Page:History of the French in India.djvu/516

 490 CHANDRANAGATfc AND THE DAKHAN. chap, chery. As, however, the city was in itself too extensive XL to be defended by so small a force, he took post in the 175G. plain bordering the viceregal garden of Char Mahall, a walled enclosnre abont 500 yards square in the northern suburb, separated from the city by the bed of the river Musi. This garden contained buildings capable of lodging his soldiers, it had a tank in its centre, and Bussy had well supplied it with provisions. It is a signal proof of the influence he possessed with the natives of the city, that, before even he entered it, when the governor had notified everywhere his own hostility to the French, and when it was known he was being hunted out of the province by order of the Subadar, he was able to raise from the native bankers, on his own credit, a sufficient sum to settle the arrears of his army, and even to have a supply in hand. It deserves to be noted, that upon his sipahis, even thus early, he found he could place little dependence, for they began, after his arrival at Haidarabad, to desert him in great numbers. Bussy, nevertheless, remained in the open plain referred to, continually skirmishing with the enemy, whose detach- ments arrived fifteen clays after him, till he had com- pleted his arrangements regarding the Char Mahall. He then moved into it, but slightly molested, on July 5. Four clays after Bussy's entry into the Char Mahall, Jafar Ali and the bulk of his army arrived, and for the following five weeks Bussy was exposed to their inces- sant attacks. His sipahis almost entirely abandoned him. Shah Nawaz Khan had hired a native soldier of fortune, one Muzaffar Beg — who in previous campaigns had commanded the sipahis under Bussy, and who had ob- tained over them very great influence — to debauch them from their allegiance. He succeeded only too well ; on the occasion of every sortie, whole bodies of them went over to the enemy. Their conduct at length determined Bussy, notwithstanding that he had gained several bril-