Page:History of the French in India.djvu/555

LALLT BAFFLED AT TAN.ltJR. 529 this determined to try the effect of an assanlt. Two c ^ ? ' batteries were opened on August 2nd, a breach was effected on the 7th. and the attack ordered for the 8th. 1768. On the morning of that day, however, intelligence reached the camp that d'Ache had been attacked by the English, been beaten and driven off the coast, and that the English were threatening Karikal, which formed the base of the French operations against Tanjur. At the same time advices were received from de Soupire to the effect that Pondichery was threatened by a corps of 800 English from Madras, and that he, having only 600, was preparing to evacuate his position. When this intelligence reached Lally, he had in camp supplies for but two days, and the Tanjurian cavalry effectually prevented him from procuring any more ; his small arm ammunition was almost entirely exhausted, and for cannon-shot he depended on those fired by the enemy. Still the breach had been effected, and both d'Estaing and Saubinet were eager that the assault should be delivered. But the consideration that after the fort was taken it would be necessary to attack the town, which was itself strongly defended, that the attack upon the fort would exhaust all his ammunition, and, if that attack were unsuccessful, his men would be, as it were, an unarmed multitude, determined Lally, on the advice of the council of war he assembled, to retreat. Instead, therefore, of delivering the assault on the 8th, he sent off a detachment of 1 50 men, escorting the sick, the wounded, and the siege stores, in the direction of Karikal, on the 9th, intending to follow himself with the main body on the evening of the 10th. Early on that morning, however, the Tanjurians, gaining courage from the reported intentions of Lally, attacked his camp suddenly. They were repulsed, indeed, with considerable loss on their side, but, meanwhile, a Jamadar and fifty horsemen had ridden up to the pagoda in which Lally was sleeping, giving out that they were M M