Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/73

Book VI. from which the fire increased so much, that at five o'clock Captain Clayton, the military officer who commanded in the battery, sent Mr. Holwell, who acted as a lieutenant under him, to represent to the governor the impossibility of maintaining this post any longer, unless it was immediately reinforced with cannon and men, sufficient to drive the enemy out of the houses: but before Mr. Holwell returned, Captain Clayton was preparing to retreat, having already spiked up two 18 pounders and one of the field-pieces; and the whole detachment soon after marched into the fort with the other. They were scarcely arrived before the enemy took possession of the battery, and expressed their joy by excessive shouts. The two other batteries had remained unmolested since noon; but a party had been detached from the southern to defend the palisade to the east of it, which was overlooked by two large houses, one on each hand: a Serjeant and twelve men, belonging to the military, posted themselves in one of the houses; and a lieutenant with nine of the militia, all of whom were young men in the mercantile service of the company, took possession of the other: the fire from both defended the pass until the eastern battery was deserted, when, all the ground from hence to the two houses being open, numbers of the enemy gathered in the ground on the inside of the palisade, and began to attack the two houses, which animating those who were attacking the palisade on the other side, they at length tore it down, and joined those already within. The serjeant with the twelve military saw their danger before the enemy had made proper dispositions to prevent their escape, and quitting the house in which they had been stationed, proceeded by by-ways which they knew to the southern battery; but did not give notice of their retreat to those of the militia in the other house; who soon after seeing themselves surrounded, without hopes of succour or relief, came out in a compact body, determined to fight their way to the fort; but two, whose names were Smith and Wilkinson, separated from the rest, and were immediately intercepted: the enemy, however, offered them quarter, which Smith refused, and, it is said, slew five men before he fell; on which Wilkinson surrendered,