of considerable size, filled with petroleum, or earth-oil and cotton, were secured; other inflammable ingredients were also distributed in different parts of the raft, and the almost unextinguishable fierceness of the flames proceeding from them can scarcely be imagined. Many of them were considerably upwards of a hundred feet in length, and were divided into many pieces attached to each other by means of long hinges, so arranged, that when they caught upon the cable or bow of any ship, the force of the current should carry the ends of the raft completely round her, and envelope her in flames from the deck to the main-top-mast head, with scarcely a possibility of extricating herself from the devouring element. With possession of Kemmendine, the enemy could have launched these rafts into the stream, from a point where they must have reached our shipping in the crowded harbour; but while we retained that post, they were obliged to despatch them from above it, and the setting of the current carried them, after passing the vessels at the station, upon a projecting point of land, where they almost invariably grounded; and this circumstance, no doubt, much increased Bandoola’s anxiety to drive us from so important a position.”
Things were in this state when Captain Chads returned from Pegu, at 8 a.m., on the 2nd December. He immediately sent the Arachne’s pinnace up, under Lieutenant Kellett and Mr. Valentine Pickey, admiralty midshipman, to gain information and reconnoitre; and shortly after, three row-boats, under Mr. William Coyde, midshipman, with a party of seamen to fight their guns. This assistance was most timely, the garrison being pressed in every direction; from which critical situation. Lieutenant Kellett’s highly judicious and determined gallant conduct immediately relieved them, by clearing both their flanks of the enemy, by showers of grape shot. This service performed by the pinnace, with a single carronade, in the face of hundreds of the enemy’s boats, was the admiration of the whole garrison; and Major Yates expressed himself to Captain Chads in terms the most gratifying, “for the able assistance Lieutenant Kellett had afforded him.”
The Teignmouth shortly afterwards resumed her station, and was constantly engaged with the enemy’s war-boats, which had long guns in their bows, and annoyed her a great deal. In the afternoon, finding the Burmese were making every effort to gain possession of Kemmendine, and as that post was of the last importance, both in a military and naval
