Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/236

208 manifest superiority. This indeed, was the course that recommended itself to his clearer vision. But the demand made by Perron at the interview, that he should divide his force and send one-half to the assistance of Sindia maddened him to such an extent that he broke off the conference and hastily retreated to Hánsi.

On the breaking up of the conference Perron returned immediately to Aligarh, called thither by the necessity of attending to the urgent requisitions of Sindia, leaving his force before Báhádúrgarh under the command of Major Bourquin, then acting as commandant of the third brigade. This officer at once despatched Major Smith to besiege Georgegarh, a fort which had been built by Thomas, about seventy miles from Hánsi, whilst he himself should cover the siege. Thomas, however, noticing the distance of the covering from the besieging force, broke up suddenly from Hánsi, fell upon Smith and completely defeated him. What he might have accomplished may be gathered from Major Smith's own words: "I was attacked," he writes, "by Thomas with eight battalions, compelled to raise the siege and retreat to Jajar, four coss (eight miles) to the east of Georgegarh; favoured by the obscurity of the night, I was not completely cut off, and made good my retreat, with the loss of one gun and one-third of my force killed and wounded. How I escaped total destruction I do not yet know. Why Thomas did not