Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/119

Book II. passage of the river. They still continued to move within random shot of the English; their squadrons sometimes threatening to attack, but always retiring as soon as the field-pieces began to fire. After a march of ten miles the troops halted, late in the evening, a mile to the eastward of Devi-Cotah: where they neither saw, nor received intelligence of the ships; for not a man of the country ventured near the army; and the lowness of the ground, together with the thick woods that covered it, prevented the ships from being discovered, although they were at anchor near the mouth of the river, within four miles of the camp.

The army, relying on the ships, had brought no more provision than were necessary for the consumption of three days, and were deterred, by the numbers of the enemy, from sending detachments to procure any; at the same time they were without battering cannon. Under these inconveniencies there appeared no means of reducing the fort, excepting by a sudden assault, and the walls were too high to be easily escaladed. Some proposed to advance the field-pieces in the night, and batter down the gates; which indeed was the only practicable method of attack; but being deemed too desperate it was determined to endeavour to terrify the enemy by bombarding the place with cohorns. Shells were thrown until the morning, when the fire ceased until the next night: and before the next morning all the shells were expended, without having done any damage to the fort, or made any impression on the minds of the garrison. It was therefore resolved to retreat without delay.

The army returned by the same road it came. During the first mile the country was covered with woods, from which the enemy galled the flank of the line, not only with musquetry, but also with some pieces of heavy artillery, which they had brought into the thickets; and some platoons of Europeans were detached to dislodge them. The thickets extended to the bank of a rivulet which the troops had crossed in the march to Devi-Cotah, during the retreat of the tide: the rivulet was at that time fordable, and no one had examined it sufficiently to form an idea of the depth of the channel, which was now filled with water by the rising of the tide, and the stream