Sultan to claim a victory; but his loss was estimated at two thousand, while that of the English fell short of a hundred and fifty.
The Anglo-Indian army of the Carnatic was now advancing into the heart of the Sultan's dominions. General Harris, having been joined by the Hyderabad contingent and the troops of Nizam Ali, had crossed the Mysore frontier with an army about thirty-seven thousand strong the day on which Tippoo had encamped near Periapatam. All writers agree in stating that no army could be in a higher state of equipment; yet the march was slow, owing to its immense convoy of sixty thousand oxen, carrying several months' provisions for the whole force, and a battering-train to reduce a fortress the fall of which was expected to bring with it that of the whole kingdom.
On the 27th of March, 1799, the Anglo-Indian Army had advanced to Malavilly, about thirty miles from the capital; and General Floyd, with the advance, having approached within a mile of that village, discovered the whole force of the Sultan posted on the elevated ground behind it. An attack being immediately determined on, Colonel Wellesley, with the Nizam's troops, his own (the 33rd) regiment, and General Floyd's cavalry, advanced against the left, while General Harris attacked the right. For a time, Tippoo, by a rocket discharge and brisk cannonade, strove to arrest these forward movements; but the British advanced steadily, and no effort which the enemy could make was capable of checking them. A fine body of the Sultan's chosen troops, amounting to two thousand, then advanced against the 33rd in perfect order and with great gallantry; but the English infantry reserving their fire, received that of their antagonists at the distance of sixty yards, and answered by a bayonet rush. The Sultan's infantry broke; the British cavalry charged home – no quarter was given, and an immense number of the bravest of Tippoo's troops were bayoneted or cut down.
