24 SIR THOMAS MUNRO
were now relinquished of taking the place by assault ; and there being no battering-guns with the army, it was resolved to send for them to Cuddalore ; and, after taking the rice out of the pettah, to proceed to Porto Novo to cover their landing. We marched to this place on the 22nd [June], and the same day Mir Sahib encamped five miles to the westward of it.
' Sir Edward Hughes arrived on the 24th with the battering train ; and, whilst rafts were preparing to carry it up the river to Chilambaram, our attention was called to an object of much greater consequence. For, at daybreak on the 28th, the sound of the reveille was heard in front of the camp, and the rising of the sun discovered to our view the plain for several miles covered with the tents of the Mysorean army. Haidar was preparing to besiege Trichinopoli, when the commandant of Chilambaram advised him of his having repulsed the English, and that they had retreated to Porto Novo. The time he had so long wished for he imagined was now come, when he might, in one day, destroy the only army that remained to oppose him. His expedition showed his confidence of success — he marched seventy miles in two days, and encamped at MutapoUiam, four miles from Porto Novo. His troops were no less sanguine than himself. Some came near enough to the grand guard to warn them of the fate that awaited them so soon as they should come forth to the plain. They bid the foragers, who kept out of reach of the English sentries, not fear them, but go wherever they could
