uninterrupted success until seven; by which time the entire fort was in possession of the rebels, with the exception of the European barracks and the barrack-square, which is an open quadrangle within the fort. This place was occupied by the four companies of the 69th, commanded by two officers, who had contrived, during the tumult, to get into the barrack, and thus had joined the men; but it was beset by the principal body of the mutineers, who, while the soldiers were still sunk in sleep, poured through the doors and windows volley after volley; repelling every attempt of its inmates to sally forth, by a murderous discharge of musketry, and the fire of a field-piece which they had planted opposite the doorway. After the barracks were surrounded, parties of the insurgents forced their way into the houses of the Europeans, and put to death with unsparing ferocity all whom they could discover. During the whole of these transactions an active communication was kept up between the mutineers and the palace; and many of the servants and followers of the princes were conspicuously active in the scenes of bloodshed and plunder which followed the first success.
But, notwithstanding these unfavourable circumstances, the handful of British soldiers did not dishonour their country. For a considerable time they maintained possession of the barracks, exposed to a murderous fire; and when their position became no longer tenable, they sallied forth, gained possession of the six-pounder which the mutineers had been using, and fought their way through the ranks of their assailants, till they reached the ramparts and a gateway, on the top of which Sergeant Brodie, of the 69th, with a small European guard, had made a long and most gallant stand for several hours after all his officers had been killed.
In all human probability, not a single European would have escaped this dreadful massacre, destined for them all, had it not been for the providential escape of an officer at the first breaking out of the mutiny, by lowering himself from the sally-port into the ditch of the fort,
