The attack commenced at midnight; and though a great proportion of the troops soon forced their way into the interior of the place, a straggling fire was kept up for some hours, when M. Conflans surrendered, and the English found, in the morning, that their prisoners amounted to five hundred Europeans, and two thousand five hundred and thirty-seven Caffres, Topasses[14], and sepoys; being, altogether, far more numerous than those by whom they were captured. The loss of the French was small: the assailants had twenty-two Europeans killed, and sixty-two wounded; fifty sepoys were killed, and a hundred and fifty wounded.[15] The French commander and his garrison had, from the first, treated too slightingly the efforts of their besiegers. Their confidence, which was increased by an expected re-enforcement from Pondicherry, was one of the chief causes of the loss of the place. Few precautionary measures appear to have been taken to give combination to the points of defence; and the attack being made at night, and on so many quarters, distracted those in the different works[16], whose contradictory and exaggerated reports so embarrassed M. Conflans, that he remained in the centre of the fort with his most select men, undecided where to direct relief, till he was so surrounded as to be obliged to surrender at discretion. Though these circumstances promoted the success of the English, they only reflected higher honour upon the British commander and his gallant soldiers. The irregularity and extent of the fortifications made Colonel Forde foresee the confusion that must result from dividing his troops both before and after they entered the place. He also calculated upon that confidence with which the enemy's superior numbers were likely to inspire their commander; and he anticipated the success which so frequently crowns those daring attempts, which are made in contempt of all the ordinary maxims of war. The able and bold plans of their commander were admirably carried into execution by his brave troops. The English soldiers, by their conduct, well redeemed the crime of their recent mutiny; and we are informed, by a contemporary historian[17], that "the sepoys behaved with equal gallantry to the Europeans!" M. Moracin, with a re-enforcement of three hundred men from Pondicherry, arrived a few days after the place had fallen. On discovering what had occurred, he sailed to the northward, where the attempt he made to injure the English interests in the Vizagapatam and Ganjam districts altogether failed, though he continued, for some period, to excite considerable alarm.