It was then resolved to besiege Ariancopang in form; but here as at Carthagena the engineers proved to be utterly ignorant of their business, and blunder succeeded blunder. Paradis, who had a troop of sixty horse in addition to the infantry of his garrison, judged astutely of the moral effect which cavalry might produce on seafaring men, and sent his handful of troopers, with infantry in support, straight at the trenches of the naval brigade. The sailors were seized with panic; the panic spread to the regular troops, and the whole rushed headlong back to the camp, leaving their best officer, Stringer Lawrence, to be taken prisoner. Accident, however, came to the help of the British. A magazine at Ariancopang caught fire and exploded, disabling over one hundred men; and the garrison having dismantled the fortifications withdrew into Pondicherry. Boscawen accordingly moved forward from Ariancopang and opened his trenches against the north-western corner of the town. Then once more the ignorance of the engineers led to blunders and waste of time, for they opened their first parallel at a distance of fifteen hundred yards, or twice the distance prescribed by rule and common sense, from the covered way. Still fortune for the present favoured the British. A sortie made by the French was brilliantly repulsed, and Paradis, the ablest of the French both as officer and engineer, was wounded to the death. The Englishman most distinguished in this affair was to prove himself Paradis's most brilliant pupil, an ensign in the Company's service, taken only twelve months before as a clerk from the Company's desks, Robert Clive. [Sidenote: Sept. 26/Oct. 7.] [Sidenote: Sept. 30/Oct. 11.]