Dupleix, on learning the situation of affairs at Trichinopoly, had detached a party of seven hundred men under Monsieur D'Autueil, who had orders to proceed to Seringham and take the command from M. Law, with whose conduct the French governor was much dissatisfied. The utmost importance was attached to intercepting this body of men; and Clive, on learning their arrival at Utatore, and that it was D'Autueil's intention to attempt the junction by a circuitous route, marched to oppose him, leaving a small part of his force to guard his post at Semiaveram; but on finding that D'Autueil, alarmed at his approach, had hastened back to Utatore, he lost no time in returning. M. Law, who heard of his leaving his post, but not of his return, detached[57], as soon as it was dark, a corps of eighty Europeans, and seven hundred sepoys, to attack the few troops he imagined to be remaining at Samiaveram. Of these men forty were English deserters. The extraordinary events which followed cannot be better related than in the words of the historian[58] to whom we have so often referred.
"The party arrived near the camp at midnight, when one of their spies informed the commanding officer, that the troops which had marched against M. D'Autueil had returned; but he, imputing the information either to cowardice or treachery, gave no credit to the spy, and proceeded; they were challenged by the advanced guard of English sepoys, on which the officer of the deserters, an Irishman, stept out and told them, that he was sent by Major Lawrence to reinforce Captain Clive: and the rest of the deserters, speaking English likewise, confirmed the assertion, and persuaded the sepoys so fully, that they omitted the usual precaution of asking the counter-word, which would certainly have discovered the stratagem, and sent one of their body to conduct the enemy to the head-quarters. They continued their march through a part of the Mahratta camp, without giving or receiving any disturbance, until they came to the lesser pagoda. Here they were challenged by the sentinels, and by others posted in a neighbouring choultry to the north of it, in which Captain Clive lay asleep. They returned the challenge by a volley into each place, and immediately entered the pagoda, putting all they met to the sword. Captain Clive, starting out of his sleep, and not conceiving it possible that the enemy could have advanced into the centre of his camp, imputed the firing to his own sepoys alarmed by some attack at the outskirts; he, however, ran to the upper pagoda, where the greatest part of his Europeans were quartered, who, having likewise taken the alarm, were under arms; and he immediately returned with two hundred of them to the choultry. Here he now discovered a large body of sepoys drawn up, facing the south, and firing at random. Their position, which looked to the enemy's encampment, joined to their confusion, confirmed him in his conjecture, that they were his own troops who had taken some unnecessary alarm. In this supposition, he drew up his Europeans within twenty yards of their rear, and then, going alone amongst them, ordered them to cease, upbraiding some with the panic he supposed them to have taken, and even striking others: at length, one of the sepoys, who understood a little of the French language, discovering that he was an Englishman, attacked and wounded him in two places with his sword; but, finding himself overpowered, ran away to the lower pagoda. Captain Clive, exasperated at this insolence from a man whom he imagined to be in his own service, followed him to the gate, where, to his great surprise, he was accosted by six Frenchmen. His usual presence of mind did not fail him on this critical occasion, but, suggesting to him all that had happened, he told the Frenchmen with great composure, that he was come to offer them terms, and if they would look out they would perceive the pagoda surrounded with his whole army, who were determined to give no quarter if any resistance were made. The firmness with which these words were delivered made such an impression, that three of the Frenchmen ran into the pagoda to carry this intelligence, whilst the other three surrendered their arms to Captain Clive, and followed him towards the choultry, whither he hastened, intending to order the Europeans to attack the body of sepoys, whom he now first knew to be his enemies; but these had already discovered the danger of their situation, and had marched out of the reach of the Europeans, who, imagining that they did this in obedience to Captain Clive's orders, made no motion to interrupt or attack them. Soon after, eight Frenchmen, who had been sent from the pagoda to reconnoitre, fell in with the English troops and were made prisoners; and these, with the other three whom Captain Clive had taken, were delivered to the charge of a serjeant's party, who, not knowing, in the time of darkness and confusion, that the enemy were in possession of the lower pagoda, carried them thither, and, on delivering them to the guard, found out their error; but such was also the confusion of the French in the pagoda, that they suffered the serjeant and his party to return unmolested. The rest of the English troops had now joined the others, and Captain Clive, imagining that the enemy would never have attempted so desperate an enterprise without supporting it with their whole army, deemed it absolutely necessary to storm the pagoda, before the troops who were in it could receive any assistance. One of the two folding-doors of the gateway had for some time been taken down to be repaired, and the other was strongly stapled down, so that the remaining part of the entrance would admit only two men abreast. The English soldiers made the attack, and continued it for some time with great resolution; but the deserters within fought desperately, and killed an officer and fifteen men, on which the attack was ordered to cease till daybreak; and, in the mean time, such a disposition was made as might prevent those in the pagoda from escaping, and at the same time oppose any other body which might come to their relief. At daybreak the commanding officer of the French, seeing the danger of his situation, made a sally at the head of his men, who received so heavy a fire, that he himself, with twelve others who first came out of the gateway, were killed by the volley; on which the rest ran back to the pagoda. Captain Clive then advanced into the porch of the gate, to parley with the enemy; and, being weak with the loss of blood and fatigue, stood with his back to the wall of the porch, and leaned, stooping forward, on the shoulders of two serjeants. The officer of the English deserters presented himself with great insolence, and, telling Captain Clive, with abusive language, that he would shoot him, fired his musket. The ball missed him, but went through the bodies of both the serjeants on whom he was leaning, and they both fell mortally[59] wounded. The Frenchmen had hitherto defended the pagoda, in compliance with the English deserters; but, thinking it necessary to disavow such an outrage, which might exclude them from any pretensions to quarter, their officer immediately surrendered. By this time, the body of the enemy's sepoys had passed out of the camp, with as little interruption as they had entered it: but orders having been sent to the Mahrattas to pursue them, Innis-Khan, with all his men, mounted at daybreak, and came up with them in the open plain, before they gained the bank of the Coleroon. The sepoys no sooner perceived them, than they flung away their arms, and attempted to save themselves by dispersing; but the Mahrattas, who never figure so much as in these cruel exploits, exerted themselves with such activity, that, according to their own report, not a single man of seven hundred escaped alive: it is certain that none ever appeared to contradict this assertion. Besides the escapes already mentioned, Captain Clive had another which was not discovered until the hurry of the day was over, when it was found that the volley, which the enemy fired into the choultry where he was sleeping, had shattered a box that lay under his feet, and killed a servant who lay close to him."
