Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/284

256 These instructions and letters were received by General Baird on the afternoon of the 13th The Phœnix sailed the same day for Trincomali; but before she reached her destination events had occurred to which it is now necessary to refer.

Colonel Wellesley, appointed second in command of the expedition against Java and the islands, was already at Trincomali when a copy of Mr. Dundas's despatch of the 6th October reached the Madras Government. This copy was at once forwarded to Colonel Wellesley who determined, in consequence, to proceed at once with the troops under his command (excepting the 19th regiment for which he could not procure tonnage) to Bombay, and thence to the place of rendezvous pointed out in the despatches from Mr. Dundas. He accordingly embarked with the troops from Ceylon on the 14th February.

Colonel Wellesley reached Bombay about the middle of March. He at once communicated with the Governor, and sent off to Mocha a detachment of Bombay troops under the command of Colonel Ramsay of the 80th Regiment. He then set to work to prepare transports for a second detachment, and the progress in this respect had been considerable when General Baird, who, on missing him at Trincomali, had pushed on in the Wasp gun-vessel, joined him on the 31st March.

So indefatigable, indeed, had been the exertions of Colonel Wellesley that on the 3rd April the second detachment of the force, under the command of Colonel Beresford of the 88th Regiment, was able to sail in six transports from Bombay. On that very day Colonel Wellesley was attacked by intermittent fever, and on the 5th the medical officers declared that it would be