Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/651

Book XII. to camp. They had perceived at a distence a large cloud of dust, as of troops with cannon, advancing from Pondicherry. The fort of Valdore stands nine miles N. N. w. of Pondicherry. Its form is an exact parallelogram, squaring with the compass; and extending 300 yards from E. to w. and 210 from N. to s. It is situated in a plain, and its original fortifications, like the generality of the forts in the country, were a rampart with towers, a fausse-bray, and a ditch. Mr. Dupleix, had raised a glacis on the north-side, and had converted the center tower on this side, and that in the s. W. angle, into bastions with faces and flanks; but the pettah, which is to the west, remained within 150 yards of the wall: so that the vicinity of Pondicherry was its best defence. In the morning of the 14th, one of the batteries opened; it fronted and battered the tower in the north-west angle with one gun, and with the other took off the defences of the next tower in the west wall.

The dust seen the day before was from a body of troops marching to encamp under Villenore. The intelligence of the present day said they were the whole army, and that Mr. Lally intended to attack the English camp by surprize in the ensuing night, which determined Colonel Coote to reconnoitre them himself when the sun abated in the afternoon. All the cavalry in two divisions, each accompanied by five companies of Sepoys, marched with him. When arrived at the Red-hill, opposite to Villenore, he proceeded along the foot of it with one of the divisions, and sent the other across the plain, to examine the enemy's out-posts on that side, whilst his own division came opposite to a body of Europeans, with two field- pieces drawn up in the high road nearest the hill, leading to the bound-hedge. They cannonaded, but at too great a distance; and Colonel Coote continued under the side of the hill until dark, in order to persuade the enemy that he intended to patrole the field all night; but returned soon after to the camp. Five or six Sepoys and a horse were killed in this service. In the siege, one of the guns in the battery was ruined by the fire of the fort. Shells continued through the night, and the next morning, which was the 15th, the