Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/429

Book X. a trench were extended from the neck of each bastion quite into the surf. No buildings, excepting sheds, had been raised in the new ground taken into the westward; and in those of the old, the bomb-proof lodgments were not sufficient for the security of the garrison. The first appearance of any work done by the enemy, had been discerned in the morning of the 18th of December, when Lally's regiment had completed a breast-work close to the sea, 580 yards from the covered way; it was sheltered by houses on the right, but open in front to a direct fire from the north-east and demi bastions: from this breast-work they continued a trench by two zig-zags 180 yards nearer the fort, which brought the trench 40 yards upon the esplanade: here they began a battery intended for many guns, which extended from the beach, parallel to the same fire as the breast-work, and behind this battery, on the right, they raised another for six mortars, which they completed by the end of the month; but the constant fire of the fort had retarded their work and prevented them from opening any embrasures in the battery for the cannon, because they had not enough ready for this, and another battery of six guns, which the regiment of Lorrain had on their side completed at the opening of a street on the rising ground to the westward, which enfiladed the face of the royal bastion, and the covered way before it: behind this battery were two mortars imprudently sheltered by the rubbish of houses, which had been demolished for the purpose. The garrison called this the Lorrain, and the other by the sea, Lally's battery.

At break of day, on the 2d of January, the Lorrain battery began to fire both its cannon and mortars, which were soon followed by four thirteen-inch mortars from Lally's, which threw their shells in vollies all together. The fort returned with shells as well as shot upon the Lorrain battery with 11 guns, four on the west face of the Royal, five on the flank of the Demi, and two on the west flank of the old north-east bastion: this superiority in less than an hour dismounted two of the Lorrain guns, and obliged them to withdraw the other four; but against the mortars, either here or at Lally's,