the married soldiers as hostages, while the bachelors were chained up to the guns and embrasures of the fort.
The attacking column slowly advanced under the blazing sun and amid the crashing shot from the heavy guns of the pagoda. 'Our men are dropping,' an officer exclaimed, 'ten for one here to what we should lose in a storm.' At last they dashed up the steep and narrow stairs, from which the Burmese cannon might have swept them into the air. But their headlong rush, and the fierce cheer with which they came on, seem to have struck terror into the hearts of the defenders. As the storming party broke in at one gate the Burmese garrison fled by an opposite exit, the Immortals in their gilt lacquer accoutrements heading the stampede, without having time to loosen some women and children who had been fastened up among the guns, as pledges for the valour of the defenders.
But even this disastrous lesson could not teach the Burmese authorities wisdom. The fugitive Governor of Rangoon insolently wrote to the English General, advising him 'to retreat while he could.' It became apparent to Lord Dalhousie that even the capture of the whole sea-coast would not avail to bring the Burmese Emperor to reason. He therefore determined to push the war into the interior and again raised his terms. Instead of
