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Clive brought up two eighteen-pounders from Madras, and pounded the walls; and the enemy, seeing that the place must fall, evacuated it in the night, and retired to Pondicherry. North Arcot being now completely in the power of the English, Clive returned to Madras; and then sailed to Fort Saint David, to concert measures with Mr. Saunders for the relief of Trichinopoli.
Believing that Alighur was impregnable, Perron left a strong force there under one of his officers, named Pedron, and marched with his army towards Agra. On the 4th of September a storming party, commanded by Colonel Monson, left the British camp; and was accompanied by two batteries, each consisting of four eighteen-pounders.
Brigadier Waldo was sent to occupy the battery with his regiment, and Major Seth Pomeroy, the gunsmith, with twenty soldier-mechanics, was set at drilling out the spiked touch-holes of the cannon. These were twenty-eight forty-two-pounders, and two eighteen-pounders.
Ere long, a horrible explosion was heard, drowning for the instant the cannonade. Two of the old eighteen-pounders before spoken of, as having been hurriedly set up below the main deck of the Richard burst all to pieces, killing the sailors who worked them, and shattering all that part of the hull, as if two exploded steam-boilers had shot out of its opposite sides.
I shall have the honour to command the New-Jersey redoubt, which I am now building with the regiment alone. It is situated on the right of the whole, by the water's edge. It is to mount two eighteen-pounders, two twelve, and four nine-pounders. In this I expect to do honour to New-Jersey. I yesterday received a letter from Colonel Dayton, dated the 28th of July, at the German Flats.
It was at that first broadside of hers, as you remember, that two of Jones's heavy guns, below his main deck, burst. We could see that as we sighted for our next broadside, because we could see how they hove up the gun-deck above them. As for our shot, I suppose they all told. We had ten eighteen-pounders in that larboard battery below. I do not see why any shot should have failed.
The flagship, the Bonhomme Richard, was a worn-out old East Indiaman, which Jones refitted and armed with six eighteen-pounders, twenty-eight twelve-pounders, and eight nine-pounders a battery of forty-two guns.
A gas, or smoke helmet, as it is called, at the best is a vile-smelling thing, and it is not long before one gets a violent headache from wearing it. Our eighteen-pounders were bursting in No Man's Land, in an effort, by the artillery, to disperse the gas clouds. The fire step was lined with crouching men, bayonets fixed, and bombs near at hand to repel the expected attack.
In these circumstances, I thought it better to continue my preparations for a journey by land, which, I am told, would have lasted ten days, on account of ferries, and, in the meanwhile, had two eighteen-pounders put on board a small sloop, which appeared ridiculous to some, but proved to be of great service.
We parted from the fleet on the following day, and kept the coast in a continued state of alarm. Not a vessel dared to show her nose out of port: we had her if she did. Batteries we laughed at, and either silenced them with our long eighteen-pounders, or landed and blew them up.
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