Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/315

Book IX. They were both attacked at the same time with numbers sufficient to assult all round at once, and in half an hour both were carried; two officers and all the Europeans were made prisoners, but most of the Sepoys ran away. The two divisions together then marched against the battery on the hill of Thevenapatam. This attack commenced at one in the morning, and was resisted with much spirit until three, when the enemy got possession of the battery; where, likewise, the Europeans were taken, and the Sepoys escaped. The fire from the fort deterred the enemy from continuing at Thevenapatam; and they retired to the two points, which they supported with 400 men, sheltered behind the hillock of Patcharee. None of the Sepoys who had fled returned into the fort, but escaped along the sea-shore across the river Panar.

At day-light a detachment from the fort took possession of the battery again; on which the enemy immediately reinforced the troops at the points with 5 or 600 men from the camp at the garden-house; which sufficiently indicated another attack on the battery, and to avoid it the detachment was prudently recalled, together with the guard at the gateway on the canal. At night the enemy broke ground, carrying on a trench of communication between Chuckley and Patcharee points; and although the excessive heat of the weather ought to have referred this service to the night, it continued through the two succeeding days, and by the night of the 19th the work was advanced to the hill of Thevenapatam, extending in the whole 800 yards. Five mortars from the west opened at the same time as the trenches were begun; but no cannon were fired excepting those on the ramparts of Cuddalore, from which one shot on the 18th killed Lieutenant Davis, two Serjeants, and five black men. On the 20th, the enemy opened another trench leading from, the west side of the hill of Thevenapatam to the gateway on the canal, and repaired the bridge there; they likewise established two twelve pounders amongst the ruins of some fishermen's huts on the beach, which commanded the entrance into the river of Tripapolore from admitting any boats from the sea. These guns were sheltered from the fort by two hillocks of sand, but had no communication with the enemy's lines, and were left to the