Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/99

Book VI and they returned, having spiked up only three of the guns in the enemy's camp.

The next day came up 4000 Sepoys under the command of Murzafa Khan. This man commanded the Sepoys of the detachment with which Mr. Bussy first marched into the Decan in 1751. The next year he left Mr. Bussy when at Beder, and, raising a body of Sepoys on his own account, took service with Balagerow, whom he left when before Seringapatam in 1755, and went over to the Mysoreans; from thence he went to the Nabob of Sanore, and was in this place when invested in the beginning of the present year by Salabadjing and Balagerow. Having during his command of the French Sepoys gained the attachment of most of their, officers by largesses and other compliances, he had ever since continued a correspondence amongst them, whenever they were in the field, in conjunction with, or near, the armies in which he was serving, as Mr. Bussy had experienced in the campaigns of Mysore and Sanore. This quality, and the military experience which he was supposed to have acquired whilst in the French service, induced Shanavaze Khan to hire him, as soon as it was known that Mr. Bussy had determined to make a stand at Hydrabad. MurzafabegMurzafa Khan [sic], as soon as engaged, made forced marches before the main body, and sent his emissaries forward: and on the very day of his arrival at Hydrabad, a whole company of French Sepoys, who went out into the plain under pretence of exercising, marched away, their firelocks shouldered, and joined him at Golcondah. The next day the whole army moved from hence with twenty pieces of cannon under his direction, and at noon appeared to the westward within a mile of Charmaul. The infantry and artillery took possession of all the eminences; and the cavalry drew up in the intervals, where the ground was plain. Immediately 250 of the French Battalion and 1000 Sepoys, with six field-pieces, marched out to try, them, whilst the rest remained in their posts ready to act as occasion should require; and two pieces of cannon were mounted on the tower in the N. w. angle of Charmaul, which commanded a view of the field. The detachment despised the enemy so much, that