been occupied by the English; so that Suffren had no base of supplies or repair upon the Indian seaboard.
He succeeded in landing two thousand French troops, which were soon joined by a large contingent from Hyder Ali, when a large force, including four hundred Frenchmen, under Tippu, Hyder Ali's son, surprised Colonel Braithwaite's detachment and almost destroyed it after a stubborn and desperate resistance. Meanwhile, five obstinately contested naval engagements took place in the Bay of Bengal between Suffren and Hughes. Suffren, an admirable naval tactician, might have beaten the English squadron if he had not been ill supported by his captains. On the other side, Hughes and all his men fought their ships with stubborn fierceness, until the superior seamanship and unconquerable endurance of the English sailors so far prevailed that the French fleet was prevented from affording any material assistance to the army on land.
Early in 1783, Bussy arrived from France with a large reinforcement of French infantry. But the death of Hyder Ali in December, 1782, had just relieved the English from their inveterate foe; and although his son and successor Tippu Sahib, acting with the French troops, reduced the English army before Cuddalore to a very awkward predicament, yet no effective blow had been struck when in July, 1783, the news of peace between England and France arrived. Thereupon Suffren sailed for Europe, and Tippu of Mysore, finding himself alone, very reluctantly came to terms somewhat later. Thus ended a war of seven years, during which the
