A hundred men were left there, and these were afterwards attacked by the Rajah of Tanjore, with five thousand men; but they held their own, and beat them off.

A very gallant business, that! "These affairs showed the rajah that the English could fight; a point which, hitherto, the natives had been somewhat sceptical about.

They were afraid of the French, but they looked upon us as mere traders.

He had, too, other things to trouble him as to the state of the Carnatic, and so hastened to make peace.

He agreed to pay the expenses of the war, and to cede us Devikota and some territory round it; and to allow the wretched ex-rajah, in whose cause we had pretended to fight, a pension of four hundred a year, on condition that we kept him shut up in one of our forts.
"Not a very nice business on our side, was it?
Still, we had gained our point, and, with the exception of the ex-rajah, who was a bad lot after all, no one was discontented.
"When the peace was signed, our force returned to Fort Saint David.
While they had been away, there had been a revolution in the Carnatic.
Now this was rather a complicated business; but as the whole situation at present turns upon it; and it will, not improbably, cause our expulsion from Southern India; I will explain it to you as well as I can.
"Now you must know that all Southern India, with the exception of a strip along the west coast, is governed by a viceroy, appointed by the emperor at Delhi.