Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/420

412 they sheltered themselves covered up to the chin from the enemy's fire. The commodore judging from these operations, that they would never take the forts, determined to exceed the instructions which he had received from the presidency, rather than expose the English arms to the disgrace they would suffer, if an expedition in which they were believed by Angria to have taken so great a share, should miscarry. The next clay, the 2d of April, he began to cannonade and bombard the fort of Severndroog, situated on the island; but finding that the walls on the western side which he attacked, were mostly cut out of the solid rock, he changed his station to the north-east between the island and the main; where whilst one of his broad-sides plied the north-east bastions of this fort, the other fired on fort Goa, the largest of those upon the main land. The bastions of Severndroog, however, were so high, that the Protector could only point her upper tier at them; but being anchored within a hundred yards, the musketry in the round tops drove the enemy from their guns, and by noon the parapet of the north-east bastion was in ruins; when a shell from one of the bomb vessels set fire to a thatched house, which the garrison, dreading the Protector's musketry, were afraid to extinguish: the blaze spreading fiercely at this dry season of the year, all the buildings of the fort were soon in flames, and amongst them a magazine of powder blew up. On this disaster the inhabitants, men, women and children, with the greatest part of the garrison, in all near 1000 persons, ran out of the fort, and embarking in seven or eight large boats, attempted to make their escape to fort Goa; but they were prevented by the English ketches, who took them all. The Protector now directed her fire only against fort Goa; where the enemy, after suffering a severe cannonade, hung out a flag as a signal of surrender; but whilst the Morattoes were marching to take posessions of it, the governor perceiving that the commodore had not yet taken possession of Severndroog, got into a boat with some of his most trusty men, and crossed over to the island, hoping to be able to maintain the fort until he should receive assistance from Dabul, which is in sight of it. Upon this the Protector renewed her fire upon Severndroog, and the commodore finding that the governor wanted to protract the defence until night, when it was not to be doubted that