigue: but Mr. Lally forbid him in the name of the king to quit the field. He obeyed, and gave his best opinion concerning the future operations of the campaign. "The English, he said, would not see Vandiwash taken, without risquing a battle to save it, in which the French army would be deprived of all the force employed in the siege; and from the necessity of covering it, not master of the choice of advantages in the action; whereas, if the whole of the regular troops kept together on the banks of the Paliar, and detached the whole body of Morattoes to lay waste the English districts, their army would soon be reduced to the necessity, either of giving battle at disadvantage, or of seeking its subsistence under the walls of Madrass." No advice could be more judicious; for the first division of the Morattoes, although only 1000, had ventured to carry their ravages as far as Pondamalee and Vendalore, and by cutting off every kind of provision on every side had reduced the English camp to as great want, as they brought abundance to the French, where they sold the beeves they had plundered at seven for a rupee, and rice at half its value in any other part of the country; and at this very time the Presidency of Madrass, anxious for the loss of their surest revenues, repented that they had not bought the Morattoes on their own terms, and were advising Colonel Coote to fall back nearer to the adjacencies of the town. But Mr. Lally suspected Mr. Bussy's advice, as designed to prevent or disparage the activity of his own operations; and on the 14th marched away from Trivatore, with a detachment of 500 Europeans, half the European cavalry, 500 Morattoes, 1000 Sepoys, and four field-pieces, leaving Mr. Bussy with the main body at Trivatore, as the most