Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/209

Book III. the Caveri at the northern gate of the city, to interrupt the communication of the inhabitants with the river; these guns, as well as those on the French rock, were at too great a distance to make any impression on the walls. By these works alone they hoped to reduce the city; the insufficiency of them soon raised in the English battalion a contempt of their courage and military abilities, and it was now that they began to be ashamed of having retreated before such an enemy; and judging, as usual, from events, to blame their commander for an excess of caution in his retreat, of which their own panicks had been the principal cause: for captain Gingen was undoubtedly a man of courage, and had seen much service in Europe; but having had no experience against an Indian army, fell into the error of imagining that the cavalry of Chunda-saheb would act with all the vigour of which their number and appearance seemed capable. His prudence, if improper before, became absolutely necessary now, as the French had taken possession of posts in which they could do no harm to the town, but from which they could not be driven without great loss: he therefore determined to preserve his men, whilst the enemy fatigued their troops and exhausted their ammunition to no purpose: and in this intention he kept the greatest part of the battalion and Sepoys encamped close to the western side of the town, where they were out of the reach of annoyance. To save that part of the wall against which the enemy's principal battery fired, a glacis was raised to such a height as left nothing but the parapet exposed; and the grenadiers, commanded by captain Dalton, were posted behind this glacis: an entrenchment was flung up between the French rock and the south-east angle of the town, in which the company of Coffrees were posted, to protect from surprizes the Nabob's cavalry encamped to the south; and to oppose the enemy's battery in the island, two guns were mounted close to the southern bank of the river.

To infilade these, the French mounted two guns on the same side of the river; but were one night driven from this post by captain Dalton: they, a few days after, surprized the English entrenchment opposite to the Fyench rock, and carried off the captain and nine