Page:History of the French in India.djvu/483

 HOSTILITIES RECOMMENCE. 457 of 1756, accompanied, however, by the intimation that CI ^ P - France was about to make a tremendous effort to recover her waning influence in India, and that he was 1757. to attempt nothing till the armament then fitting out should arrive. But de Leyrit, knowing that the few English troops in the Presidency were occupied before Madura and Nellor, having himself, too, just welcomed the annual detachment from Europe, under the com- mand of the veteran d'Auteuil, thought the moment too opportune to be neglected. On the 6th April, therefore, he despatched 200 Europeans and 1,000 sipahis into the interior, having given secret instructions to their com- mander, d'Auteuil, to feign to be entirely occupied by an attack upon the fort of Elvasanur — a few miles north of the river Panar, and on the high road between Jinji and Trichinapalli — and other strongholds in its vicinity, whilst he should secretly collect all his forces for a combined attack upon the city which had so long bid defiance to French arms. De Leyrit justly argued that the English, engaged with their own plans, would care little about so unimportant a place as Elvasanur ; that they would the rather on that account believe that no intention existed to attack Trichinapalli. It turned out as de Leyrit had imagined. D'Auteuil was allowed, unmolested, even unsuspected, to capture Elvasanur and other places in its vicinity. His action there tended, as de Leyrit had hoped, to make the English feel all the more secure regarding Trichinapalli. Suddenly, however, d'Auteuil massed his forces, amounting to 1,150 Europeans, 3,000 sipahis, and ten field-pieces, and on the 12th May occupied the island of Srirangam. To enable him to collect so large a force of Europeans not a single soldier fit for duty had been left in Pondichery. The garrison of Trichinapalli at this time consisted of but 165 Europeans, 700 sipahis, and 1,000 native auxiliaries, the whole commanded by Captain Joseph