"Captain Clive, in his answer, reproached the badness of Chunda Sahib's cause; treated Rajah Sahib's offers of money with contempt; and said that he had too good an opinion of his prudence to believe that he would attempt to storm until he had got better soldiers than the rabble of which his army was composed. As soon as the messenger was despatched, the flag of truce was pulled down; but, the enemy not understanding the rules of European war, numbers of them remained near the ditch, parleying with the sepoys, and persuading them to desert. The crowd was several times warned to retire, but, continuing to disregard the injunction, was dispersed by a volley of small arms, which killed several of them.
"Lieutenant Innis's party, reinforced to the number of 150 Europeans, and with four field-pieces, was now advancing under the command of Captain Kilpatrick; and on the 9th of November a detachment of Mahrattas arrived in the neighbourhood, and intercepted some ammunition going to the enemy. They likewise attempted to enter the town; but, finding every street and avenue barricadoed, they contented themselves with plundering and setting fire to some houses in the skirts of it; after which they retreated.
"By this time the enemy had, from their battery to the south-west, made a breach much larger than that to the north-west, for it extended near thirty yards; but the ditch before it was full of water, and not fordable; and the garrison had counterworked this breach with the same kind of defences as the other.
"Rajah Sahib, exasperated by the answer he had received to his summons, and alarmed by the approach of the Mahrattas and the detachment from Madras, determined to storm the fort. In the evening, a spy brought intelligence of this to the garrison; and at midnight another came, with all the enemy's dispositions, and the hour of attack, which was to begin at the dawn of the day, by the signal of three bombs.
"Captain Clive, almost exhausted with fatigue, lay down to sleep, ordering himself to be awakened at the first alarm.
"It was the 14th of November, and the festival which commemorates the murder of the brothers Hassan and Hassein happened to fall out at this time. This is celebrated by the Mahommedans of Hindustan with a kind of religious madness, some acting and others bewailing the catastrophe of their saints with so much energy, that several die of the excesses they commit: they are likewise persuaded that whoever falls in battle against unbelievers, during any of the days of this ceremony, shall instantly be translated into the higher paradise, without stopping at any of the intermediate purgatories. To the enthusiasm of superstition was added the more certain efficacy of inebriation; for most of the troops, as is customary during the agitations of the festival, had eaten plentifully of bang, a plant which either stupifies, or excites the most desperate excesses of rage. Thus prepared, as soon as the morning broke, the army of Rajah Sahib advanced to the attack. Besides a multitude that came with ladders to every part of the walls that were accessible, there appeared four principal divisions; two of these divisions advanced to the two gates, and the other two were allotted to the breaches.
"Captain Clive, awakened by the alarm, found his garrison at their posts, according to the dispositions he had made. The parties who attacked the gates drove before them several elephants, who, with large plates of iron fixed on their foreheads, were intended to break them down; but the elephants, wounded by the musketry, soon turned, and trampled on those who escorted them. The ditch before the breach to the north-west was fordable; and as many as the breach would admit mounted it with a mad kind of intrepidity, whilst numbers came and sat down with great composure in the fausse-braye under the tower where the field-piece was planted, and waited there, to relieve those who were employed in the attack: these passed the breach, and some of them even got over the first trench before the defenders gave the fire: it fell heavily, and every shot did execution; and a number of muskets were loaded in readiness, which those behind delivered to the first rank as fast as they could discharge them. The two pieces of cannon from the top of the house fired likewise on the assailants, who in a few minutes abandoned the attack; when another body, and then another succeeded, who were driven off in the same manner. In the mean time bombs, with short fusees, which had been prepared and lodged in the adjacent rampart, were thrown into the fausse-braye, and by their explosion drove the crowd who had seated themselves there back again over the ditch.
"At the breach to the south-west the enemy brought a raft, and seventy men embarked on it to cross the ditch, which was flanked by two field-pieces, one in each tower. The raft had almost gained the fausse-braye, when Captain Clive, observing that the gunners fired with bad aim, took the management of one of the field-pieces himself, and, in three or four discharges, flung them into such confusion, that they overset the raft, and tumbled into the ditch; where some of them were drowned, and the rest, intent only on their own preservation, swam back and left the raft behind.
"In these different attacks, the enemy continued the storm for an hour; when they relinquished all their attempts of annoyance at once, and employed themselves earnestly in carrying off their dead. Amongst these was the commander of their sepoys, who fell in the fausse-braye of the northern breach. He had distinguished himself with great bravery in the attack, and was so much beloved by his troops, that one of them crossed the ditch, and carried off his body, exposing himself, during the attempt, to the fire of forty muskets, from which he had the good fortune to escape. It seemed as if the enemy expected that the garrison would permit them to fulfil this duty to their friends; but, finding that they suffered severely in attempting it, they at last retreated and disappeared. Their loss, during the storm, was computed to be not less than 400 men killed and wounded; of which very few were Europeans; for most of the French troops were observed drawn up, and looking on at a distance. Of the defenders, only four Europeans were killed, and two sepoys wounded. Many of the garrison being disabled by sickness or wounds, the number which repulsed the storm was no more than eighty Europeans (officers included), and 120 sepoys; and these, besides serving five pieces of cannon, expended 12,000 musket cartridges during the attack.
"Two hours after, the enemy renewed their fire upon the fort, both with their cannon and with musketry from the houses. At two in the afternoon they demanded leave to bury their dead; which was granted, and a truce allowed until four. They then recommenced, and continued their fire smartly till two in the morning, when, on a sudden, it ceased totally; and, at daybreak, intelligence was brought that the whole army had abandoned the town with precipitation. On receiving this joyful news, the garrison immediately marched into the enemy's quarters, where they found four pieces of artillery, four mortars, and a large quantity of ammunition, which they brought in triumph into the fort. During the time that the garrison were shut up in the fort, forty-five Europeans and thirty sepoys were killed, and a greater number of both wounded; most of whom suffered by the enemy's musketry from the houses.