Page:History of the French in India.djvu/326

 302 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLEIX WITH ADVERSITY. chap, others, Law clung to his own courses, and adhered to } H ^, the safe blockade which, he thought, would in the end 1751. P U H nim through. Yet, even in this course, he showed singular blind- ness, and extraordinary deficiency in even the ordinary arrangements of his camp. The Dalwai of Maisur, encouraged by the resistance which TrichinapalH was making, and by the diversion of Clive, had sent a detachment of 500 cavalry to harass the besiegers. These not only defeated a small body of native horse, but were even successful, thanks to the want of order and arrangement in the French camp, and of spirit and enterprise on the part of the French leader, in entrapping sixty French dragoons into an ambuscade, and in destroying all but ten of that number. They were so encouraged by this success, that their leader, Innis Khan, proposed to Captain Gingens that he should march out with his English, and attack the united army of the besiegers. If Gingens would do this, and would undertake with his troops to engage the French, he promised, on his part, to encounter the entire cavalry of Chanda Sahib, though outnumbering his own in the proportion of twelve to one. This was at first declined. But on receiving a reinforcement of 1,000 men, Innis Khan renewed his proposition. Captain Gingens being still unwilling, the Dalwai did not hesitate to tell him that he and his soldiers were of a very different nature from the men he had seen fighting so gallantly at Arkat * Captain Gingens was apparently confirmed in his objection to active measures by the ill-success of a small force he had detached against the little town of Krishnawaram, thirty miles from TrichinapalH, occupied by the French, — the force having been repulsed with some loss, and their leader, Captain Cope, mortally wounded. Thanks, then, to the incompetence of his opponent,
 * Orme.