Page:History of the French in India.djvu/487

 GENERAL FAILURE OP THE FRENCH. 461 challenged. The course followed by d'Auteuil after chap. this check was not inspired by greater wisdom than his previous strategy. It is, however, always useless to en- 1757. deavour to analyse the motives of a man who is himself incapable of thinking. Had he been other than he was, d'Auteuil would have recollected that notwith- standing the reinforcement brought by Calliaud, he still outnumbered the English with his Frenchmen by four to one. But it would not appear that such a thought occurred to him. Utterly discouraged, he crossed the Kavari the same evening, and proceeded next day to Pondichery.* Meanwhile the Madras authorities, not trusting en- tirely to the efforts of Calliaud, had ordered every avail- able man into the field. These, forming a force of 430 Europeans and 800 sepahis under Colonel Adlercron, had already reached and captured Uttamatur when they heard of the relief of Trichinapalli. As the French garrison of Uttamatur had thrown itself into Wandi- wash, one of the most important towns in the Karnatik, sixty-four miles south-west of Madras, Colonel Adler- cron marched forward with the apparent intention of besieging that also. Meanwhile, de Leyrit had been neither unskilfully nor unsuccessfully employed hr other parts of the coast. No sooner had the news of the fall of Chandranagar — the account of which will appear in its proper place — reached him, than he ordered Moracin to take possession of the English factories on the Godavari, and sent instructions to Bussy to attack that of Vizagapatam. Both these offi- cers acquitted themselves of this service without any difficulty — the garrison of Vizagapatam surrendering to Bussy on June 25. Whilst thus satisfying himself regard- ing his territories in the north, by a policy which gave him uninterrupted possession of the coast from Ganjam to
 * Vide Oime and Lawrence.