Page:History of the French in India.djvu/325

 THE FATAL FEEBLENESS OF LAW. 301 whilst, encamped beside him, aiding him in all his chap. undertakings, was the native army of Chanda Sahib, in, r number nearly 30,000, a very large proportion of whom 1751, were horsemen. Besides these he had a park of fifty guns, many of them of a large calibre. The most pressing orders were at the same time sent from Pondi- chery to push on the works, in order to capture the place before the operations of Clive should make them- selves felt in the vicinity. Law, in consequence, made a great show of activity, and succeeded in submitting the garrison to a strict blockade This, however, was all he did do. The man so bold and vaunting in coun- cil, whose pre-eminent object in life seemed to be to impress others with a sense of his great cleverness, showed himself, in command of an army, to be abso- lutely incapable. Overbearing to his officers, suspicious of everybody, haughty, vain, and obstinate, unenter- prising himself and checking enterprise in others, Law gained no confidence and conciliated no opinions. Like an obstinate commander, deficient in vision, who, unable to see himself, distrusts the eyesight of others, and thus allows opportunity after opportunity to slip away, so did Law, headstrong and incapable, persist in measures that w r ere useless, and reject counsels that might have led to easy victory. The English that garrisoned Trichinapalli were led by Captain Gingens of whose inferior abilities we have already spoken. They were animated by a spirit far less buoyant than that which had induced the soldiers of Clive to dare so many dangers and difficulties. They were dispirited by defeat, by retreat, and by being cooped up in a fortress which they appeared to have but small chance of defending with success. An assault on the part of Law would almost certainly have succeeded. This was pressed upon him from all sides, by Chanda Sahib as much as by Dupleix. But, confident in his own clever- ness, despising, or affecting to despise, the opinions of