Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/508

484 to fire over, which is rarely four feet high. From the s. w. bastion, which was named St. Michael's, to the next on the w. called the Saline, the exterior ground was a miry swamp of mud, in which the ditch that surrounded the rest of the fort, could not have been continued, but at great expence and labour, and was left in this state, because supposed of more difficult passage than the ditch itself. Some days before a black servant of Captain Yorke's, who had lately lived in Masulipatam, told him that he had sometimes seen the natives employed in the fort wade over the quagmire between the two bastions: and on this intelligence, Colonel Forde had permitted Captain Yorke and Knox to examine this passage; they took 100 Sepoys and placing them in different parties behind one another to support their retreat, went on at midnight, properly clad to the skin, in order to resemble black men naked, and entered the quagmire, which they passed half over, and found it not above knee deep, but the mud very tenacious; they returned undiscovered, and their report determined Colonel Forde to try an attack on this quarter at the same time as the main assault; which at least would distract the enemy's attention. In the same intention the country troops belonging to the Rajah were to march along the causeway over the morass, and on each side of it, and to skirmish against the ravelin in front of the gateway. The battalion of Europeans, reinforced with 30 sailors from the Hardwicke, all the artillery-men, and half the Sepoys, were allotted for the real attack, which was to be made on the bastion called the Cameleon in the N. E. angle of the fort. Their whole number was 346 Europeans, rank and file; the Sepoys amounted to 1400; of which the other half were allotted to the false attack to be led by Captain Knox. Each of the three attacks was to be ready on their respective ground before midnight; when, as soon as the false commenced on the west side, the real, and the Rajah's were likewise to begin. As no counter-attempt was apprehended, the guard of the camp was left to some of the Rajah's troops. The attack with Captain Knox having farther to go, marched off first; the main attack was in three divisions, of which the Europeans formed two, and the Sepoys the last;