Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/727

Book XIII and the enfilade and bombardment recommended from all the batteries as before; and was constantly answered with the same vivacity from the town. On the 23d, the ship Duke, of 500 tons, arrived from Madrass, laden with 17 pieces of battering cannon and their shot, with all kinds of stores for the siege; but so few of the boatmen had returned to their massoolas, that very little could be landed until others were assembled from the neighbouring ports on the coast, and even from Madrass: this delay, however, appeared of less detriment, because the materials for the trenches, and for the batteries which were to dismantle the defences and breach the body of the place, were not yet collected, and the engineers reported, that they should not be ready to open this fire before the third of January; but the batteries already constructed continued theirs. On the 26th, Admiral Stevens in the Norfolk, with three other ships of the line and the Protector fire-ship, returned into the road from Trinconomaly. The French troops assembled at Thiagar were so much superior to the little forts around, that they became the terror of the country, and their smallest parties brought in provisions in plenty, and without risque. Major Preston, having no longer any apprehensions that the troops at Gingee would either be able to push any convoys through the circumvallation of the English army, or even to distress the posts under the protection of Captain Fletcher at Ratlagrammon, resolved, by cutting off the daily supplies of Thiagar, to oblige the troops there to employ large escorts, which he hoped to intercept. He marched from Rashivandum on the 1st of December, and encamped in the evening three miles to the N. w. of Thiagar. On the night of the 3d, all the French cavalry, amounting to 200, led by Major Allen, an officer of Mr. Lally's regiment, pushed out of the pettah, and went to the west of Trinomalee. Being sure of provisions abroad, they intended to remain in the hills, waiting the event of the negociation, which Mr. Lally was carrying on with the Morattoe Vizvazipunt, whose troops, if it succeeded, they intended to accompany to Pondicherry. A few