In July 1780, Hyder Ali, having passed the Ghauts (as the passes in the mountains on both sides of the Indian peninsula are termed), burst like a torrent into the Carnatic, while his son, Tippoo Saib, advanced with a large body of cavalry against the northern Circars, and the villages in the vicinity of Madras were attacked by parties of the enemy’s horse.
These events occasioned the first battalion of the regiment to be ordered to proceed to join the army which was being assembled at St. Thomas’s Mount, under the command of Major-General Sir Hector Munro, K.B., consisting entirely of the troops of the Honorable East India Company, with the exception of the _Seventy-third_, then about 800 strong.
Sir Hector Munro’s army amounted to upwards of 4,000 men, and was thus composed:--
{ Infantry 1,000 European { Artillery 300 { Dragoons 30
Native { Infantry 3,250 { Dragoons 30 ------ Total 4,610 ======
With the army were also thirty field-pieces and howitzers, together with four battering twenty-four pounders.
The Anglo-Indian army marched to Conjeveram, sixty miles westward of Madras, where it was to be joined by a detachment from the northward, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Baillie.
At this period the Sultan of Mysore was engaged in besieging _Arcot_, the capital of the Carnatic, which was invested by the enemy on the 21st of August. The movement of Sir Hector Munro’s force caused Hyder Ali to raise the siege; he then detached his son, Tippoo Saib, with a large body of horse and foot, amounting to 24,000 men and twelve guns, to intercept Lieut.-Colonel Baillie, whose junction with the main army had been ordered.
In this manœuvre Tippoo Saib succeeded, and Major-General Sir Hector Munro was compelled to detach Lieut.-Colonel Fletcher with a thousand men to reinforce Lieut.-Colonel Baillie. The flank companies of the first battalion of the _Seventy-third_ formed part of this detachment; the grenadier company was commanded by Lieutenant the Honorable John Lindsay, and the light company by Captain, afterwards General the Right Hon. Sir David Baird, Bart. and G.C.B.[7]
On the 6th of September, Lieut.-Colonel Baillie was attacked at Perambaukum by the division under Tippoo Saib, and on the 9th of that month was joined by the detachment under Lieut.-Colonel Fletcher. On the following day they were attacked by Hyder’s whole army, and the officers and men of this ill-fated detachment were either killed, taken, or dispersed.