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Rh anticipating the approach of Medows, attacked Maxwell with his cavalry, and strove to bring on a general action before the junction of the two English armies. This design, however, was frustrated owing to the strong position occupied by Maxwell. He remained strictly on the defensive, in expectation of the arrival of Medows, who, crossing the Káveri at Erode, reached the Thopúr Pass on the 14th, and effected a junction with the other army on November 17. Tipú, however, was too skilful a general to be caught in a snare, which would have compelled him either to fight or to retreat up the Gháts, so he determined to double back by the Thopúr Pass, from either end of which the British force was more than twenty miles distant, and to lay waste the country on the south.

This movement he carried out, although he ran the risk of being cut off by the English force, which marched on the same day for the pass. Fortune favoured him through the inertness of Medows who forbad Colonel Stuart, commanding the right wing, from attempting to attack a large body of the Mysore infantry while in the defile, an operation which that officer was confident of accomplishing with success. The progress of the English army was so slow and cautious that Tipú's troops were able to clear the pass with little loss, leaving however their baggage and camp equipage on the other side. Emerging into the more open country, the Sultan directed his march towards Trichinopoli, but finding the Coleroon river