English interference, sent his best officer, Colonel Forde, with a small number of troops to aid the Rájá. The consequences justified the action of the great Englishman, taken though it was against[1] the advice of every member of his Council. They were in every way most advantageous to England. Forde, the superior soldier, the man who know India, pitted against Conflans, the inferior soldier, recently imported from Europe, not only conquered for England the Northern Sirkars, but compelled the Subáhdár of the Deccan, who interfered at the head of an army to support the French, to transfer his alliance from that people to the English. It is from the period of the expulsion of the French from the Northern Sirkars that date the reciprocal engagements between the Nizám and the Anglo-Indian Government which exist in a modified form to the present day.
Meanwhile Lally, leaving his troops under De Soupire at Arcot, had returned to Pondichery to arrange for means to carry on the war. After many delays and many mischances, he rejoined the army at Wandiwash, and marched with it to Arcot. During his absence, the English force, recently strengthened and now commanded by another of Clive's lieutenants, the renowned Eyre Coote, had taken Wandiwash. Lally marched to recover the place, and took up a strong position before it. There, the 21st of January, 1760, he was attacked and completely defeated by
- ↑ For a detailed account of these transactions the reader is referred to Malleson's Decisive Battles of India, new edition, pp. 77-114.
