t; but so steady was
the fire directed, from the loopholes which commanded it, upon those
so engaged, that they were, each time, forced to recoil with great
slaughter. It was not until nearly daybreak that the attack ceased,
and the assailants, finding that they could not carry the place by a
coup de main, fell back.

The next day, the main body of the British force returned with the
convoy. News arrived, the following day, that the enemy were
approaching to lay siege to the place.

The news of the capture of Arcot had produced the effect which Clive
had anticipated from it. It alarmed and irritated the besiegers of
Trichinopoli, and inspired the besieged with hope and exultation. The
Mahratta chief of Gutti and the Rajah of Mysore, with whom Muhammud
Ali had for some time been negotiating, at once declared in his
favour. The Rajah of Tanjore and the chief of Pudicota, adjoining that
state, who had hitherto remained strictly neutral, now threw in their
fortunes with the English, and thereby secured the communications
between Trichinopoli and the coast.

Chunda Sahib determined to lose not a moment in recovering Arcot,
knowing that its recapture would at once cool the ardour of the new
native allies of the English; and that, with its capture, the last
hope of the besieged in Trichinopoli would be at an end. Continuing
the siege, he despatched three thousand of his best troops, with a
hundred and fifty Frenchmen, to reinforce the two thousand men already
near Arcot, under the command of his son Riza Sahib. Thus the force
about to attack Arcot amounted to five thousand men; while the
garrison under Clive's orders had, by the losses in the defence of the
fort, by fever and disease, been reduced to one hundred and twenty
Europeans, and two hundred Sepoys; while four out of the eight
officers were hors de combat.

The fort which this handful of men had to defend was in no way capable
of offering a prolonged resistance. Its walls were more than a mile in
circumference, and were in a very bad state of repair. The rampart was
narrow and the parapet low, and the ditch, in many places, dry. The
fort had two gates. These were in towers standing beyond the ditch,
and connected with the interior by a causeway across it. The houses in
the town in many places came close up to the walls, and from their
roofs the ramparts of the forts were commanded.

On the 23rd September Riza Sahib, with his army, took up his position
before Arc