Carew, who were ordered with the pikemen to the attack, the battery was taken in the rear, and an officer and his guard made prisoners, without a musket being fired, although the enemy were at their guns with matches lighted. From the near approach of daylight, our situation became critical; but we had procured a native guide to carry us to the walls of the castle of Belgica; and leaving a guard over the prisoners, and in charge of the battery, the party made a rapid movement round the skirts of the town, where the sound of the bugle was spreading alarm among the enemy[1]. In twenty minutes the scaling ladders were placed against the walls of the outer pentagon of Belgica; and the first guns were fired by the enemy’s sentries[2] . The gallantry and activity with which the scaling ladders were hauled up after the outwork was carried, and placed for the attack of the inner work, under a sharp fire from the garrison, exceed all praise. The enemy, after firing three guns[3], and keeping up an ineffectual discharge of musketry for 10 or 15 minutes, fled in all directions, and through the gateway, leaving the Colonel-Commandant and 10 others dead, and 2 officers and 30 men prisoners in our hands. Captain Kenah, Lieutenants Carew, Allen, Pratt, Walker, and Lyons, of the navy; Lieutenant Yates, and Ensign Allen (a volunteer) of the Madras service, were among the foremost in the escalade; and my thanks are due to Captain-Lieutenant Nixon, of the Madras European regiment, for the steady and officer-like conduct with which he directed
- ↑ An officer and 60 men were taken prisoners in the first battery, without firing a pistol: the sentinel was killed by a pike. Fortunately, the nature of the attack required no firing from the assailants, as the boats grounded at some distance from the shore, and the men had to wade up to their waists in water. Expecting an attack by sea, the enemy were fully prepared to give the ships a warm reception. Their confusion on finding the British in their rear, may readily be conceived. Captain Kenah had been ordered to attack the other battery, but was recalled in consequence of Captain Cole determining to attempt the citadel, which commanded all the other defences, by coup-de-main.
- ↑ Owing to the state of the weather, Captain Cole and his followers were not discovered until within 100 yards of the ditch surrounding the citadel.
- ↑ The great guns near which the ladders were placed fortunately burnt priming, owing to the heavy rains.
