Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/504

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480
The War of Coromandel.
Book XI

and nearer to the edge of the same creek, was another: the third battery was at an equal distance 100 yards in the rear of both. The battery to the north, and that to the south, had each two eighteen and two twenty-four pounders; but in the south were likewise the bombarding artillery, which were three mortars, of 13, nine, and eight inches. The battery in the center had only two twelve-pounders.

In the s. E. angle of the fort, Close on the sound, was a bastion called the Francois, of 10 guns. For some distance from hence to the north, the want of hard ground had obliged the rampart to recede in a re-entering angle, in the bottom of which was a work in the form of a demi-lune, having only two faces, without flanks, which would have been needless, since the line of the faces sufficiently flanked the bastion Francois on the right, and that called the Saint John on the left. This work was called the Dutch bastion. The Saint John had eight guns, and beyond it in the N. E. angle of the fort was the bastion called the Camelion, mounting 10 guns. The southern of the English batteries fired on the Francois and Dutch bastion; the center on Saint John's; and the northern on the Cameleon. As soon as their position was decided, the garrison raised a battery on the left shore of the inlet as you enter from the sea; which took them all in flank; but as this battery was separated from the fort by the whole breadth of the sound, and might be attacked in the night by the boats of the ships, the garrison kept a constant guard in it of Europeans, besides Sepoys. They likewise stationed a stronger guard in the ravelin at the end of the caponiere on the other side of the fort. Besides the immediate superiority of artillery standing on their works, the garrison had others in store, mounted ready to replace what might be rendered useless in the course of service; whereas the English army could only restore the loss of theirs by borrowing the common guns of the Hardwicke, which were nine-pounders, or the Rajah's, which were good for nothing.

The French army of observation, as soon as the English passed onwards from Concale, crossed the country to Elore, where there was no garrison to oppose them; and from hence went on to Rajahmundrum, where the sick of the army, in all 25 Europeans, and 40 Sepoys,