Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/681

Book XII. the squadron, to enable the army to attack Ariancopang, and take possession of tho bound-hedge; and that he would determine to remain on the coast with the whole squadron, through the monsoon. Mr. Stevens was very loth to deprive his ships of their marines during the expectation of an engagement with the enemy's squadron, but at length acquiesced to the necessity and importance of the service they might render on shore; and promised without hesitation that his squadron should not quit the coast until compelled by irresistible necessity. Accordingly, the marines were landed at Cuddalore on the 27th; they were, including officers, 422 Europeans. The Mysoreans, as soon as they arrived before Trinomaly, made an attack on the pettah, in which they were repulsed with the loss of fifty or sixty men: but continued to invest the place. Captain Preston, on intelligence of their intention, sent off on the 22d two companies of Sepoys from Ratlagrammon, who, by bye ways in the mountain, got into the fort on the 26th; and the day after, the enemy in greater force than before made another assault, in which they were again beaten off, with the loss of sixty men, and an officer of distinction; the garrison sallied as they retreated, and obliged them to abandon two field-pieces, which they had brought up and used in the attack. The whole raised the siege immediately, and returned to Thiagar. Two hundred Europeans, with some Sepoys, and two guns, marching round the Red-hill in the night of the 23d, escaped the interruption of the English guards, and arrived the next day at Gingee; from whence they set out again in different parties, escorting 2000 bullocks loaded with provisions; of which some were dispersed by Preston, as they were coming out of the hills; and 300 were taken, when advanced within a few miles of the English camp, by a detachment of Sepoys and black horse, sent out to look for them; and none got into Pondicherry: but as all that had been attacked had been met in the night, the escorts regained Gingee with very little loss. Three or four thousand more bullocks were ready to be substituted as the convoys sent might fail, and it was now determined to send the whole of this collection together, under the