A fleet of thirty ships set Boscawen at ease as to his communications by sea; and as every preparation had been made at Fort St. David against his arrival, he was able within a week to march to the siege of Pondicherry. The King's regular troops consisted of twelve independent companies each one hundred strong, eight hundred marines, and eighty of the Royal Artillery, which, added to the Company's soldiers and a naval brigade, brought up the total to a strength of thirty-seven hundred Europeans. Two thousand Sepoys also accompanied the expedition, though as yet neither trained nor disciplined. But meanwhile Dupleix had not been idle. Desperate though his situation might appear, he had resolved to make the best of it, and had not only strengthened the defences of Pondicherry itself, but had added a strong fort at Ariancopang, which was constructed under the care of the indefatigable Paradis. This latter work was the first obstacle that presented itself to Boscawen's advance. No one in his camp knew anything about it, because no one had been at any pains to find out. A deserter reported that it was held by a hundred natives only, and Boscawen without further ado resolved to carry it by storm. Seven hundred men were therefore launched against it, only to find that the defences were decidedly formidable and the garrison four times as strong as had been supposed. Moreover, owing to a neglect which, after the failure before St. Lazaro, seems perfectly unpardonable, no scaling-ladders had been prepared for the storming party. The troops, therefore, as at St. Lazaro, tried stubbornly to do impossibilities until nearly a fourth of their number had been killed or wounded, and then fell back not less mortified than dispirited by their repulse. [Sidenote: Aug. 26/Sept. 6.]