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326 menced; and on the 7th it opened its fire. Another battery of four eight-inch and four five and a half-inch mortars being completed by noon on that day, commenced throwing shells into the town. Cannonading on both sides continued with little interruption till the afternoon of the 9th, when the breach in the wall being reported practicable, it was resolved on that evening to attempt to storm.

About seven o'clock the party destined for this duty moved in three columns. Lieutenant-Colonel Ryan, with one hundred and fifty of the Company's Europeans and a battalion of Sepoys, was ordered to attempt a gateway to the left of the principal battery. Major Hawkes, with two companies of the 75th regiment and another battalion of Sepoys, was to carry the advanced guns of the enemy on the right of the battery. Both columns were to endeavour to make their way into the town with the fugitives; but, if that were impracticable, they were to turn and support the centre column in endeavouring to get in at the breach. That column, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Maitland, consisted of the flank companies of his Majesty's 22nd, 75th, and 76th regiments, and those of the Company's European regiment, amounting in the whole to about five hundred men, with a battalion of Sepoys.

Colonel Maitland's orders were to take the enemy by surprise, but in this he altogether failed. The ground being broken by swamps and pools, the orderly advance of the party was greatly checked; many lost their way, and men belonging to one column followed another. It is represented that, to avoid the fire from the ramparts, Colonel Maitland led his men so much to the left as to encroach upon Colonel Ryan's line of march, and that some altercation took place between these two officers as to the relative situation of the breach and trenches; that Colonel Maitland, then marching to the right, found himself at the entrance of the trenches, when he resolved to direct the head of his column once more to the left