The trenches were opened against Sarsnee on the 27th December, and a battery erected on the 4th January, 1803, but at such a distance that the rownee was not breached; a storm was nevertheless made on the 15th, which proved unsuccessful.
Lieutenant Boyle was dangerously wounded by a cannon-ball on the 8th, and died on the 24th of January.
Reinforcements under the Commander-in-Chief arrived, and the siege was renewed; the approaches being advanced 200 yards, the town was taken on the 8th February, and on the 11th the garrison abandoned Sarsnee and fled to Bidgegurh; thither the army moved on the 13th; batteries were ready on the 21st February, and by the 27th a practicable breach was effected; during the night, however, the enemy were discovered evacuating the fort, and next morning it was taken possession of by the British.
Whilst proceeding round the fort in the morning, most probably with a view to ascertain the ordnance and stores, Major (Lieutenant-Colonel) Gordon was killed, along with several sipahis and lascars, by the accidental explosion of a powder-magazine. In reporting his death, the Commander-in-Chief says that he felt “particularly indebted for his exertions, directed by uncommon zeal and ability.”
The Governor-General, in the order published to the army, “deeply regrets the severe loss which the public service had sustained by the death of Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon;” he also notified his “high approbation of the gallantry and steadiness displayed by the troops, and of the readiness with which they submitted to extreme labour under circumstances of peculiar hardship from the unusual severity of the weather.”
The force next moved to Cutchowrah, which, after some attempts at treachery and delay, was given up. Major T. Green had command of the artillery, and the troops then broke up and returned to their cantonments, small garrisons being left in Sarsnee and Bidgegurh.
In the contemporary accounts of these sieges we meet with no intimation of excessive rain having fallen, which, no doubt, adds exceedingly to the fatigues and hardships incidental to troops in trenches, and we are therefore rather at a loss to understand what the excessive hardships caused by the season, adverted to in the general orders, were; the heat in the month of March, in the provinces, is not overpowering, and we cannot help smiling when we recollect that within a few months these very troops were to form part of that army which Lake, contemning the seasons, led, in the hottest parts of successive years, through the Dooab and Rajasthan.
CHAPTER VI.
Lord Lake’s campaigns—Captain Hutchinson’s proceedings in the neighbourhood of Rampoorah—Sieges of Komona, Gunnourie, and Adjeegurh—Augmentation by adding golundaz—Increase of horse artillery—Ordnance-drivers organized—Colonel Horsford, Commandant—Expeditions to the Isle of France and Java—Bundlecund campaigns—Callingur—Gribeauval pattern carriages introduced—Additional golundaz companies—Head-quarters removed to Dum Dum.
The conduct of the Mahrattas having rendered hostilities unavoidable, the Governor-General determined to carry them on upon such a scale as would completely destroy their power, and, at the same time, eradicate the French party from the Dooab, where Mr. Perron, nominally a commander of Scindia’s disciplined brigades, had in reality established a small independent principality of his own.