an attack on the French settlement of Mahé, contiguous to his own possessions on the western coast, as equivalent to an attack upon himself. The English notwithstanding took Mahé and endeavoured apparently to pacify the ruler of Mysore by sending to him ambassadors charged with presents. These latter were however little calculated to produce such an effect. They consisted of a pigskin saddle and a rifle which it was found impossible to load, Haidar returned them with contempt, and prepared for war.
His first efforts in the autumn were eminently successful. Outmanœuvring the English general, Munro, he defeated and took prisoners (9th and 10th September, 1780) a detachment of 3720 men, of whom upwards of 500 were Europeans, under the command of Colonel Baillie, at Perambákam. He then captured Arcot and some minor places.
But the ruler of Mysore had not been unmindful of the French alliance. Early in the year he had intimated to the representatives of that nation in India his determination to strike a decisive blow at their rivals, — a blow which must be fatal, if the French would only sufficiently aid him. But the ministers of Louis XVI. were not alive to the importance of the stake to be played for. In that year, when England was engaged in a life and death struggle with her own children in America, a fleet under Suffren and 3000 men under a skilled leader such as De Boigne, would have sufficed to clear of her rivals the whole country south of the
