the Carnatic, and for some time spread ruin and devastation on all sides with impunity.[1]
Though well acquainted with the grand confederacy that was forming against them, the Government of Madras had made no military preparations to receive the enemy; but trusted, with a blind confidence, the result of former success, to negotiation, and the hope of detaching, by money and intrigues, the Nizam and the Mahrattas from the alliance. As soon as the first alarm of the Government had subsided, they began to consider the means of resistance, which, with an empty treasury, disunited councils, and the impossibility of placing any confidence in Mahomed Ali, appeared extremely deficient. The first object was to secure different strong places now held by the troops of the Nabob, who, it was not doubted, would surrender them to the enemy on the first attack. Several fell; but two were saved by the exertions of very young British officers. Lieutenant Flint, with a corps of one hundred men, having proceeded to Wandewash, was refused admittance by the killedar, or commandant, who had already arranged the terms on which the fortress was to be given up. Flint, however, having with four of his men procured access, seized the killedar, and, aided by the well-disposed part of the garrison, made himself master of the stronghold.
The next object was to unite into one army the different detachments spread over the country; the most numerous and best equipped being under Colonel Baillie, who had advanced with about three thousand men far into the interior with a view to offensive operations. On the 24th of July, 1780, the cavalry of Hyder Ali being within nine miles of Madras, a despatch was sent off
- ↑ On the approach of a hostile army, the unfortunate inhabitants of India bury underground their most cumbrous effects; and each individual man, woman, and child above six years of age (the infant children being carried by their mother) with a load of grain proportioned to their strength, issue from their beloved homes, and take the direction of a country (if such can be found) exempted from the miseries of war: sometimes of a strong fortress, but more generally of the most unfrequented hills and woods, where they prolong a miserable existence until the departure of the enemy; during which period many often die for want of food. – Colonel Wilks.
