The first severe shock sustained by the arms of Britain in the East was given by the gallant Lally in person. Sensible of the importance of such a place as Conjeveram, which with the fort of Chingelpel, commanded all the adjacent country and secured the British conquests to the northward, he marched towards Major Brereton, and took up a strong position at Vandivash. There he cantoned his troops until the month of September, when Brereton, on receiving 300 men under Major Gordon, from Colonel Coote's Bengalese force, resolved on beating up the French in their quarters. Accordingly, on the 14th March he advanced from Conjeveram, at the head of 400 European infantry, 7000 sepoys, seventy European and 300 native horsemen, with fourteen pieces of artillery.
After capturing the fort of Trivitar, he advanced against the village of Vandivash, where Lally, although still struggling with a severe illness, had formed a strong intrenched camp, the lines of which were protected by a redoubt commanded by a rajah, and mounted with twenty pieces of cannon worked by Indians, under the directions of a single French cannonier.
At two on the morning of the 30th September the British attacked the village on three points, and on all with equal fury and determination. The French infantry, 1000 strong, made a spirited resistance; and the moment daylight broke, the guns of the rajah poured a storm of grape-shot upon the ranks of the enemy.
Lally did all that ability and gallantry could inspire to animate his troops; but being deserted by his black pioneers, who (like those of Brereton) fled at the moment of attack, the French were discouraged, and retired beyond a deep dry ditch, from whence the regiments of Lally and Lorraine made a succession of desperate sallies on the British, until, seeing that the column of Anglo-Indian horse were watching for an opportunity to fall upon his flanks, Lally, to preserve his little force from utter ruin, brought up his reserve to cover the retreat, and fell back, after the loss of many gallant chevaliers and 400 soldiers. Brereton and Gordon remained encamped in sight of the fort for some days; but the approach of the rainy season compelled them to retire into Conjeveram.
The Fort of Vandivash was afterwards garrisoned by French and sepoys, while another column of King Louis's troops assembled in Arcot, under Brigadier-General the Marquis de Bussy, who endeavoured to levy as many sepoys as possible. These native troops, whose now familiar name is derived from Sepahe, the Indian word for a feudatory chief or military tenant, have ever made excellent soldiers, having an inborn predilection for arms. The success at Vandivash, for giving the British even a check was now deemed almost equal to a victory, made Lally conceive the idea of besieging Trinchinopoli; but again the folly or the treachery of the naval Chef d'Escadre baffled his intentions.
After having a third engagement with the British fleet on the 4th September, when with eleven ships of the line he was as usual defeated by Admiral Pocock with nine, the Count d'Aché, on the 17th, reached the roads of Pondicherry, from whence he wrote to the Count de Lally, then in position before Vandivash, offering to place at his disposal, for the king's service, 800,000 livres in piastres and diamonds, being the plunder of a British ship which he had taken at sea, and which he begged the lieutenant-general to receive as part payment of the two millions so improperly detained in the preceding year at the Isle of France. He concluded his dispatch by a notification that on the following day, the 18th September, he would sail towards Madagascar.
At this time, when British valour was bearing all before it; when the powerful fortress of Karical (which the King of Tanjowar had ceded to France in 1739) was about to fall, and he lost, with all the fertile district around it; when the united fleets of Admirals Pocock, K.B., and Sir Samuel Cornish were sweeping along the shores of the Carnatic, reducing many places of minor importance, and by their cannon everywhere beating down the Fleur-de-lys of France; when Colonel Eyre Coote was pressing the French and their allies along the frontier of Bengal, and when the Prince of Vizanapore and other native rajahs were in open revolt against King Louis,—the announcement of the Chef d'Escadre filled the colonists with fear and confusion. Indignant and exasperated, Lally would have left the camp and sought Count d'Aché in person; but at that crisis, being so reduced by sickness that he could not quit his bed, he sent a deputation of field officers to represent the necessity of his remaining in the immediate vicinity of the Carnatic coast; of his co-operating with the land forces, and conjuring him by all means to suspend the execution of a design so pregnant with disaster to the Indian interests of his Most Christian Majesty. But nothing that these officers could urge, or their united eloquence suggest, would avert the fatal purpose of the Count d'Aché, who put to sea, and once more left the disheartened soldiers of King Louis to their fate.
Immediately upon this Lally assembled the Council and drew up a solemn PROTEST against the unaccountable conduct and sudden departure of the Chef d'Escadre and his fleet, proclaiming that he—and he alone—would be responsible if Pondicherry, the capital of French India, with all its territory fell into the hands of the British army and revolted rajahs. The "protest" was dated on the 17th of September, 1759, and was unanimously signed in the Hall of Fort Lewis, at Pondicherry, by Lally himself and the following gentlemen:—
"Duval de Leyrit, Renaut, Barthelmy, Chevalier des Soupirs, Michael Lally, Bussy, Du Bois, Carrière, Verdières, Duré, Gaddeville, Du Passage, Beausset, Renaut, De la Salle, Guillart, Porcher, Père Dominique, Capucin Prêtre de la Paroisse de Notre Dame des Anges, F.S. Lavacier, Supérieur Général des Jesuites Français dans les Indes, L. Rathon, Supérieur Général des Missions Etrangères, Poitier de Lorme, Duchatel, Audouart, Aimar, Combaut d'Authenil, Goupil, Keisses, J.C. Bon, De Wilst, Banal, Rauly, Termelin, Sainte Paul, J.B. Launay, Deshayes, Fischer, Du Laurent, Audager du Petit Val, D'Arcy, Medin, Dioré, Bertrand, Legris, Miran, Bourville, F. Nicolas, Du Plan, De Laval, Borée, D. l'Arché, Bayelleon de Guillette."
The count had already sailed; but strong currents and adverse winds, however, met his fleet, which was driven far to the north; thus the protest of Lally overtook him at sea. Influenced by its tenor, he returned to Pondicherry, and after remaining one week in the roadstead, again departed for his favourite island of Madagascar, and for sixteen months Lally and his soldiers heard no more of him.