W)l) HISTOliV OK JNIJIA. I liooK HI.
A.D. 1758. ance be undertaken with an exhausted treasury? In this perjjlexity an exj>e-
dient which it was thouglit might meet the necessities of tlje ease was suggested
In 1751 tlie King of Tanjore, when attacked hy Cliunda Saliil*, had pinx-hased
})re.sent relief by granting him a bond for 5,G()(),()0() rupees. Tliis bond was in
'schfue for P'^'^session of the government of Pondicherry. Why not attempt to make it
raising available? Tiie same kind of pressure which had extorted it from the kin^,
money. ^ ^ "^
might be successfully employed to extort payment. Tlie circum.stances were peculiarly favoural)le. Not only were the British, to whom alone the king could look for assistance, unable to furnish it, but in the fort of St. David a prisoner had been found whose presence with the araiy might be made to work effectually upon his fears. This prisoner was Gatica, the imcle of a claimant to the Tanjore throne, whose pretensions the Madras presidency, tempted by the offer of Devicotta, and other advantages, rashly undertook to support in 1749 The proceedings, which were disgraceful to the presidency, have already been detailed ; and it is therefore sufficient here to mention, as the result, that on finding it impossible to succeed by force, they suddenly changed sides, and made a sordid bargain, by which, in return for the cession of De^ncotta by the reigning sovereign, they not only ceased to be the protectors, but engaged to become the jailers of the claimant. A timely warning of what was intended enabled him to escape ; but his uncle, who managed for him, and was tlie more formidable rival of the two, was imprisoned in his stead. This was the hapless individual who was now to be a tool in the hands of the French to extort money, in the same manner as his nephew had been used by the British to extort the cession of a fort. tally's A roving expedition to Tanjore was thus, under the influence of pecuniary
expedition _ _ '.
against embarrassiuent, preferred to the siege of Madi'as; and Lally, lea^dng 600 men of his
fiLU i o rG
own regiment, with 200 sepoys, to form a camp of observation between Alum- parva and Pondicheriy, commenced his march southward with the remainder of the army. The improvidence manifest jd on his former expedition was repeated, as if the lesson of a dear-bought experience had been lost upon liim ; and the troops, not only unprovided with the means of transport, but destitute even of necessary food, were subjected to every species of privation, in passing through a country of singular difficulty. Before reaching Carrical, to which, as the place of rendezvous, the heavy artillery and cumbrous stores had been sent by sea, they had crossed no fewer than sixteen rivers, several of them accessible only after wading through extensive flats of mud and sand. They were thus employed during seven days, and in the whole seven had not once received a regular meal. Tiie King of Tanjore, now that the enemy had amved in his country, had little confidence in the army which he had collected, not only among his own subjects, but by means of reinforcements drawn from various other quarters. The British, who should have been his principal resource, rather tantalized than assisted him, by sending him a detachment of 500
