Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/617

Book XII was clear, but open; being neither skirted with a parapet-wall, nor even with a palisade: a glacis, and a covered-way had been carried round the fort; and from the center of the north-side of the coveredway projected a strong ravelin, mounting six guns, round which the glacis was continued; a gate with a draw-bridge communicated with this ravelin: the narrow rampart of the old wall had in many places been widened, and ramps raised to it, for the ready running up of cannon; each of the towers, of which there were twenty two, was rendered capable of a gun of any size, those at the four angles would admit three, and the platforms of the two gateways more. The extent of the fort from the western to the eastern side is nearly 800 yards; the eastern face 350; but the southern wall, receding as it stretches to the eastward, reduces the eastern face to 260 yards, of which 50 are occupied in the middle by a gate-way, and the main rampart on this face had only the two towers in the angles. Two batteries were raised to the East; one, of three embrasures in the front of some houses, standing at the distance of 360 yards, nearly opposite to the rampart between the gateway and the tower in the angle on its right; and was intended to breach in the interval: the other battery was on the left of this, but 100 yards nearer; it mounted only two guns, of which, one was to dismantle the tower in the angle to the right of the gateway, and the other the angle on the right of the gateway itself. A battery of three guns was raised to the south, nearly opposite the s. w. angle of the fort, and bore upon the lower in this angle, and the two next to the eastward. This battery was at the distance of 200 yards, where a few houses gave shelter to the guards, and covered the workmen in the outset of the approaches, The fourth battery was that raised by Captain Wood on the north; it was to the left of the ravelin, at the distance of 200 yards, and mounted two guns, which were to plunge over the ravelin, in order to break the drawbridge behind, by which the ravelin communicated across the ditch with the body of the fort: but this battery was of little use because it enfiladed no part of the rampart, and the ravelin it fired upon bore only one gun against the two