Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/416

392 front of their left, almost adjoining to the long street they had passed through, lay the ruins of a demolished house, which spread more than half-way over the cross-street, and although not high enough to prevent a single rank of musketry from firing over the rubbish, did not admit the field-pieces, which were therefore drawn up to the right of the rubbish, and the troops which had stood there made room for them, by crowding along the adjoining walls on that side of the cross-street. These alterations created some confusion; for they were made with much hurry from the ardour of setting the field-pieces to work; which did not disappoint the expectation, but firing with grape knocked down numbers. Lorrain scarcely stood a minute before all the men ran into the opposite houses; and all the officers could do was to turn the field-pieces, which the gunners likewise abandoned after the very first discharge. Draper immediately commanded his own firing to cease, and the grenadiers to follow him to the enemy's guns, to which he ran, and fired a pistol, but without effect, at an officer who remained by them, which the officer having returned with as little, offered to surrender himself and the guns, when Draper perceived that he had been followed by only four grenadiers. In the same instant, many of the French soldiers, encouraged by the ceasing of the English fire, and the backwardness of the men to advance with Draper, gathered again in the street, and began to fire; by which two of the grenadiers were killed, and the other two wounded before they got back to their own men, and Draper returned with them. Now the field-pieces and musketry on both sides commenced the hottest fire; but with encreasing havock from the enemy, whose numbers were augmented every moment by the battalion of India; and many of the English soldiers began in their turn to take shelter in the nearest houses and enclosures. Nevertheless, the brunt of this fight continued 20 minutes, when Draper convinced that no success was to be expected, and that the arrival of Lally's regiment from the seaside might cut off the whole detachment, ordered the retreat; but not a single drummer was found to beat it. The grenadiers of the Company's troops, not having room to be employed in the cross-