36
THREE FRENCHMEN IN BENGAL
Renault sent repeated reinforcements, first the company of grenadiers, then at 9 o'clock the company of artillery, and at 10 o'clock, when the surrounding houses were in flames, and many of the Moors had fled, a company of volunteers. With these, and a further reinforcement of sixty sailors, the little fort held out till 7 o'clock in the evening, when the English, after three fruitless assaults, ceased fire and withdrew. Street fighting is always confusing, and hence the following vague description of the day's events from Captain Eyre Coote's journal:—
"Colonel Clive ordered the picquets, with the company's grenadiers, to march into the French bounds, which is encompassed with an old ditch,[1] the entrance into it a gateway with embrasures on the top but no cannons, which the French evacuated on our people's advancing. As soon as Captain Lynn, who commanded the party, had taken possession, he acquainted the Colonel, who ordered Major Kilpatrick and me, with my company of grenadiers, to join Captain Lynn, and send him word after we had reconnoitred the place. On our arrival there we found a party of French was in possession of a road leading to a redoubt that they had thrown up close under their fort, where they had a battery of cannon, and upon our advancing down the road, they fired some shots at us. We detached some parties through a wood, and drove them from the road into their batteries with the loss of some men; we then sent for the Colonel, who, as soon as he joined us, sent to the camp for more troops. We
- ↑ Still visible, I believe, in parts. The gateway certainly exists.
