Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/645

Book XII. the passage of carriages; and the way between Volcondah and Karical being 120 miles, the march can scarcely be performed in less than ten days; but Captain Smith had received his orders to advance only four days before the armament anchored at Karical, whose ignorance of the impossibility of his apperance aggravated their anxiety concerning the arrival of the French squadron, which intelligence, artfully inculcated from Pondicherry, led them to expect from day to day when all the marines and sailors must have been reimbarked, and Major Monson would have been left with only 60 Europeans, and without a field-piece. However, these apprehensions only encreased their activity in pushing the attack. The ten-inch mortar, which had been employed against Fort Dauphin, was removed on the 31st, and threw shells all night. The garrison returned round and grape from their cannon, and even used their musketry, although all they fired at was under cover, or out of reach: this early profusion of ammunition is rarely followed by vigorous defence at extremity. In the morning of the 1st of April the two embrasures on the right of the enfilading battery to the east were opened. The passage into the covered way lay opposite to this battery, leading through the glacis on the left face of its angle projecting to the east, and the garrison had laid a row of wood and palmiras in front of the barrier gate, which closed this passage at the foot of the glacis, in order to construct a battery there with these materials. The ten-inch mortar sometimes threw carcasses of fire-balls to set them afire, but without effect; and two royals, of which the shells are 5 inches and 5 twelfths diameter, continually bombarded the fort. In the morning of the 2d, the other two embrasures were opened in the enfilading battery. At ten o'clock, arrived Captain Richard Smith from Tritchinopoly with Lascars, oxen, coolies, and stores; and the Nabob came up likewise with 1000 horse and six companies of Sepoys, whom Captain Joseph Smith had sent forward, as the rains and the badness of the roads retarded the carriages and baggage of his detachment, with which he remained to bring them on. This reinforcement afforded troops sufficient; to