Hyder Ali had already been many times disappointed.

The preceding year Admiral d'Orves had appeared on the Coromandel coast with a squadron; the Sultan had sent to meet him, urging him to land and attack Madras, left defenceless; the admiral refused to risk a single vessel or land a single man, and he returned without striking a blow to Ile-de-France.

Ever indomitable and enterprising, Hyder Ali hoped better things of the new-comers; he was not deceived.
Born at St.Cannat in Provence, on the 13th of July, 1726, of an old and a notable family amongst the noblesse of his province, Peter Andrew de Suffren, admitted before he was seventeen into the marine guards, had procured his reception into the order of Malta; he had already distinguished himself in many engagements, when M.de Castries gave him the command of the squadron commissioned to convey to the Cape of Good Hope a French garrison promised to the Dutch, whose colony was threatened.

The English had seized Negapatam and Trincomalee; they hoped to follow up this conquest by the capture of Batavia and Ceylon.

Suffren had accomplished his mission, not without a brush with the English squadron commanded by Commodore Johnston.