Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/593

Book XI. efficacious gun was the 18-pounder, which Mahomed Issoof had brought from Madura, for the rest were only 6-pounders and lower; but from excessive firing, the 18-pounder burst the day after it was mounted; and by this time all the ammunition, as well of the batteries as troops, excepting the quantity which prudence required to be reserved for defence, was expended. However, part of the parapet of the tower fired upon, was beaten down, and Mahomed Issoof resolved to storm the next day. Many troops of both armies waited on the assault; and as soon as it began, the Pulitaver, with 3000 chosen Colleries, who had marched in the night from Nellitangaville, issued from the wood and fell upon the camp of Mahomed Issoof, drove away the troops that guarded it, and began to commit every kind of destruction. Mahomed Issoof instantly sent back a large body to repulse them, and continued the assault; but the garrison within received double animation from the Pulitaver's success, which was announced to them by the usual war-cry and the sounding of their conchs. All the other Colleries collected in the woods appeared likewise, as if on the same notice, and in different bands attacked the troops at the batteries, and at the foot of the breach; and although continually repulsed, continually rallied, and with the resolution of the garrison saved the fort until the evening, and then waited in the woods to interrupt the renewal of the assault in the night; but so much of the reserved ammunition had been expended in the day that Mahomed Issoof deemed it dangerous to remain any longer before the fort, and drew off his artillery. Two hundred of his troops and of the Travancores were killed, but more of the enemy. The next day he moved to a distance, and dismissed the Travancores, who proceeded through the pass of Shencotty to their own country, and Mahomed Issoof returned with his own troops, and those lent him by Tondiman and the Moravers, to the town of Tinivelly.