Page:History of the French in India.djvu/554

 528 THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. 9^ P - troops, and the obstacles thrown in his way upon every .- — * occasion, had affected the disposition of Lally to such 1758. an extent, that, from the moment of his entering into the Tanjur territory, he began to indulge in acts of harsh and unreasoning severity, most detrimental to his cause. He plundered the town of Nagar, ransacked all the Brahman temples he met with on his route, and finding six Brahmans lingering about his camp, he blew them away from guns. Such was the license he al- lowed his army, and so wide was the terror caused by his approach, that we cannot wonder that he should have written that he met with scarcely an inhabitant on his route, and that the country through which he marched was "like a barren desert."* At length, on July 18th, the French army found itself close to Tanjur. Lally had previously sent a re- quisition to the raja requiring payment of the fifty- five lakhs of rupees, but to this he had received an evasive reply, it being the object of the raja to delay him until assistance could be obtained from the Eng- lish. In the negotiations that followed it is probable that Lally might eventually have reaped some advan- tage had he conducted himself with ordinary prudence. But the violence of his temper ruined him. When he had brought the raja to an undertaking to pay five lakhs and the value of three or four lakhs in the shape of supplies, his suspicions induced him to regard an accidental failure in the fulfilment of one of the stipulations into a deliberate breach of faith. Com- pletely carried away by his violence, he at once sent the raja a message in which he threatened to transport him and all his family as slaves to the Isle of France. This was too great an indignity to be endured, and the raja, supported by the promises of the English and some trained sipahis sent him by Captain Calliaud from TrichinapalH, bade defiance to his enemy. Lally upon
 * Memoire pour Lally page 67.