English, occasionally charging with a view to create confusion.
With such a prospect, a pause might well be excused; but it was only momentary. Finding his officers and men alike anxious to engage. Major Lawrence determined to trust to their enthusiasm, and a party of Grenadiers was ordered to advance and carry the rock with the bayonet. The party rushed forward with three cheers, at double quick, and neither halted nor gave fire till they reached the summit of the rock; the enemy retreating precipitately down the opposite side. Major Lawrence, with the remainder of the troops, moved round the rock and attacked the French battalion in front; while the British Grenadiers on the rock, with a select party of Sepoys who had followed them, poured in a heavy fire on its right flank. Thus assailed, the French began to waver, and a bayonet charge by the English completed their dismay: they fled with the utmost precipitation, leaving three field-pieces in the hands of the victors.
But even this brilliant success of the British arms was ruinous in so small a force; and Major Lawrence observes, in his narrative of the war, that a victory or two more would have left all his men on the plains of Trichinopoly. He therefore, accompanied by Mahomed Ali, proceeded in the direction of Tanjore, in the hope of deriving assistance, which had been often promised from the Rajah; and he was not disappointed, for he obtained from that prince a body of three thousand horse and two thousand foot. He was also at this time reinforced by one hundred and seventy men who had just arrived from England, and by three hundred native troops.
Thus strengthened, Major Lawrence again approached Trichinopoly, but found the whole force of the enemy prepared to dispute his return thither. Having a convoy of several thousand bullocks, it would have been desirable to avoid an action; but this being impracticable, the requisite dispositions were made for an engagement, which terminated in favour of the English. The enemy,
