Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/673

Book XII. under arms; and as soon as they were in motion, a detachment of Europeans, with four field-pieces, filed off from the right to reinforce the villages of Villenore. By this time the batteries there had beat down the parapet, and silenced the enemy's fire from the fort, when two companies of Sepoys set off on the full run, and posted themselves under the brick facing of the covered-way, in a hollow, where the earth had not been filled up, as in other parts, to the crest of the glacis; some, more adventurous, jumped over the wall. Still the garrison had nothing to fear; for the Sepoys had a ditch to pass, and a very imperfect breach to mount: but the commanding officer held out a flag of truce, and opened the gates to a detachment of Europeans, who hastened up on the first sight of the flag. They immediately raised the English colours on the rampart, and turned the guns against the French and Mysoreans, who were advanced along the river-side within the random reach of cannon-shot. The change was received with the curses of every man in the French army. All the lines stopped involuntarily, and at once, stricken by horror; and Mr. Lally, more confounded than any, immediately ordered the whole to retreat under the guns of Ariancopang. There were in the fort 30 Europeans, 12 Coffrees, and eight pieces of cannon on the ramparts, which might have held out two days longer, before the English would have ventured to storm; and ten minutes more in the present hour would have brought on a general engagement to decide its fate. Of all his successes, Colonel Coote deemed this the most fortunate, because least expected. Nevertheless he had exerted much ability to place the army in a situation to make the attack in sight of the enemy's, and, if it failed, have nothing unequal to apprehend. The first arrival of the Mysoreans in the province had alarmed the Presidency of Madrass, as much as it surprized the army; for, besides the interruption they might give to the success of the war, the Nabob's revenues were lost wherever their parties appeared; and, as horse, they might in the back country extend their ravages from Tritchinopoly to Arcot: and this detriment was the more dreaded, because the company in England, relying on the treasures of Bengal,