Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/67

Book VI. rest had been assembled at Hughley. Surajah Dowlah had previously sent letters to the Dutch and French settlements at Chinchura and Chandernagore, ordering them to assist him with their garrisons against Calcutta; and when his army was in sight of their factories, he repeated his summons in more imperious terms; but they pleaded the treaties subsisting between their nations and the English in Europe: which denial he highly resented; but suppressed his indignation for the present, lest they should, as in a common cause, take up arms in conjunction with the English. But to this they were nothing inclined.

The news of the enemy's approach was brought to Calcutta early the next morning, the 16th of June; on which the militia and military repaired to their posts, and the English women quitted their houses, and retired into the fort. Most of the Indian inhabitants who had not already taken flight now deserted the town, and fled, they knew not whither, to avoid the storm; but the Portuguese, or black Christians, availing themselves of this title, flocked to the fort, into which more than 2000 of them, men, women, and children, were imprudently admitted. At noon, the van of the Nabob's army, marching from the northward, appeared in sight of the company's bounds, and having neither reconnoitred nor gained intelligence, they remained ignorant that the Morattoe-ditch did not continue round the limits, but left an opening without defences to the south. They therefore, without hesitation, advanced to attack the part which lay directly before them, where a deep rivulet, without any bank behind it, supplied the place of the Morattoe-ditch; and the redoubt, called Perring's, which was one of the objects of the Nabobs displeasure, stood on a point of land at the mouth of the rivulet; but being only intended to command the river, this work had but one embrasure towards the land. Contiguous to the redoubt stood a bridge, which was the only passage over the rivulet, on the other side of which, within 100 yards, were thickets and groves, through which lay the high road. A ship of 18 guns had been stationed to the north of the redoubt, in order to flank the thickets: the greatest part; of the company's buxerries were assembled here to defend