Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall v3p1.djvu/445

 Colonel Godwin’s detachment, and the flotilla, cleared the left bank of the river for fifteen miles below Prome. On the 27th, Thomas Campbell Robertson, Esq. Judge of Cawnpore, who had been appointed to the general superintendence of civil affairs in the conquered provinces, and to the conduct, jointly with Sir Archibald Campbell, of political intercourse with the Burman Court, arrived at headquarters. On the 30th, measures were taken for making a general attack upon every accessible part of the enemy’s line, extending, on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, from the commanding heights of Napadee, distant from Prome only five miles, to the village of Simbike, upon the Nawine river, distant eleven miles in a N.E. direction. The Burman army was divided into three corps. The left, commanded by Maha Nemiow, an old and experienced general, who had been sent to introduce a new system of conducting the war, was stockaded in the jungles at Simbike and Hyalay, amounting to 15,000 men, Burmese, Shans, and Cassayers, of which latter force 700 were cavalry. The centre, under the immediate orders of the Kee-Wongee, was strongly entrenched upon the Napadee ridge, inaccessible, except on one side by a narrow pathway, commanded by seven pieces of artillery, while the navigation of the river was commanded by several batteries of heavy ordnance. This corps consisted of 30,000 men, and the space between the left and centre, a thick and extensive forest, was occupied by a line of posts. the enemy’s right, under the orders of Sudda Woon, occupied the west bank of the Irrawaddy, strongly stockaded, and defended by artillery.

On the 1st December, shortly after day-light. Sir James Brisbane, with the flotilla, commenced a heavy cannonade on the enemy’s centre, and continued for nearly two hours to attract his chief attention to that point, while the troops under Sir Archibald Campbell were marching out for the real attack upon Maha Nemiow. At the same time, the 26th Madras native infantry advanced along the margin of the Irrawaddy, to drive in the Kee Wongee’s advanced posts upon the main body.

On reaching the village of Ze-ouke, the attacking force