In 1757, the events of most magnitude on the coast were the capture of Madura by Captain Caillaud[22], who commanded the British troops south of the Coleroon; and the defeat of a party[23] which attacked Nellore, where the brother[24] of the Nabob Mahommed Ali Khan continued in rebellion. The fortress of Chittaput was taken by the French, owing to aid being refused to Nazir Mahommed[25], the killadar (or governor) who, holding this fortress independent of the Nabob, was an object of jealousy, and he succeeded in instilling into the minds of the English government a belief that the gallant defender of this important post was in league with the French. Succour was delayed till too late. The brave killadar resisted to the last; and, by his death on the breach, silenced his calumniators, and left the rulers of Madras to regret their unfortunate credulity and prejudice. The capture of Chittaput was followed by the reduction of a number of small fortresses in the Carnatic. The successes of the French in this province balanced those of the English to the southward, where the gallantry and judgment of Captain Caillaud, and the indefatigable activity of Mahommed Esoof[26], the celebrated commandant of sepoys, supported the cause of the English, and of the Nabob Mahommed Ali, against the French and the rebel Maphuze Khan. The latter were aided by several polygars, or petty Hindu chiefs, who possess the wild mountainous tracts of this part of India; and who, from the attachment and habits of their rude followers, are the most troublesome of all enemies to the internal peace of the country. These indecisive operations had no effect beyond keeping up the flame of war between the French and English, through whom every native power in India that they could influence became engaged in hostilities, in which their interests were deemed subordinate to the primary object which the two rival European nations alike cherished, of expelling each other from the eastern hemisphere. The French government in Europe appear, at this period, to have determined on an effort to reduce the British settlements on the coast of Coromandel; and the armament they prepared seemed adequate to the object. Fortunately for the English, those who presided in the councils of Louis 15th were either so completely ignorant of Indian policy, or so inveterately prejudiced against their East India Company and its servants, as not only to overlook the advantages that these had gained, but to put aside as useless all who were acquainted with the scene, and to substitute a commander and officers, who, whatever experience they might have had in other quarters of the world, were profoundly ignorant of that to which they were sent, with the expressed hope that, while they reformed the gross abuses of the local government, they would restore the tarnished lustre of the French arms.