Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/646

622 invest the fort all round. In this day the enemy's fire was excessive, and dismounted one of the guns at the enfilading battery, and endamaged all its embrasures; but all were restored during the night, and the same number of guns began to fire again the next morning, which was the 3d of the month. At eight o'clock of this day, Captain Joseph Smith came up with the rest of his detachment, which were 130 European musketry, thirty artillery-men, two field-pieces, and five companies of Sepoys. The enemy during the night finished two embrasures in one face of their battery at the barrier, which pointed against the enfilading battery; and traces appeared of another face to the north, which seemed intended to scour the opposite street of the pettah, across which the attack had thrown up a slight retrenchment. Early the next morning, the breaching battery in the centre street opened with three twenty-four pounders against the N. face of the N. E. bastion, at the distance of 150 yards, and was so well served by Captain Barker, who attended it, that in three rounds the enemy quitted the three guns in the face attacked, and in less than an hour all the merlons were beat down; the other face had before been much shattered by the enfilading battery, which had likewise nearly ruined the north face of the east ravelin: so that neither of the batteries had occasion to fire more than a shot now and then through the rest of the day. Sepoys were posted in the ruins of the houses, who kept up a constant fire through the night on the bastion and ravelin, to prevent the enemy from placing sand-bags to repair them. By the next morning, which was the 5th of the month, and the 10th since the landing, a battery, intended to destroy the east face of the north ravelin, was almost completed, and the other against the N. w. bastion quite finished; but the guns for neither were yet landed from the ships. Intelligence was received, that a detachment of 450 infantry and 150 European horse, were arrived at Chillambarum from Pondicherry, intending to advance and interrupt the siege. The breach, though broad, could not be mounted without clambering, and the immediate access to it was still defended by the ditch, to which the besiegers had not yet approached,