Hence scenes of the most shameful kind and most destructive of subordination and discipline, the details of which confined within the limits of the most scrupulous truthfulness would appear a monstrous exaggeration." Lally in despair wrote to his friends in France, "Hell vomited me into this land of iniquities, and I am waiting, like Jonah, for the whale that shall receive me in its belly." The attack on the White Town and on Fort St.George was repulsed; and on the 18th of February, 1759, Lally was obliged to raise the siege of Madras.

The discord which reigned in the army as well as amongst the civil functionaries was nowhere more flagrant than between Lally and Bussy.

The latter could not console himself for having been forced to leave the Deccan in the feeble bands of the Marquis of Conflans.

An expedition attempted against the fortress of Wandiwash, of which the English had obtained possession, was followed by a serious defeat; Colonel Coote was master of Karikal.

Little by little the French army and French power in India found themselves cooped within the immediate territory of Pondicherry.