Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/660

636 without them. The offence and punishment left no bounds to the mutual aversion between him and the company's servants. Whilst the English army were attacking Valdore, two ships arrived from the islands: they brought neither troops nor money, but unfavourable advices, which were with much caution suppressed, and published as good news with salute of cannon, fireworks, and rejoicings, "That Mr. D' Aché's squadron, reinforced from France to 25 sail of the line, might be soon expected on the coast, with a large body of land forces on board." After the fall of Valdore, a few enclosures under the guns at Villanore and Ariancopang, with the ground within the bound-hedge, and the town of Pondicherry itself, contained all the live provisions, on which the colony was to rely for their future sustenance, and all further means were precluded of bringing in grain or other articles of store from the country without; for although Gingee and Thiagar remained in the hands of the French, their situation was distant, and their garrisons not strong enough to furnish sufficient escorts, and no parties equal to the same purpose could be detached from the main body, without incurring the risque of interception. When the farm of the districts adjacent to Pondicherry was taken from the European renters, and let to the Malabar, after the defeat at Vandivash, there was a sufficient quantity of grain on the ground in reach of Pondicherry, to have stocked the place, as some say, for years; but money was then more scarce than victuals, and the new farmer was permitted to sell his grain, that he might be enabled to pay his rent in coin into the treasury, instead of delivering grain, as acquittal, into the magazines. As soon as Permacoil and Alamparvah fell, and the English army advanced between Gingee and Pondicherry, Mr. Lally saw this error, and that it was not retrievable, but by means which he had hitherto, with too much presumption, despised. Hyder Ally, the general of the Mysoreans, had at this time acquired the whole power of the government. He had lately taken the King out of the hands of his uncle, the Dalaway, whom we have seen commanding the Mysore troops before Tritchinopoly.