by the uncertainty and distraction of what and where succours were to be sent. Mr. Lally, with a guard of horse, remained at the bridge of Oulgarry. Calculation had been made, when all the troops would arrive within equal reach of their respective attacks, where they were to wait in silence for the signal of two sky-rockets, which were to be thrown up at Oulgarry, when all were to advance to the attacks allotted them.
The sky-rockets were shot off a little before midnight, and soon after the firing commenced nearly at the same time, at the tamarind redoubt, the hillock, and at the retrenchment in the avenue of Oulgarry. The attack at the tamarind redoubt was repulsed; but the redoubt on the hillock was carried; the lieutenant of the artillery and three gunners were made prisoners there, and the rest of the guard driven out, nor did they rally; which gave the enemy time to carry off a brass three-pounder, destroy the carriage of another gun, spike up a third, and burn down the battery. At the retrenchment in the Oulgarry road, the attack and defence were more fierce. Colonel Coote himself brought down troops to that in the Villenore avenue and Barthelmi's garden, and, instead of waiting to be attacked, advanced across to sustain the other redoubt; against which Lorrain and Lally's persisted until eight Serjeants, besides common men, of Lally's, were killed; when the officers, hearing no signs of the main attack on the right and rear of the English camp, drew off. This division, by some unaccountable mistake, instead of advancing to the villages under the fort of Villenore, halted in another a mile to the south of it, not far from the river, and in a line with the village of Oulgarry. At this erroneous distance, they had not time, after the sky-rockets were fired, to reach the ground of their attack, before the three others were either repulsed or ceased. They were led by D'Harambure, who had always behaved hitherto with gallantry, and especially during the march of Mr. Law's reinforcement to Hyderabad in 1756; but Mr. Lally, with the usual severity of his prejudices, imputed the failure to a design, as the commander of the Company's troops, of frustrating the honour which would have redounded on himself, had the hardly effort
