Page:History of the French in India.djvu/338

 314 THE STRUGGLES OF DUPLFJX WITH ADVETtSTTY. char hotter than any till then experienced on the plains of vn Southern India, the French retreated to their rock with a loss on their part of 40 men, on the part of their native allies of 300. Had not Major Lawrence, in considera- tion of the intense heat of the day, stopped the pursuit, they would have suffered far more severely.* Having- repulsed this attack, the English marched without molestation into Trichinapalli. No language can paint the anger and mortification of Dupleix when intelligence of these events reached him. This then was the result of confiding the conduct of an army to a man whose principal credentials con- sisted in the super-excellent opinion, which, he allowed all the world to perceive, he had formed of his own abilities. All his recommendations had been disre- garded, inordinate caution had prevailed when the necessities of the hour peculiarly required dashing and daring tactics, and the English army, though en- cumbered by an enormous convoy, had been allowed to enter the beleaguered city virtually unmolested, — no serious attempt having been made to hinder them till they were under the walls of Trichinapalli ! Was it for such a result that Dupleix had schemed and planned, that he had pledged the rising fortunes of French India to the support of native princes who should be but the puppets of France % Was it to see the superiority in the field passing from his hands to the hands of his hated rivals, to witness not only the loss of the capital of the Karnatik, but a repulse from the last refuge of Muhammad Ali % He was fated indeed to suffer disap- pointments more bitter even than these. But, up to the present moment, he had been so thoroughly buoyed up by hope ; he had trusted that when the time came Law would show himself what he had always boasted himself to be ; above all, he had counted so implicitly on the cover, lost fourteen men only from struck down by the sun.— Orme.
 * The English, who fought under the cannonade, seven however were