Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/393

Book. V. battalion set out from Madura, with two eighteen pounders; but the march tying through a rugged road, the carriages of these cannon broke down, and there were no spare carriages to replace them; so that when the troops appeared before the pagoda, they had none of the common preparations necessary to attack it, having even forgot to provide scaling ladders. Colonel Heron, however, thinking it a disgrace to retreat after he had summoned the place, determined to force his way into it by burning down the gate with bundles of straw; an expedient which probably was suggested to him by his Indian domestics, in whom he placed great confidence; for we have seen the natives employing this method of attack at Achaveram. The most resolute men in the army regarded the attempt as rash and impracticable; but colonel Heron, to silence their remonstrances, set the example, and carried the first torch himself. Excess of courage, however desperately or absurdly employed, seldom fails to interest those who are spectators of it, and often obliges them to participate of the danger, even against the convictions of their reason: Mahomed Issoof, the commander of the Sepoys, who had more than any one ridiculed the madness of this attempt, no sooner saw colonel Heron exposing himself in this desperate manner, contrary to all military rules, than he followed his example, and accompanied him with another torch; so that the two principal officers of the army were now seen acting the part of volunteers, leading a forlorn hope. Success, however, contrary to the general expectation, rewarded their endeavours, and in less than an hour the gate was burnt down, when the soldiery rushed in, and in their first fury put several of the garrison to the sword: they were then permitted to plunder, and nothing as usual, escaped them; for finding in the temples of the pagoda a great number of little brazen images, worshipped by the people of the country, and particularly by the Colleries, they tore them down from their pedestals, hoping to sell them at least for what the weight of the metal might be worth. After this exploit, for which the people of the counry held them in utter detestation, the troops returned to Madura; Where leaving a garrison of Europeans and Sepoys for the security of the city, the rest of the army, accompanied by Maphuze Khan, proseeded to Tinivelly, and arrived there about the middle of March.