to attack the strong fortress of Gingi. That officer promptly despatched 200 English, 500 trained sipáhis, and 600 of Muhammad Alí's cavalry on this expedition.
This was the opportunity for which Dupleix had been longing. He seized it with the avidity of a great commander. Despatching orders to the commandant of Gingi to hold himself on the alert, he directed his nephew, De Kerjean, to march with 300 of the new levies and 500 sipáhis to occupy a position which, whilst the English were before Gingi, would sever their communications with the coast.
The manœuvre met with the success it deserved. Gingi was a very strong place, and when the English commander, Kinneer, arrived in front of it, he recognised that the task set to him was, for him at least, impossible. Just then information reached him that a French force had occupied a position in his rear which completely cut him off from his supplies and the coast. Kinneer turned to attack this force, but was beaten with the loss of forty of his Englishmen, and with difficulty made his way back to Tiruvádí. About the same time, a French ship captured a vessel having on board a company of Swiss mercenaries on their way to reinforce the English.
Thus, within two months from the surrender of Law, Dupleix had by his energy, his intrigues, and his daring done much to obliterate the English triumph at Trichinopoli and to neutralise its effects. His action in this crisis alone would stamp him as a
