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Updated: June 29, 2025
After negotiations and arrangements with Hyder Ali the army landed south of Porto Novo, and marched against Cuddalore, which surrendered on the 4th of April. Meanwhile Suffren, anxious to act against his principal objective, had sailed again on the 23d of March. It was his hope to cut off two ships-of-the-line which were expected from England.
When Hughes appeared, it was past the power of the English fleet by a single battle to reduce the now properly garrisoned post. Doubtless a successful campaign, by destroying or driving away the French sea power, would achieve this result; but Suffren might well believe that, whatever mishaps might arise on a single day, he could in the long run more than hold his own with his opponent.
It has been said that Suffren, who had watched the cautious movements of D'Estaing in America, and had served in the Seven Years' War, attributed in part the reverses suffered by the French at sea to the introduction of Tactics, which he stigmatized as the veil of timidity; but that the results of the fight at Porto Praya, necessarily engaged without previous arrangement, convinced him that system and method had their use.
And summe han here armes or here lymes alle to broken, and summe the sydes: and alle this don thei for love of hire god, in gret devocioun. And he thinkethe, that the more peyne and the more tribulacioun, that thei suffren for love of here god, the more ioye thei schulle have in another world.
The same day, the 13th, after a sharp action, the French army was shut up in the town, behind very weak walls. Everything now depended on the action of the fleets. Upon Suffren's appearance, Hughes moved away and anchored four or five miles from the town. Baffling winds prevailed for three days; but the monsoon resuming on the 16th, Suffren approached.
The first was to get in a blow at the French fleet, so as to reduce the present inequality; the second, to keep Suffren from getting Trincomalee, which depended wholly on the fleet. Suffren, on the other hand, if he could do Hughes, in an action, more injury than he himself received, would be free to turn in any direction he chose.
They were all of fifteen thousand tons and eighteen knots. To these was added the Suffren, also of eighteen knots, but only twelve thousand seven hundred tons: she had come from Brest with a flotilla of torpedo boats. There were six armoured cruisers, Jules Ferry, Leon Gambetta, Victor Hugo, Jeanne d'Arc, Aube and Marseillaise.
Two of the French did take this position. Suffren further gives his reason for not closing with his own ship, which led; but as those which followed him went no nearer, Hughes's attention was not drawn to his action. The French commodore was seriously, and it would seem justly, angered by the inaction of several of his captains.
Not only does it appear that Suffren himself, hurried away on this last occasion by his eagerness, was partly responsible for the disorder of his fleet, but there were other circumstances, and above all the character of some of the officers blamed, which made the charge of a general disaffection excessive.
Here they lay for a week two miles apart, refitting. Hughes, from the ruined condition of the "Monmouth," expected an attack; but when Suffren had finished his repairs on the 19th, he got under way and remained outside for twenty-four hours, inviting a battle which he would not begin.
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