Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/273

Book IV French took possession of it in the beginning of the preceding year, when their troops marched out of Pondicherry with Chunda-saheb to reduce the Arcot province. It was, and not without reason, esteemed by the natives a very strong hold. Its outline, exclusive of some irregular projections at the gateways, is nearly a parallelogram, extending 400 yards, from north to south, and 320 from east to west. The eastern, and half the northern side is covered by a continued swamp of rice fields, and the other half of the north, together with the whole of the west side, is defended by a large lake. Inaccessible in these parts, it would have been impregnable, if the south side had been equally secure; but here the ground is high, and gives advantages to an enemy. The Indian engineer, whoever he was, that erected the fort, seems to have exceeded the common reach of his countrymen in the knowledge of his art, not only by the choice of the spot, but also by proportioning the strength of the defences to the advantages and disadvantages of the situation: for the fortifications to the south are much the strongest, those opposite to the rice fields something weaker, and the part that is skirted by the lake is defended only by a slender wall; a deep ditch 60 feet wide, and faced with stone, a fausse-braye, and a stone wall 18 feet high, with round towers on and between the angles, form the defences to the land: nor are these all; for parallel to the south, east, and north sides of these outward works, are others of the same kind repeated within them, and these joining to the slender wall which runs to the west along the lake, form a second enclosure or fortification. The garrison consisted of 40 Europeans and 500 Sepoys, and 15 pieces of cannon were mounted in the place.

A battery, consisting of four twenty-four pounders, was raised to the south about 500 yards from the wall, which resisting at this distance longer than was expected, the guns were removed and mounted within 200 yards, and from hence in four days they made a breach through both the outward and inward wall; but still it remained to drain and fill up the ditches, and even after this a much greater number than the besiegers might have been easily repulsed. But the officer, on seeing the English preparing to make approaches to the outward