 Complete the following phrase:  British attention elsewhere in the theatre was focused on Southern India. In January 1798, a French privateer brought envoys from Mysore to Île de France with a request for support. Malartic supplied 86 volunteers, which were sent to India on Preneuse under Captain Jean-Matthieu-Adrien Lhermitte. Lhermittes mission was meant to be covert, but in April 1798 he attacked and captured two East Indiamen, and , at Tellicherry, and landed the volunteers at Mangalore on 24 April. This action caused a crisis in relations between the EIC and Mysore, which Tipu Sultans obvious enthusiasm for French intervention in India inflamed. The 