Throughout these transactions the British had remained open-mouthed and inactive, so inactive that in October 1750 they had permitted their ablest soldier, Stringer Lawrence, to return to England. Thoroughly alarmed at the rapid progress of Dupleix's influence, and irritated by the ostentatious display of his sovereignty on its boundaries, the Company at last resolved to initiate a steady policy of opposition to the French in all quarters. There was but one pretext for intervention. Mohammed Ali, the son of the late Nabob Anwarudeen, while negotiating with Dupleix for the surrender of Trichinopoly, had never ceased to make piteous appeals for British assistance. Rather, therefore, than allow this last excuse for interference to be taken from them, the British authorities consented to give him help, and as a first instalment despatched three hundred British and as many Sepoys to Trichinopoly in February 1751. The main issue now turned on the possession of Trichinopoly, and Dupleix was not slow to recognise the fact. Chunda Sahib was already preparing to march upon the city with a native army of about eight thousand men, and to these Dupleix added four hundred French under an able officer. The British replied by equipping a further force of five hundred Europeans, one hundred Africans, and a thousand Sepoys, under the command of Captain Gingen, with Lieutenant Robert Clive for his commissariat-officer. Not daring to act as principal, for French and English were still nominally at peace, Gingen waited at Fort St. David until the middle of May, when he was joined by sixteen hundred of Mohammed Ali's troops. Vested by the advent of this rabble with the character of a legitimate auxiliary, he then marched southward to seize the pagoda of Verdachelum, which commanded the communications between Fort St. David and Trichinopoly. This was successfully accomplished; and having received further reinforcements he moved south-westward to Volconda, on the road between Arcot and Trichinopoly, to intercept the advancing army of Chunda Sahib. [Sidenote: July 17/28.] The result was disastrous for Gingen. After the exchange of a few cannon-shots the British troops were seized with panic, flung down their arms, and could not be rallied even by Clive himself. Gingen, finding them much shaken, thereupon fell back upon Trichinopoly. Chunda Sahib immediately followed them; and after three days of skirmishing the British crossed the river Coleroon and finally took refuge under the walls of the city. The enemy lost no time in closing in around them, and now the French could look upon their success as well-nigh assured. Almost the whole of the British force in India was cooped up in the city before them; there seemed to be no prospect of relief for them from any other quarter, and it was therefore necessary only to keep them strictly blockaded to make them prisoners in a body.