Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/451

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Book X.
Siege of Fort St. George.
427

The preparations of the enemy on shore against the Shaftsbury, slackened their fire against the fort on the 30th, the day she was discerned. The three embrasures on the left of Lally's battery, which bore upon the right face in the north ravelin, continued; the two next to them, which were the left of the four that had hitherto been employed against the north-east bastion, likewise remained free; but the interposition of their own work on the crest of the glacis precluded the use of the two other embrasures against this bastion, as well as of the four which had battered in breach the salient angle of the demi bastion: but they did not think it worth their while to remove the guns of these embrasures into those on the right, in order to batter towards the shoulder angle, that next the flank of this bastion, because they intended, as usual, to make the breach at the salient angle, in which their fire had already almost ruined the parapet. The fire of the burying-ground battery, with four guns, continued on the left face of the north ravelin, and the flank of the demi bastion, and the four guns in the hospital-battery enfiladed the whole of the north front. The outward gun in Lally's battery which remained free against the north-east bastion, they turned against the shoulder merlon on the left of the fascine battery, raised by the garrison on the edge of the surf, of which all the four guns bore on this and the three next embrasures of Lally's, to the left. Their mortars in this, the burying-ground, and the battery between them, likewise continued as before. Such was their fire at the close of this day; and in these 24 hours one 18 pounder was dismounted by the hospital-battery on Pigot's bastion, 1 European, with 3 Sepoys were killed, and 9 Europeans, with 2 Sepoys, wounded.

The enemy's mortars continued through the ensuing night, and mostly against the defences. They worked hard under ground from the palmyra stockade; but, as before, without being discovered; and the earth they threw up on the crest of the glacis likewise concealed their intentions there, although the garrison gave frequent alerts, and threw grenades every half hour, hoping the occasion of a successful sally to explore their work; but the enemy here took