Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/545

Book XI back into the pettah, and through it, quite away, and the Europeans not led on, and having nothing effectual to fire upon, soon broke and went off likewise, leaving the picquet, and the field-pieces still engaged. But Preston, for Gordon was not yet to be found, knowing the determination of the picquet to persevere, ran singly to them, and brought them back to the pettah, where they joined the officers deserted by all the rest of the troops: but the artillerymen, animated by the well-known resolution of their commandant Captain Robert Barker, still stood by him and their guns. The fugitives not equally frightened, made their way to the reserved division with Brereton, who on the first notice, ran unaccompanied to the pettah from whence they were coming, and in the strong impulse of indignation, ran the first man he met through the body: unfortunately he was one of the bravest in the army; so that this example carried little influence, and left none to exhortation, and very few obeyed his call; with whom he went as far as the two guns, which Barker was still firing, and by this countenance had deterred the enemy from making a push, which would easily have taken them; but Brereton, sensible of the risk to which they were exposed, ordered him to draw them off into the pettah, from whence they joined the reserve at the ridge. Thus all were gone before the firing ceased in the southern pettah, where Gordon with four or five of the fugitives soon after appeared, coming; in at the gate to the south, where Monson's division had entered.

The day broke, and the enemy's fire recommenced and increased with the light. The gunners, whom the Kellidar had admitted into the fort, plied the cannon on the towers opposite to the three streets, to the head of which Monson's division had advanced; and with the field-pieces on the esplanade, their fire was from 14 guns all within point blank, from the fort at 300, from the field-pieces at 100 yards. The return was from the two field-pieces at the head of the center street, and from platoons of musketry in the other two. The disparity was severe, and could not be long maintained. The officers ordered the men not employed,