The mistakes of the night at Samiaveram were of a character more likely to be created by the imagination of a dramatic poet, to give incident and spirit to the sudden change of scene and action, than to take place in real military operations; but no occurrence of his life called forth in a more remarkable degree that quickness of perception and that calm self-possession for which Clive was distinguished.
Major Lawrence, not wishing to hazard again the important post of Samiaveram, sent a party of four hundred sepoys, five hundred Mahratta horse, and four field-pieces, under Captain Dalton, to watch the movements of Monsieur d'Autueil, who still remained at Utatore. The French outposts were driven back in the dusk of the evening; and the English, having been divided into two bodies, moved on the flanks of the line with the hopes of deceiving them into a belief that it was the whole of Clive's force which had come to assail them. The stratagem succeeded. D'Autueil not only drew his troops within the walls of the village, but evacuated it next morning, and retreated to Volcondah, leaving to Captain Dalton's corps the ammunition and supplies he had brought for the troops at Seringham. M. Law, who observed from the top of the pagoda at Seringham the movement of Captain Dalton's detachment, mistook it for that of Clive, and marched upon Samiaveram; but when he found the whole body of the English stationed there drawn up to receive him, he fell back on his position.
The detachment from Trichinopoly had received orders to return, but a sudden swelling of the Coleroon rendered that impracticable. Clive determined to take advantage of the state of the river to attack the French post of Pitchandah, on its northern bank, which M. Law could not now succour. Captain Dalton, being informed of his resolution, and not wishing to interfere with his command, immediately placed his corps under Clive's orders, and requested to be employed as a volunteer![60] A higher testimony to acknowledged superiority of character cannot be adduced than this temporary resignation of the claims of senior rank by a gallant and able officer, and that at the very moment when he was flushed with the success of the service on which he had been detached.
The camp of Chunda Sahib, near Seringham, was on the south bank of the Coleroon, opposite to Pitchandah. Clive, in order to annoy the enemy and to cover his operations against that place, converted into a six-gun battery a high mound on the north bank of the river, which had been raised to prevent its encroachment on the low land.[61] This mound completely commanded the enemy's camp[62], and was at the same time protected from the guns at Pitchandah. The disorder created by the opening of this battery was great; men, women, children, elephants, camels, horses, and bullocks were instantly seen in disordered flight from this unexpected danger, hastening to the banks of the river, which they were, however, forced to quit by the guns of Trichinopoly, and at last found shelter by forming an encampment out of reach of the English cannon, and at some distance from the pagoda of Seringham.
This operation upon the most defenceless part of the enemy's force probably produced more effect upon the minds of the allies of the French, than any of the more substantial successes of the war. The native armies of India are kept together by very loose ties: the strongest of these are the expectations which princes can hold out, to the chiefs that serve them, of future pay and reward—as these diminish or increase, their attachment ebbs or flows; but they seldom despair of a cause, till reverses so materially affect the safety of their numerous armed and unarmed followers, that they can no longer keep them together. The feelings of the latter have an extraordinary influence upon success; for as the chief receives little, if any, pay from the prince, he must support himself by loans from bankers and merchants residing in his camp, while his soldiers owe the food by which they are supported to the credit given them by the dealers in the bazaar. This reciprocal expectation and confidence is seldom shaken by any danger that is not close at hand. The bulk of the soldiers and camp followers are amused or deceived by false or exaggerated reports; but the incontrovertible proof which an attack like that of Clive gave, of their prince and his allies not being able to protect them, spread alarm through all ranks; and that alarm was soon rendered irremediable by the fall of Pitchandah.