He marched to Utatua to intercept him.
D'Auteuil, hearing of his coming, instantly fell back again to Valconda.

The native chief of this town, however, seeing that the affairs of the French were desperate; and willing, like all his countrymen, to make his peace with the strongest, had already accepted bribes from the English; and upon D'Auteuil's return, closed the gates and refused to admit him.

Clive soon arrived, and D'Auteuil, caught between two fires, surrendered with his whole force.
Had Law been a man of energy, he had yet a chance of escape.

He had still seven or eight hundred French troops with him, two thousand Sepoys, and four thousand of Chunda Sahib's troops.

He might, then, have easily crossed the Kavari at night and fallen upon Lawrence, whose force there now was greatly inferior to his own.