Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/131

Book VII. the enemy having abandoned it as soon as it grew dark enough to conceal their retreat. Several guards of Sepoys proceeded immediately to post centinels round the walls; and whilst this was doing, some other sailors, who were likewise very drunk and had got into the fort, supposed some of the Sepoys to be some of the enemy's men who had not escaped; and in this notion fired their pistols, and killed Captain Campbell, an officer of the company's troops. The operations of the morning at the hollow, irregular and imperfect as they were, changed the, contemptible opinion which Monickchund and his soldiery had conceived of English troops, from their own success at the taking of Calcutta; and on his return from Buz-buzia to that place, he remained there only a few hours and leaving 500 men to defend the fort, went away with the rest of his command to Hughley, where having likewise communicated his own terrors, he proceeded to carry them to the Nabob at Muxadavad. On the other hand, the resolution and activity with which the enemy's matchlock men began their assault on the village, impressed most of the English officers, and many of the common men, with a much higher opinion of the troops of Bengal than they deserved.

The sloop of war had been sent forward some days before, and anchored in sight of the forts of Tannah and Aligur, where her appearance had deterred the governor of Hughley from sending the ships laden with bricks, which he had intended to sink in the pass. The fleet left Buz-buzia on the 30th of December, and anchored on the 1st of January between those forts, which the enemy abandoned without firing a shot, leaving on the platforms 50 pieces of cannon, which they had brought from Calcutta, many of which however were not mounted. The next morning, Colonel Clive, with the greatest part of the Europeans and Sepoys, landed and marched along the high road from Aligur to Calcutta; and at nine o'clock the Kent and Tiger anchored before the English fort: but for want of wind could not immediately present their broadsides; during which disadvantage the enemy cannonaded them briskly from the line of guns on the brink of the river, killing nine men in the