Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/427

Book X. black town to the north-west, which the excavation removed 40 yards farther from the works: but only two-thirds of the bed of the river under the old wall had been choked up. The river, stopped in its former channel, was directed in another, which environed the west and part of the south face of the new works, washing in some places the foot of the glacis, until it rejoined its former bed at the head of the spit of sand. She old wall of the western side still remained as a retrenchment to capitulate on, in case the outward should be carried. The new extention on this side comprised three large bastions and their out-works. The southern of these three bastions communicated with the old bastion, which stood before on the s. w. angle, by the curtain raised across the former channel of the river; and this curtain increased the south face of the fort from 130 to 210 yards. Nevertheless, the works on this side were much less defensible than those to the west and north; but the surface of water and quagmire in the river before it, rendered this front inaccessible, excepting by the labours of a much greater army, than the present attack. The ground on the north of the fort gave the besieger much more advantage than on the other side; and this face was therefore strengthened in proportion: the two former bastions and rampart, as improved and left by the French, were suffered to remain; but the ditch and glacis which they had dug and raised, were, the one filled up, and the other removed further out, to admit better works. In the front of the N. w. bastion was raised another capable of mounting 28 guns; each of the faces were 100 yards in length, and a battalion might be drawn up on its rampart, although a large vacancy was left in the gorge, or back part, to increase the interval towards the former bastion behind, which this was intended to cover: it was, from its superior strength, called the royal bastion. A demi bastion, corresponding with the royal, was raised before the old N. E. bastion, that stood on the beach of the sea, which, however, the demi bastion did not entirely envelop; for its right hand or east face extending in a line parallel to the sea, adjoining to the shoulder angle of the northern face of the old bastion, leaving this face free to fire forward, but confining the extent of ground it commanded to the same width as the space between the east face of the demi bastion and the