Pondicherry was surrounded by a number of forts, the defence of which, in all former sieges, had occasioned the inhabitants the utmost difficulty; but these were rapidly reduced, as all the adjacent country was in the hands of the British. The fleet of Sir Samuel Cornish came to anchor on the 17th March, and while Coote approached nearer by land, Lally, in order to retard him, retired from position to position, bravely disputing every inch of ground, until, in front of Pondicherry, he formed his famous lines, which he defended for three months with admirable skill and valour, thereby gaining sufficient time to have victualled the town for the half of a year. While thus holding the foe in check, he concluded a treaty with the Rajah of Mysore, who pledged himself to supply Pondicherry with provisions; but failed to perform his promise, and departed with his people. A short time afterwards, Lally resolved to attempt a _sortie_, and on the night of the 2nd September, 1760, he made a furious attack on Coote's advanced posts, but was repulsed with great loss, and had seventeen pieces of cannon taken. Coote lost but a few privates. The last of the fortified boundary, or chain of redoubts, was carried by storm on the 10th September; the French were driven in, and Coote had forty killed and seventy wounded; Major Monsoon had one of his legs torn off by a cannon-shot. A body of Scottish Highlanders, who had just been landed from the _Sandwich_ East Indiaman, behaved with their accustomed valour in this affair. Passing Draper's grenadiers in their eagerness to get at the enemy, they threw down their muskets, and with their bonnets in one hand, and their claymores in the other, hewed a passage through a jungle hedge, fell with a wild cheer upon the soldiers of Lally, and cut a whole company to pieces. Only five Highlanders and two grenadiers were shot. The Highlanders were fifty in number, and were commanded by a Captain Morrison. They belonged to the 89th Highland Regiment, which had been raised among the Gordon clan in the preceding year. After that night, the operations of Lally were confined to the walls of Pondicherry. Of the guns taken by the Highlanders, seven were found to be 18-pounders, loaded to the muzzle with square bars of iron six inches long, jagged pieces of metal, stones and bottles. They were on Lally's strongest battery, which was formed before a thick wood, one mile in front of Pondicherry, which could no longer have any succour from the seaward, as the Chef d'Escadre had sailed for Brest, where he arrived in April, 1761. Thus a 54-gun ship, a 36-gun frigate, and four Indiamen were left behind, and hopelessly shut up in the roadstead.