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scantiness of artillery and ammunition on the part of the besiegers, and the too 
great elevation of their guns, rendered the progress of the attack for a time 
doubtful. But steadily and surely the French worked on at their trenches; 
and the second “ crochet ” was finished, and the advanced battery there 
erected, then damaged; and in a great measure disused. 
The spirited sallies continued. Sometimes in small parties; sometimes in 
large bodies; now against a battery; then to interrupt the workmen at a 
trench ; and again to fall upon a detachment, spike up or carry away a field- 
piece or two on the south of the town; or to communicate with and remit 
money to their out-skirmishers, who were operating on the rear of the 
French; the daring Englishmen, and Jemaul Saheb, the commander of the 
Sepoys, catching the hardy infection, distracted the attention, partially 
arrested the activity, disturbed perpetually the equanimity of their opponents; 
who yet, on the whole, with a determined spirit equal to their own, pressed 
slowly but surely onward to the foot of the walls. 
The Nabob, meanwhile, and his numerous suite relished the confinement and 
discomforts of a besieged town less and less daily. Soon, with the full consent 
of the English, and indeed to their relief, he departed, to find refuge in 
Trichinopoly; and his followers were at once also got rid of. Pigot and his 
councillors were men wise in their generation. Yet it may be doubted whether 
they were clearly right in thus seeming to sanction the idea that Madras 
was not a secure place for their nominal sovereign. The king of Tanjore 
was certainly very unfavourably impressed by the departure of the Nabob; 
and hesitated, on that account, to comply with Calliaud's pressing instances 
for a reinforcement. The hostile fleets, meanwhile, were far away. But the 
French had two men-of-war, and some smaller vessels. And an English 
Indiaman arrived, and after safely landing a quantity of treasure and stores, 
especially shells of large size, very opportunely, Ingliss, her brave captain, 
animated by the same daring spirit that glowed in the breasts of the whole 
garrison, though offered the option of retiring from the scene, or running 
his ship ashore, determined to hold his station off the fort. And nobly he 
fulfilled that resolve. Though “ stormed at with shot and shell 39 by both 
the men-of-war, the batteries from the north, and the guns on the spit to 
the south, his masts and rigging shattered; his hull pierced again and again, 
sometimes by red hot shot; he held on, till one of the men-of-war and a 
sloop actually fled out of the road, for fear of his executing a plan to cut 
them out; and the guns on the bar being wanted elsewhere were withdrawn; 
when he had some respite from the general assault on his stout craft. A 
field-piece placed, instead of the heavier metal, on the bar checked, without 
preventing, communications between the town and their outlying forces. 
The French had, by this time, seriously damaged the works on the north; 
and having reached the foot of the glacis, commenced their breaching battery 
there. And now the contest became most obstinate, desperate, and deadly. 
The fire of the besieged silenced for awhile the breaching battery; but, as 
before, for awhile only; though that battery, at first, as Tally's before, fired 
too high. The demolition of the works, the destruction of guns, the 
casualties among the besieged, went on apace. The French seized, and 
turned against the English, the stockade on the sea-margin. Determined 
attempts were made to recover it, but in vain. It was abandoned. The 
French began to mine. The English countermined. On both sides it 
