For by Covrepauk not only was the work begun at Arcot completed but Trichinopoly was saved; not only was British military reputation established but supremacy in the south of India was wrenched from the French. It was essentially a general's action, Clive's action; and when we reflect on the hours that preceded it, hours of continuous marching, doubtful information, and incessant anxiety, we can only marvel at the moral and physical strength which enabled him to present instantly a bold front, to keep his weary soldiers together during those four hours of fighting by moonlight, and to devise and execute the counterstroke which won the day. From Covrepauk Clive marched on to Arcot, and was proceeding southward from thence when he was recalled to Fort St. David, to command an expedition which was preparing for the relief of Trichinopoly. On his way he passed the growing city which was to commemorate the victories of Dupleix and razed it to the ground;[236] but he met with no trace of an enemy. Raju Sahib's army had dispersed; the French and their Sepoys had been recalled to Pondicherry; and Raju Sahib himself, on returning thither from the scene of his defeat, was received by Dupleix with a displeasure and contempt which showed how deeply the dart of Clive's victory was rankling in the breast of the ambitious Frenchman. Meanwhile, through all these months the French had maintained the siege of Trichinopoly, feebly indeed but persistently. In September 1751 their battering train had arrived and batteries had been erected before the town, but, like Boscawen's before Pondicherry, at too great a distance to do effectual damage. In fact the French commander, Law, a nephew of the famous Scottish financier, had proved himself both unenterprising and incompetent. The force under his orders comprised the unparalleled number of nine hundred French troops and two thousand Sepoys, over and above the thirty thousand native levies of Chunda Sahib; yet he had effected little or nothing. He was now to be put to a sterner test than the mere blockading of an inferior force under an inactive leader. The supreme command of the expedition for the relief of Trichinopoly was indeed taken from Clive at the last moment, but only to be transferred to Stringer Lawrence, who had just returned from England. Moreover Clive was to accompany Lawrence as a trusted subordinate, so that the change signified only the presence of two officers of conspicuous ability instead of one. Dupleix's instructions to Law were explicit: to leave the least possible number of his troops to continue the blockade of Trichinopoly, and to march out with the rest to intercept the relieving army. [Sidenote: March 17/28.]