not only on the country and city of Tanjore, but likewise on the king and his whole family, whom he threatened to carry as slaves to the island of Mauritius. In the evening the army moved from the suburbs, and formed a regular camp about a mile and a half to the south-east of the town.
The expressions in Mr. Lally's letter to Kenedy, determined the king, who had hitherto fluctuated, in irresolution, to defend himself to extremity, and he now repeated his solicitations with the utmost earnestness for assistance from Tritchinopoly. Captain Calliaud, by the accounts he continually received of the king's negotiations, had hitherto thought it unsafe to trust any more troops in his power, whilst making engagements to assist the French in the reduction of Tritchinopoly: but, being convinced by this last rupture, that he had renounced all designs of accord or reconciliation with them, detached on the 6th of August 500 of his best Sepoys, with two excellent Serjeants and 27 cannoneers, who in order to avoid the encounter of the French troops, proceeded in a round-about road along the bank of the Coleroon.
A deep water-course, running within 400 yards parallel to the south side of the city, furnished a much more commodious trench than any which are opened in sieges, determined Mr. Lally to make the attack under the advantage of this cover. The south face of the city is much the narrowest aspect, extending only 480 yards. Two batteries were erected on the nether edge of the water-course, the one of three guns opposite to the middle of the face, but turned to breach between the cavalier of the eastern angle and the next tower. The other, of two guns, was 200 yards to the right.
Both opened on the 2d of August. It was the 7th in the evening, after five days firing, before the batteries had produced a breach six feet wide: but by this time there remained only 150 charges of powder for the cannon, and not 20 cartouches a man for the troops; and, notwithstanding the numbers of cattle which had been seized, there were not provisions for two days remaining in the camp, and the great distance
