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 WAR WITH HAIDAR ALT 21

hills was so thin that they could not make trenches, but were obliged to advance under cover of a wall of gabions, and to fill them they had to bring earth from the plain below. They met many large fragments of rock in their way. They undermined some, and rolled them down the hill ; and those they could not manage they avoided by making a sweep round them. In three weeks they had got the better of all these obstacles, and raised a battery, which in a few days demohshed one of the angles of the fort. They at the same time raised another on an eminence which overlooked the place ; and the garrison, having only a few small guns, could neither return their fire, nor show themselves in the daytime. They laboured hard during the night in cutting ofi*the ruined angle, by a deep trench with a breastwork behind it. On the night of the loth of January, the enemy, headed by Muhammad Ali in person, made two attacks, and in both were repulsed with great loss.

' It was surprising that Haidar, after raising the siege of Vellore, did not hasten to engage the English army before it was reinforced. Had he been so inclined, he had time enough to have overtaken it, as it lay three days at Wandiwash. Perhaps the high military char- acter of General Coote made him doubtful of success. . ..

'Whilst General Coote carried on this petty war about Cuddalore, Haidar made himself master of Ambur ^ and Thiagur ^ in the Karnatik : and of all

^ Ambiir in North Arcot, now a railway station, H2 miles west of Madras. ^ Thiagadrug in South Arcot.