Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/444

420 and two of the line, with 600 men of Draper's regiment on board; which were arrived there a few days before, having passed the Cape of Good Hope too late in the season to gain the coast of Coromandel; the letter from Captain Smith gave intelligence that the company's ships, with all the troops on board, had sailed under the convoy of two frigates from Bombay on the 31st: and the spies which came in from the enemy's camp reported that this news was likewise known there, and had determined Mr. Lally to make a general assault on the fort this very night; on which the whole garrison and all the inhabitants were stationed and remained under arms at their respective posts until the morning.

The fire of the cannon, musketry, and mortars, from the fort, although maintained constantly throughout the night, did not prevent the enemy from advancing their sap along the glacis, on the east face of the covered-way, as far as the left of the stockade, and they made a return on the right to the crest of the glacis; but had not time to extend the sap to the left, along the front of the stockade towards the surf, nor even to complete a proper lodgment in the return, the want of which left their workmen exposed to the fire of the covered-way; but on the other side of the salient angle they had raised gabions, and made considerable progress in a retrenchment intended for a battery. The night passed without any alarms of the supposed assault; and the ensuing day, which was the 25th, continued with the usual fire of cannon and Mortars until two in the afternoon, when a sally was made by the guard at the blind, and the same number of grenadiers, in all forty soldiers with arms, who covered twenty pioneers with tools. Just before the blind, on the east face of the covered way, parallel to the same face of the demi bastion, was a passage cut in the glacis towards the surf; through which the party passed, and then proceeding along the surf, round the right of the stockade, came in flank of the head of the enemy's sap, from which their first fire drove all their guards and workmen, who retreated to their retrenchment at the salient angle waiting for succours; during which the English soldiers maintained their ground, and the pioneers overset the gabions, some into the sea, others into the