armed with muskets, spears, and swivels. On the 29th, when closing the town, the transport grounded too far off to make use of her carronades with a good effect. The Burmese then opened their fire from a stockade, which was returned by all the row-boats, forming a line close along-shore, until after sunset; the mortar-vessel likewise took her position, under Captain Kennan, of the Madras artillery, and kept up a well-directed fire the whole night, killing, from report, great numbers of the enemy. The defences of Martaban are thus described by Lieutenant-Colonel Godwin:–
“The place rests at the bottom of a very high hill, washed by a beautiful and extensive sheet of water; on its right a rocky mound on which was placed a two-gun battery, with a deep nullah under it. This battery communicates with the usual stockade of timber, and behind this a work of masonry, varying from twelve to twenty feet thick, with small embrasures for either cannon or musketry. The stockade runs along the margin of the water for more than three-quarters of a mile, where it joins a large pagoda, which projects into the water in the form of a bastion. The defences then continue a short distance, and end at a nullah, on the other side of which all is thick jungle. The town continues to run in an angle away from the pagoda for at least a mile, and terminates in the house of the Mayoon, close to a stockade up the hill. The whole defence is the water line, with its flanks protected. The rear of the town and work is composed of thick jungle and large trees, and open to the summit.”
“At 5 o’clock in the morning of the 30th,” says the lieutenant-colonel, “the men composing the first division were in their boats – ninety-eight of H.M. 41st regiment, seventy-five of the 3d native light infantry, eight of the Bengal artillery, and thirty-eight seamen of the royal navy; and I was fully aware that these men would have the business to themselves, as I had no where to wait for the remainder of the force, and every boat was already occupied.”
