Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/668

644 with 500 horse, and as many Sepoys. They proceeded against Trichimungalum, which surrendered after a short resistance on the 26th. The garrison were a serjeant, another European, and 180 Sepoys, with a much greater store of ammunition than their number required. They had collected 900 head of cattle in the fort, and a large quantity of grain in the town. Major Moore was again misled by his intelligence, and the party of Mysoreans returning from Pondicherry to Thiagar passed again out of his reach. Mr. Lally determined to risque nothing before the main body of the Mysoreans arrived; and his troops were too strongly posted in front of, and within the bound-hedge, to be attacked by a force, which exceeded them so little as the English army, since the detachments it had lately sent abroad. So that both armies concurring in the same caution, in expectation of the same event, nothing of any moment passed between them for twenty days. Colonel Coote, in this interval, went to Madrass. He left the camp on the 6th of July, and returned on the 14th. The next day he received intelligence from Major Moore, that the Mysoreans were set out from Thiagar, with a very large convoy of provisions. This intelligence was confirmed the next day, with their route; and at three the next morning, which was the 17th, the van division of the army under Colonel Monson moved, and took possession of Perimbé, which is the ground under the point of the red-hill directly opposite to Villenore. The rest of the army came up before daylight; a party was immediately detached to take possession of the pettah of Villenore, and make preparations for batteries; another destroyed a redoubt on the hill over Perimbé, which the enemy had lately erected, in the spot where they before had raised the barracks for their cavalry, which Colonel Coote had burnt on his first excursion to reconnoitre this ground from Permacoil. The distance across, from the Red-hill, to the fort of Villenore and the river of Ariancopang, is little more than a mile, and the army possessed the whole space in posts and enclosures, which could not be attacked in front towards Pondicherry without great disadvantage; and nothing was apprehended in the rear, although the Mysoreans were coming; for