April 26 May 7.
April 28 May 9.
June 2 13 .
After this repulse the toils closed rapidly round the French in Seringham. On the 7th of May Lawrence captured the fort of Coilady together with all the stores therein and cut off Law from communication with the east; and after this little remained to be done except to dispose of D'Auteuil, who still lingered at Uttatoor waiting for an opportunity to effect a junction with Law. On the 9th of May Lawrence detached Captain Dalton with five hundred Europeans and Sepoys and as many Mahratta horse to oust him; a task which Dalton accomplished by making such a display of his force that D'Auteuil, conceiving Clive's whole army to be upon him, retreated after a faint resistance to Volconda. In the course of the next few days Clive captured an important post which severed Law's communications with the north and commanded the camp of Seringham. Thereupon the greater part of Chunda Sahib's army deserted, some of the men even taking service with Clive. Shortly afterwards the British crossed the Cauvery and established themselves on the island of Seringham itself, hemming the French in closer and closer. Then D'Auteuil, roused by the desperate state of his comrade, took courage and again moved southward from Volconda. Clive was at once despatched with a force to Uttatoor to meet him; but D'Auteuil's heart again failed him when he arrived within seven miles of that position, and he retreated hastily towards Volconda. He was not, however, to escape thus easily. Clive at once pushed forward the Mahrattas to harass him on the march; his Sepoys, veterans of Arcot, marched their swiftest after the Mahrattas and opened the attack by themselves; and last of all the British, who had been unable to keep pace with the Sepoys, arrived at the scene of action, when D'Auteuil, seeing resistance to be hopeless, surrendered. His force consisted of but one hundred Europeans and less than eight hundred Sepoys and natives, of whom the latter were at once disarmed and released. Thus vanished Law's last hope of relief. Chunda Sahib in vain urged him to make a sally against the divided forces of the British, and to cut his way out to Carical. Law would not move. On the 13th of June he surrendered; and eight hundred French troops and two thousand Sepoys became prisoners of war, while forty-one pieces of artillery passed into the hands of the victors. A few days later Chunda Sahib, who had made terms of surrender for himself, was treacherously assassinated by order of the Tanjorine General, and his head was sent to his successful rival, Mohammed Ali. Thus for the present ended the long agony of the contest for Trichinopoly. To all appearance Dupleix was really beaten at last; but his resources were not yet exhausted, and the last battle had not yet been fought before the city on the Cauvery.
[CHAPTER III]
1752.
June 7 18 .
No sooner was the victory gained at Trichinopoly than the Nabob Mohammed Ali and his allies the Mysoreans and Mahrattas fell at variance over the division of the spoil. This complication, which was due in great measure to the intrigues of Dupleix, thoroughly answered his purpose; for the British, who had marched northward as far as Uttatoor to prosecute the campaign in the Carnatic, found themselves obliged to return to Trichinopoly. Finally two hundred Englishmen and two thousand Sepoys under Captain Dalton were left in the city to keep the peace; the Mahrattas and Mysoreans still keeping their former position to westward of the city, and occupying, by leave of Mohammed Ali, the pagoda which formed the strongest post on the island of Seringham. The remainder of the British army then resumed its march to northward, but with all hope of future operations frustrated by this untoward diminution of its strength. Advancing by Volconda and Verdachelum Lawrence on the 17th of July took Trivady, which was held by a small party of French Sepoys, and there left the army, to return to Fort St. David on sick-leave. Clive had already proceeded thither for the same reason, and the British force was left under the command of Major Gingen, an officer of tried incapacity.
Meanwhile Dupleix's activity had never ceased. While the native confederates were quarrelling over the success at Trichinopoly the annual reinforcement of troops arrived from France, and these, by dint of taking sailors from the ships, he increased to a strength of five hundred European soldiers. This done he waited only for an opportunity for retrieving the reputation of the French arms. Such an opportunity soon came. Yielding to the fanciful representations of Mohammed Ali, but contrary to the wishes of Lawrence, Governor Saunders ordered Gingen to detach a portion of his force against the fortress of Gingee. Gingen accordingly told off two hundred Europeans, fifteen hundred Sepoys and six hundred native cavalry for the task, the command being entrusted to Major Kinnear, an officer only recently arrived from Europe and wholly without experience of India. What the object of such an enterprise can have been it is difficult to divine. Gingee, it is true, was above all fortresses in India bound up with the glory of France, and its capture would therefore have dealt a blow at French military reputation; but Gingee, held by trained troops under an European commander, was not to be taken again as Bussy had taken it, when defended by undisciplined natives only. Kinnear on approaching the fortress perceived his task to be hopeless, and while still hesitating as to his movements found that Dupleix had moved a French force, under command of his nephew, M. Kerjean, in his rear, to cut off his communications with Trivady. Nothing daunted Kinnear faced about and attacked Kerjean, but was repulsed with heavy loss; and the native princes, finding their faith in the invincibility of the British thus disappointed, began again to veer round to the side of the French. Most opportunely also for himself Dupleix received at this time the confirmation from Delhi of his appointment of Nabob of the country south of the Kistnah. With his usual cleverness he selected Raju Sahib, the son of Chunda Sahib, to hold the post subject to himself, thus reasserting himself as Dupleix the king-maker. Strengthened by this accession of dignity he renewed his intrigues with the Mysoreans and Mahrattas, who engaged themselves to embrace the side of the French if Dupleix would find means to distract the principal British army from Trichinopoly and leave them free to do what they would with the city. Dupleix accordingly as a first step reinforced Kerjean to a strength of two thousand trained men, one-fourth of them Europeans, and five hundred native horse, and sent him to blockade Fort St. David and cut its communications with Trichinopoly.
Aug. 17 28 .
Aug. 26 Sept. 6.
Lawrence on learning of this movement at once embarked from Fort St. David for Madras, and marched from thence with a force nearly equal to Kerjean's to attack him. Kerjean, however, fell back, closely followed by Lawrence, until he was within a league of Pondicherry and on French soil, where Lawrence's instructions forbade him to take aggressive action. Lawrence thereupon, as though in dread of a regular engagement, retreated with precipitation to Bahoor, two miles from Fort St. David, in the hope that Kerjean would pursue him. Kerjean and his master Dupleix with him both fell into the snare; and the French force advancing in pursuit of the British encamped within two miles of Bahoor. At three o'clock on the following morning the British force marched off to attack him, the Sepoys seventeen hundred strong in the first line, the English four hundred strong in the second, while four hundred native horse advanced parallel to them on the farther side of a high bank which ran from the right of Lawrence's position to the French camp. A little before dawn the British Sepoys struck against the French outposts and skirmished with them until daylight, when the battalion of French soldiers, stronger by fifty men than that of the British, was discovered drawn up between the bank and a large pond. The British halted to extend their front to equal that of the French, a French battery of eight guns playing upon them vigorously as they executed the movement, and then advanced firing, platoon after platoon. Closer and closer they came, still firing; but the French never shrank for a moment until, rarest of rare incidents, the bayonets crossed and the two battalions engaged each other fiercely hand to hand. At length, however, a company of British grenadiers, the choicest troops in India, forced its way though the French centre; upon which the whole of the French gave way, flung down their arms and fled. Had the native cavalry then charged as they were bidden they would utterly have annihilated Kerjean's troops, but according to their custom they preferred to plunder the French camp. The loss of the French in killed and wounded is unknown, but Kerjean himself with fifteen other officers and one hundred men were taken prisoners. The British battalion lost four officers and seventy-eight men killed and wounded, a sufficient proof of the stubbornness of the fight.