Page:History of the French in India.djvu/481

THE ENGLISH COERCE MURTIZ ALL 455 fortress in the upper Karnatik. Its walls were built of chap. large stones, and were strengthened by bastions and towers. It was surrounded by a deep and wide ditch 175c cut out of the rock, and always filled with water swarming with alligators. It commanded the high road to Maisur, and was in other respects a very im- portant position. De Leyrit would have been weak indeed had he allowed such a place to fall into the hands of the English. Nor did he. No sooner then had he heard of the movements of Kilpatrick than he despatched a messenger to Madras to intimate that he would regard an attack upon Vellur as an infraction of the treaty, and that he should oppose it with all his* available force. Not content with that, he ordered 300 Europeans and 300 sipahis to march instantly in the direction of that fortress, supporting them two days later by a reinforcement of 400 of the former and 1,200 of the latter, the whole taking up a position between Jinji and Chittapet. This demonstration so far succeeded that it prevented an attack upon Vellur. There was no Dupleix, however, at Pondichery to im- prove the occasion to the advantage of France ; no persuasive eloquence to induce Murtiza Ali to admit French troops into Vellur. That chieftain feared his allies probably as much as his enemies; and after a negotiation of three weeks, he was glad to purchase the retirement of the latter by the payment of 400,000 rupees. The departure in October of the English armament for Bengal, following that of 320 French to aid Bussy in the July preceding — the circumstances relating to which belong properly to the account of that officer's proceedings — left the rival powers in the Karnatik almost too powerless to cause one another effectual injury. The English, however, experienced to its fullest extent the inconvenience of having placed at the head of the affairs of the Karnatik a man such as Muhammad