Page:History of the French in India.djvu/420

 394 THE FALL OF DUPLEIX. chap, native allies, dependent solely on his Europeans, and „ -, well aware that the capture of the Golden Rock, from 1753. which they were but a mile distant, by the French, was alone wanting to insure his ruin. Such was the position. It will be patent to all that it only remained for the English leader to await with what calmness he could, command the attack of the French. After some days' mingled dread and expectation it came. On the morning of the 7th July, watching the moment when a large number of the English sipahis had been detached to receive their rations, Astruc sent forward a select body of his grenadiers and best sipahis to attack the Golden Rock, whilst he himself supported their onslaught with his whole army. The advanced party moving with the dash and celerity peculiar to French soldiers, clambered up the heights, and after a vigorous resistance carried the post, Meanwhile Lawrence, who was in camp, had no sooner noticed the movements of the enemy against the rock, than he hastily collected all his available force, amounting then to 420 Europeans and 500 sipahis, and hastened to support his men on the rock. So much time, however, had been lost in turning out, that he had scarcely covered half the distance between his camp and the rock, before the position had been carried by the French. Scarcely, too, had he endured the mortifi- cation of seeing the flag of France waving over its summit, when the fire of the French artillery from either flank of the base of the rock, showed him that the whole force of the enemy had arrived to repel any attack that might be made to recover it. The loss of the rock and the extraordinary danger of his own position, became evident to the mind of Lawrence at one and the same moment. What was he to do % To retire was to expose himself to almost certain destruction, for his retreat would be harassed and impeded by the crowds of Maratha horsemen who