The Victories of Wellington and the British Armies

by W. H. Maxwell

The fortifications are in the Eastern style, the works irregular, and the defences rather numerous than well-constructed. Several walls, one within the other, connect bastions of different forms; some being the ancient Hindu tower, while others are of regular proportions, and formed after the designs of European engineers. The point of attack chosen by the British commander was the north-west angle of the fort; and on the arrival of the Bombay army, which joined on the evening of the 14th, the siege was vigorously pressed.

The besiegers’ camp was judiciously selected, and distant from the west face of the works about three thousand five hundred paces. The right occupied a height, while the left was protected by the Cauvery and an aqueduct. The rear also, was effectually secured by steep ravines, and the watercourse that supplied the greater canal. There were several topes[2] within the lines, thickly planted with cocoa-trees and bamboos, thus affording ample means for constructing ladders and fascines. The place was healthy, the water pure and abundant, and it possessed all the security of an intrenched camp.

A part of the position however, in front of Tippoo’s advanced posts, was within range of musketry and rockets, and it was necessary that from these the enemy should be dislodged. A night attack, under the command of Colonels Wellesley and Shaw, was unsuccessful, and attended with considerable loss. On the following day the whole line was stormed; the right and left flanks and centre being simultaneously assaulted under a heavy cannonade. On every point the attacks succeeded—and a line of posts was gained, reaching from Sultaunpet to the Cauvery, and advanced within eighteen hundred yards of the fortress. On the west front, the Bombay army were securely established within a thousand paces of that angle of the fort; while a watercourse was seized on the south, which allowed that face of the works to be invested within less than nine hundred yards.

The siege was vigorously pressed—an intrenchment was stormed on the evening of the 20th; and a parallel opened within seven hundred and eighty paces of the works. On the 22nd the garrison made a grand sortie, and fell in considerable force upon the Bengal army; but their sustained efforts were repulsed, and they were driven into the town with a loss of six hundred men. On the 26th, the enemy having intrenched themselves behind a watercourse only three hundred and eighty yards from the place, it was deemed advisable to obtain its possession. It was accordingly assaulted in gallant style, and carried, after an obstinate defence, that cost both the victors and the vanquished a serious loss of life.

On the 30th a battery was unmasked, and commenced breaching the bastion; on the 2nd of May, another was completed, and opened a heavy fire on the curtain to the right—while several guns of large calibre were gradually got to work. The old masonry, unable to support this well-served and well-sustained cannonade, began to yield—masses of the wall came down into the ditch—a breach in the fausse-braye was reported practicable—and on the 3rd of May, the face of the bastion was in such a state of ruin, that preparations were made for an immediate assault. In a brief letter,[3] orders to that effect were given next morning to Major-General Baird, who had volunteered to command the storming party.

That the capture of Seringapatam should, to a certain extent, have been achieved by the agency of Baird, appears a striking act of retributive providence. He, who was to lead on that resistless soldiery, by whose bayonets the life and throne of Tippoo should be extinguished, had pined in hopeless captivity, the tenant of a dungeon, in that capital which he was to enter in a few hours a conqueror. In the melancholy slaughter of Colonel Bailey and his troops by Hyder Aly, on the 10th of September 1780,[4] Baird, then a captain, was desperately wounded, made prisoner, hurried to Seringapatam, and there subjected to treatment that, even at a period remote from the event, cannot be heard without producing in the reader a thrill of horror and disgust. Of the many who shared his captivity, few remained to narrate their sufferings. Disease, starvation, poison, and the bowstring ended their miserable lives: but a providential ordinance willed it that Baird should survive—and, after disease failed to rob him of life, or temptation[5] deprive him of his honour, he was destined to lead that band to vengeance, by whom a tyrant was exterminated, and the power of Mysore prostrated to the dust!

The arrangements for the assault were completed on the evening of the 3rd—and two thousand five hundred Europeans, and one thousand nine hundred native troops were selected to carry it into execution. After sunset, ladders, fascines, &c. were conveyed into the trenches unnoticed by the enemy; and before daybreak, the storming parties, evading the observation of the garrison, marched quietly in, and lay down until the order to assault was given.

One o’clock came—the city at that hour was perfectly quiet,—while the trenches, to all appearance, contained nothing but their ordinary guards. This tranquillity was suddenly interrupted. Baird appeared, ordered the assault to be given—and that word, “Forward!” annihilated an empire, and changed a dynasty over an immense territory, with a population almost countless, an army of three hundred thousand men, and a revenue of five millions sterling. The forlorn hope rushed on, followed closely by the columns under Dunlop and Sherbroke—both plunging into the river under a tremendous fire of rockets and musketry. The ford across the Cauvery had been staked the preceding night, to mark the passage the troops should take; but, in the hurry, they swerved to the right, and getting into deeper water, the progress of the column was retarded. Baird, observing the difficulty, rushed on to the forlorn hope,—cheered the men forward,—and in six minutes the British colours were flying above the breach!

Filing off right and left, the storming parties pressed on. The north-west bastion was carried—all went prosperously—although the discovery of an inner ditch, filled with water, was at first alarming. But the scaffolding used by Tippoo’s workmen, and most fortunately left there undisturbed, enabled the British to surmount every obstacle, and enter the body of the place.

The right column halted on the east cavalier to give the men breathing-time after violent exertion under a burning sun. They awaited there a reinforcement of fresh troops to proceed and assail the palace, where it was believed Tippoo had retired. The report was untrue,—that palace he was fated never to revisit,—for the tyrant of Mysore was then gone to his account!