This supply enabled Lally to press the siege with greater vigour, and to pay his French soldiers and Indian levies a portion of their arrears; but the blacks were of little service to him during the operations. M. Lally erected several batteries against the Black Town and Fort St. George; one of these, called the Grand Battery, was 450 yards distance from the glacis. They opened on the 6th January, 1759; after which they maintained a continued discharge of shot and shells for twenty days, the pioneers pushing on the trenches until their sap had reached the base of the glacis, within pistol-shot of the parapets. Then Lally formed another and loftier battery, on which he placed four pieces of heavy cannon. It opened on the 31st of January; but for five consecutive days the artillerists were compelled to close up their embrasures with fascines and earth, for the superior fire of the fort was not to be withstood, and it soon compelled them to abandon their redoubt. The Grand Battery, however, still continued a fire, which was so well directed, that it dismounted or broke twenty-six pieces of cannon and three mortars, beating down the wall and effecting a considerable breach. During these operations, Lally had somewhat needlessly bombarded the town, to terrify the inhabitants, and demolished a number of their houses; but the precautions of Governor Pigot, the vigilance, valour, and experience of Colonels Draper, Lawrence, and Major Brereton repelled every attack; and thus, after the 5th of February, the fire of Lally's batteries gradually diminished from twenty-three to six pieces of cannon. Money, powder, and shot became scarce together; he had lost many of his bravest men; two months had elapsed, and still the British standard waved above the fort of Madras. During this period the remonstrances which Lally sent frequently to France for succour, describe the deep anxiety he felt for the success of a cause in which his honour was implicated; and so keen and bitter did this feeling become, that at times, when aggravated by an illness incident to the climate, his reports and dispatches are remarkable for containing occasional sentences expressive of horror and distraction. His general chagrin at the conduct of Count d'Ache and others is strongly portrayed in the following letter, which he addressed from the trenches at Madras to the Governor of Pondicherry, and which had been intercepted:--