Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/628

604 they arrived at Chittapett, when intelligence was received from Stephen Smith, that he had got possession of the pettah of Trinomaly; but that the troops in the fort seemed resolved to hold out. The pettah could not be maintained without the fort; and the possession of the fort was at this juncture of much consequence, as its detachments might harass and interrupt convoys of provisions coming from the country in the rear of the army, when advanced to the southward. Colonel Coote therefore reinforced Stephen Smith with two twelve-pounders, and 50 Europeans, who were French deserters lately incorporated into a company under the command of one of their own Serjeants; they were called the French Volunteers, and were intended to be employed on hazardous services; but this did not prove one; for, although the guns could not breach, the garrison offered on the 29th to give up the fort, if they were permitted to march out free whither they pleased, with their arms and baggage; their terms were accepted: they were 250 Sepoys, and left six pieces of cannon, and a considerable quantity of ammunition, in the fort. Of the English detachment, one of the volunteers and a Lascar were killed, and a Sepoy wounded, during the attack.

On the 23d, Rear-Admiral Cornish arrived at Madrass, with six ships of the line. They were the squadron which had sailed under his command from England, and met Mr. Pococke, with his ships, off Pondicherry in October, whom they accompanied to Tellicherry: from whence they sailed again for the coast of Coromandel on the 15th of December, whilst Mr. Pococke, with his own, was proceeding to Bombay. Contrary winds and currents had retarded their passages from one coast to the other. The crews had received very little refreshment from land ever since they left England about this time in the preceding year, and many were down with the scurvy. The army marched from Chittapett on the 26th, striking across the country to the s. E. On the 29th in the forenoon they arrived and halted at Tondivanum, a town of much resort, at which meet the high roads leading from Chittapett, Vandivash, Qutramalore, and Carangoly, towards Pondicherry, from which place it is 30