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Updated: May 2, 2025
Some of the missionaries were actually made prisoners when the French took Cuddalore, but Count Lally Tollendal was very kind to them, and sent them with all their property and converts safely away to Tranquebar.
To appreciate thoroughly this contrast between the two admirals, it is necessary also to note how differently they were situated with regard to material for repairs. After the action of the 6th, Hughes found at Madras spars, cordage, stores, provisions, and material. Suffren at Cuddalore found nothing.
Repairs were pushed on with the usual energy, the defence of the port was fully provided for, and on the 30th of September the squadron sailed for the Coromandel coast, where the state of French interests urgently called for it. Cuddalore was reached in four days; and here another incapable officer wrecked the "Bizarre," of sixty-four guns, in picking up his anchorage.
The British Vice-Admiral reported several ships much disabled, a great number of his men 1,121 down with scurvy, and the water of the fleet very short. He therefore thought it necessary to go to Madras, where he anchored on the 25th. Suffren regained Cuddalore on the afternoon of the 23d. His return and Hughes's departure completely changed the military situation.
If I may believe what I hear, the motive which incites you is that of reprisal for what has happened at Cuddalore and Madras: it does not become me to criticize either the conduct of M. Lally, our general, who, by all accounts, is a man very much to be respected by me, or your reasons, which you suppose sufficient.
Under their convoy came General de Bussy, with twenty-five hundred troops, which were at once despatched to Cuddalore.
Allowing him to feel the extremity of the danger, he told him not to leave port unless he heard that the army was shut up in Cuddalore, and blockaded by the English squadron. This letter was received on the 10th of June. Suffren waited for no more. The next day he sailed, and forty-eight hours later his frigates saw the English fleet.
Under these conditions the English troops advanced from Madras, passing near but around Cuddalore, and encamped to the southward of it, by the sea. The supply-ships and light cruisers were stationed off the shore near the army; while Admiral Hughes, with the heavy ships, anchored some twenty miles south, where, being to windward, he covered the others.
Suffren formed on the same tack, and some manoeuvring ensued during that night and the next day. At eight P.M. of the 17th the French squadron, which had refused to be drawn to sea, anchored off Cuddalore and communicated with the commander-in-chief. Twelve hundred of the garrison were hastily embarked to fill the numerous vacancies at the guns of the fleet.
A gentleman's bungalow was humanely given up as a hospital, or friendly receptacle, for our incapacitated seamen, during our sojourn at Cuddalore. The possibility of visiting the native town was precluded by the peculiar strictness of the regulations imposed upon us.
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