Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/74

68 rendered, and was immediately cut to pieces. The other eight, always presenting and rarely firing, got to the south west angle of the park, when the guns, as well of the fort, as of the battery which had been raised across the road leading to it, midway of the west side of the park-wall, deterred the enemy from accompanying them any farther. The detachments at all the three batteries, the two to the south, and that to the north of the fort, were now recalled; and boats were sent, which soon after brought away Ensign Pischard, and the guard of 20 men, which was remaining at Perring's redoubt to the north. The batteries had been so much relied upon as the best defences of the settlement, that the desertion of them on the very first day they were attacked created general consternation; and the uproar of 1500 black Portuguese in the fort increased the confusion. Of the Lascars, who had been inlisted to serve the cannon, not more than twenty, and of the buxerries not one, remained. The Armenian and Portuguese militia were stupified with fear. However, the English still preserved their courage, and small parties were detached to the church, to Mr. Eyres, opposite the angle of the north-east bastion, to Mr. Cruttenden's on the north, and to the governor's house on the south, all which commanded the ramparts. In the mean time the enemy had drilled the three guns which had been spiked and left in the eastern battery, and turned them on the fort; whilst numbers of their troops, sheltering themselves in the trenches which had been dug in the park, and behind the walls of that inclosure, kept a constant fire of small arms on the ramparts.

A ship and seven smaller vessels, belonging to the settlement, lay before the fort; and boats, with the natives who plied them, had been carefully reserved. As night approached, it was resolved to send all the European women on board the ship; two of the council superintended their embarkation, and were accompanied by several of the militia. Before eight o'clock the party at the governor's house, having been much galled by the enemy from the next house to the south, were recalled; their retreat exposed the range of warehouses adjoining to the south curtain, which was the weakest part of