Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/615

Book XII detachment marched from Vandivash, and the next morning invested Chittapett, when the commandant, De Tilly, refused to surrender. On the 28th, the whole army encamped within cannonshot, and the commandant still persisting in his refusal, a battery of two eighteen-pounders was erected in the night, against the N. E. angle, and a howitz was planted in the pettah, to enfilade the north line of the rampart. The fire opened at five the next morning, and the breach was nearly practicable by eleven, when a flag of truce appeared, and De Tilly surrendered without terms. The garrison consisted of four commissioned officers, and 52 private Europeans, with 300 Sepoys. In the hospitals were 73 Europeans, wounded in the late battle. The artillery were nine pieces of cannon; the store of ammunition was considerable, and amongst the arms were 300 excellent muskets, which were distributed amongst the English Sepoys. The garrison reported, that a party, with two field-pieces, were marching from Arcot and Gingee, having taken the round-about road by Arni and Trinomalee; on which Captain Stephen Smith was detached, with 200 black horse, and two companies of Sepoys, to intercept them.

In the mean time, the horse sent to the southward had performed their mission with great alacrity, having burnt 84 villages, and swept away 8000 head of cattle, many of which were of those the Morattoes had taken on the north of the Paliar, and sold to whomsoever would buy them, at four-pence a head. The whole collection was driven under different convoys to Vandivash, Carangoly, and Outramalore, and more than restored the number which these districts had lost. Besides what they had sold, they had driven away a great multitude of the best cattle into the vallies leading from Lalliput to Damalcherri, which they intended to send, with the rest of their booty, to their own country on the other side the hills; but the menaces and success of Colonel Coote raised apprehensions in Innis Khan, that he might risque the loss of this plunder, if he continued any longer in the province. He therefore quitted Arcot, with all his Morattoes, on the same day that Chittapett surrendered; and continued his march through the pass, from