Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/233

Book III. the entrance would admit only two men abreast: the English soldiers made the attack, and continued it for some time with great resolution; but the deserters within fought desperately, and killed an officer and fifteen men, on which the attack was ordered to cease until daybreak; and in the mean time such a disposition was made as might prevent those in the pagoda from escaping, and at the same time oppose any other body which might come to their relief. At daybreak the commanding officer of the French seeing the danger of his situation, made a sally at the head of his men, who received so heavy a fire, that he himself, with twelve others who first came out of the gateway were killed by the volley; on which the rest, ran back into the pagoda. Captain Clive then advanced into the porch of the gate to parly with the enemy, and being weak with the loss of blood, and fatigue, stood with his back to the wall of the porch, and leaned, stooping forward, on the shoulders of two Serjeants. The officer of the English deserters presented himself with great insolence, and telling Captain Clive with abusive language, that he would shoot him, fired his musket. The ball missed him, but went through the bodies of both the Serjeants on whom he was leaning, and they both fell mortally wounded. The Frenchmen had hitherto defended the pagoda in compliance with the English deserters, but thinking it necessary to disavow such an outrage, which might exclude them from any pretentions to quarter, their officer immediately surrendered. By this time the body of the enemy's Sepoys had passed out of the camp with as little interruption as they had entered it: but orders having been sent to the Morattoes to pursue them, Innis-Khan with all his men mounted at day-break, and came up with them in the open plain before they gained the bank of the Coleroon. The Sepoys no sooner perceived them than they flung away their arms, and attempted to save themselves by dispersing; but the Morattoes, who never figure so much as in these cruel exploits, exerted themselves with such activity, that, according to their own report, not a single man of 700 escaped alive; it is certain that none of them ever appeared to contradict this assertion. Besides the escapes already mentioned, captain Clive had another, which was not discovered until the hurry of the day was over, when it was found that the volley which the enemy