men sent to burn the French boats on the
beach at Pondicheny, were cut off by a
flying party of Hyder's horse. The daring
freebooters had no time to carry off any
plunder, but still they ventured near enough
to the English lines to snatch up an
unfortunate sepoy sergeant-major who was
bathing in a tank in front of the quarter
guard, and also an artillery camp colour-
man, named James Bristowe, son of a
blacksmith at Norwich. The "looties,"
instantly stripped the young artilleryman of
everything he possessed, and hurried him,
almost naked and with bound arms, before
their cruel master, Hyder, who was then
encamped about five miles from the right flank
of our army, between us and Cuddalore.
There was nothing extraordinary or
sumptuous about Hyder's tent, except a gorgeous
rich Persian carpet spread on the floor,
and held down at the corners by four
massive sugar-loaves of silver. Several
French officers were present, and one of
them who spoke English, questioned the
prisoner as to the strength and destination
of Sir Eyre Coote's army; but when
Bristowe replied thirty-five thousand men
(five thousand of them Europeans) and
seventy pieces of ordnance, the Frenchman
briskly swore that he lied, and that all the
Europeans then in India did not amount to
that number. Hyder, scowling at this
supposed attempt to deceive him, ordered the
prisoner to be kept tied to the ground on
the bare sand in the rear of his tent during
the halts, and by day, when marching, to
be lashed to the captive sergeant-major;
Bristowe remained thus for seven days,
the first three without any food, except
what the gentler of his guards brought
him now and then by stealth out of sheer
compassion. On the fourth day, when
Hyder had encamped nearer Cuddalore,
where the English were entrenched, a
Mahomedan officer came to Bristowe and
ordered him an allowance of one lee of
rice and two pice a day. He tried hard
to induce Bristowe to enter Hyder's
service; but finding him obstinate, curtailed
his food and pay and sent him off to
Gingee, a small rock fort that the Nabob
had surrendered, and where Hyder had
left his women, provisions, stores and camp
equipage. At Gingee, Bristowe was hand-
cuffed, and on being removed to Arcot
heavy leg-irons were substituted. But it
was hard to chain up a blacksmith's son
securely. After three weeks of patient
and intelligent labour, Bristowe contrived,
by means of a piece of broken china, to file
down the head of the nails which rivetted
his irons so as to bo able to throw them
off at pleasure. All he wanted then, to
secure his escape, was a heavy night's rain;
for even a shower will always drive Asiatic
sentries under cover. But unfortunately for
the poor fellow, the moon kept consistently
luminous, the stars steadily brilliant. On
the first of March, 1781, Bristowe and
the other English prisoners were marched
towards Seringapatam, Hyder's capital.
Driven fast by blows from the guard of
eighty Hindoos, past Vellore, which was
held by the English, they ascended the
Ghauts, passing on their way innumerable
mud forts, and reached Seringapatam on
the 18th of the month. In this city the
officers and common soldiers were
imprisoned separately: the latter in a large
enclosure surrounded by a cloistery, like that
of a caravanserai. The poor wretches,
dying fast of small-pox and dropsy, were
rotting like plague-stricken beasts,
unpitied and untended. Bristowe, however,
contrived, with great forethought, to baffle
the fell diseases by forcing a hard ball of
wax into his leg, which served as a
constant issue and a safety valve for all bad
humours. A plan of escape was soon
projected by some of the leading prisoners:
rice cakes were made for the flight, and
ropes were procured for scaling the wall; but
the evening before the proposed departure a
heavy rain fell and washed away the very
part of the wall selected for the escalade.
A strong guard was then instantly placed
on the spot, and so the attempt to escape
was frustrated.

About six months afterwards the escape
of some English prisoners roused Hyder to
practise increased cruelties to the residue.
They were brought out with their hands
tied behind them, and every slave in the
regiment lashed them with tamarind twigs:
making in all fifteen hundred lashes to each
prisoner. Soon after this, two thousand
more English prisoners arrived, being a
detachment which Colonel Braithwaite had
surrendered in the Tanjore country.
Epidemic disease breaking out in the prison,
now filthy and overcrowded, the Europeans
were removed to a spacious square near
Sinyam Vet. But the killadar, soon seeing
Bristowe and his companions in better
spirits at the change, accused them of
getting lazy from indulgence, and neglecting
the chaylah drill at which they were
employed; so, loading them again with
irons, he sent them back, beaten all tbe
way, to their old impure prison.