Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/198

190 of the proposal, and carried on for several days a correspondence, until Mortiz-ally, suspecting his scheme was detected, rejoined the army. On the 24th of October, the French troops received from Pondicherry two 18 pounders, and seven pieces of smaller calibre, and immediately opened a battery to the north-west, which was so well served, that their very first shot dismounted one of the 18 pounders in the fort, and the next entirely disabled it. The garrison mounted the other 18 pounder; and this, after a few shot, was likewise dismounted: after which it was employed only in such parts of the fort, where it was not exposed to the enemy's artillery. The three field pieces were likewise cautiously reserved to repulse the enemy when they should storm; so that their battery firing without much opposition, in six days beat down all the wall lying between two towers, and made a practicable breach of fifty feet. In the mean time the garrison were employed in making works to defend it: a trench was dug just under the rampart, and behind that at some distance another; both of which were scattered with crows feet, and behind them the wall of a house was pulled down to the height of a breast-work; from whence a row of pallisadoes was carried along on each end of both trenches, and continued up the rampart to the parapet. A field piece was planted on one of the towers which flanked the breach without, and two small pieces of cannon on the flat roof of a house within the fort, opposite to the entrance. In these employments, as indeed in all others, the officers contributed their labour equally with the common men; and the enemy, informed of these preparations to defend the breach, did not think it safe to attack it before they had made another: they had by this time burst one of their 18 pounders, and removed the other, with one nine pounder, to a battery which they erected to the south-west.

The garrison intending to convince Raja-saheb that they were in a condition to execute even labours not indispensibly necessary, thickened the highest tower of the ramparts, and then raised on the top of it a mound of earth to such a height as commanded the palace over the interjacent houses. On the top of this mound they hoisted a vast piece of cannon, sent, according to the tradition of the fort, from