Page:History of the French in India.djvu/278

 256 FRENCH INDIA AT ITS ZENITH. chap, use more skilfully than their masters. Thus they took VL credit for the defeat of d'Auteuil, and exaggerated the 1750. l° ss experienced by Murari Rao in his attempts to cut them off from Pondichery. All this time these same agents intrigued with the chiefs of the Subadar's army, especially with the Patan Nawwabs of Kadapah, Karnul, and Savanur, and succeeded in establishing with these and others relations of a confidential nature. Nasir Jang himself refused to agree to the terms pro- posed by MM. du Bausset and de Larche, the envoys of Dupleix, and on the seventh day these two gentlemen returned to Pondichery. By this time a good feeling had been restored in the army; the officers who had disgraced themselves had been severely punished ; others, less guilty, were only anxious by some brilliant achievement to wipe out the stain on their honour ; d'Auteuil, who had shown very clearly that he had acted in the only manner possible for him to act under the circumstances, had been restored to the command. Now was the time to strike a blow ; this the oppor- tunity to show the ruler who had rejected his proposals that the French were yet, as an enemy, to be feared. No sooner then had the envoys returned than Dupleix sent instructions to d'Auteuil to beat up the camp of Murari Rao, situated between Pondichery and the main body of Nasir Jang's army. On the night of April 12, only eight days after the retreat from Valdavur, d'Auteuil detached 300 men under the command of M. de la Touche to surprise the enemy. They marched about midnight, reached and penetrated the camp without being discovered, killed about 1,200 of the surprised and terror-stricken enemy, and returned to Pondichery at daybreak, having lost but three men of their party. This bold stroke had such an effect upon Nasir Jang, that trembling now for his own safety, he broke up his camp, and retired in all haste to Arkat, abandoning the English, who returned to Fort St. David.