558 THE LAST STEUGGLE FOR EMPIRE. chap. Jang* had, as we have seen, thrown over the French. XII These circumstances presented to Lally the importance 1759. °f endeavouring* to attach the third surviving brother, Basalat Jang, to French interests. Bussy, therefore, who by the recent orders from Europe had received a commission as second in command of the army, pro- posed to Lally to tempt Basalat by the offer of the office of Nawwabship of the Karnatik. Lally was at first un- willing, as he had already conferred the appointment on the son of Chanda Sahib, but, very desirous not to lose a chance in his then distressed circumstances, he directed Bussy to proceed at once to Wandiwash, and to make the best arrangement in his power with Basalat Jang. Ever since the siege of Madras, Bussy had remained at Pondichery, suffering from various disorders. On receiving, however, Lally's instructions, he started for Wandiwash, where he arrived the day after the repulse of the English. His orders were to cause himself to be received at Wandiwash as second in command of the forces, to remain there only four-and-twenty hours, then, taking with him all the European cavalry and three companies of infantry, to go to the camp of Basalat Jang, there to arrange with him the terms of an alliance. But the account of the repulse of the English reached him on arrival, and caused him to deviate somewhat from these instructions. He thought that the English might possibly be disposed to meet him in the open plain, and he hailed the prospect of thus operating against them on his own account. Collecting, then, all his forces, he marched, the third day after his arrival, on Tripatur, and took it. But as he soon discovered that the English had retired to Kanchipuram, he sent back the army to Wandiwash, and proceeded with his appointed escort to Arkat. But here the rains and
- It may be interesting to those ment of the French alliance. He
who have so far followed the for- was imprisoned by Nizam Ali in tunes of Salabat Jang, to know that 1761, and murdered by his order in he did not long survive the abandon- 1763.
