SUCCESS AGAINST TIPPOC-'s ARMY. 99 



reserve following close behind. The whole, under a bright 

 moon, began to move at eight in the evening. The opera- 

 tions of this memorable night have been very minute y 

 narrated, but they are nevertheless partly enveloped in the 

 obscurity of the scene in which they were acted ; and we 

 should despair, without minute topographical details, of 

 conveying to our readers a distant comprehension of them. 

 The officers experienced to a considerable extent the casual- 

 ties and dangers of a nocturnal attack. The divisions of 

 Colonels Stuart and Maxwell were once on the point of 

 charging each other with the bayonet. Lord Cornwallis, 

 having entered the boundary-hedge, and searching in vain 

 for General Medows, was attacked by a greatly superior 

 force, against which he with difficulty maintained his 

 ground. ° The general issue of the contest, however, was, 

 that the English, when regularly brought to bear upon the 

 enemy, carried all before them. The most critical moment 

 was when the two divisions above mentioned, after having 

 found a ford, undertook to force their way across the river. 

 Being aided by an able movement of Colonel Knox, they 

 succeeded more easily than was expected, though it was so 

 deep that all their cartridges were spoiled by the water, 

 and they were accordingly compelled to place their sole re- 

 liance on the bayonet. Tippoo, during the early part of 

 the engagement, occupied a strong redoubt on the river, 

 where he took his evening meal ; but, on seeing the Eng- 

 lish divisions advance to the ford, he felt alarm as to his 

 communication with the city, and hastened to cross it be- 

 fore them. He almost touched the head of the column, 

 and had several of his attendants killed before he could 

 reach a detached work in an angle of the fort, where he 

 took a fresh station. But morning soon dawned, and dis- 

 covered the British army fully established on the island, 

 and facing the fortress without any interposing barrier. 

 The sultan lost, it is said, no less than 23,000 men, chiefly 

 in consequence of the multitudes who dispersed amid the 

 confusion, and returned to their homes. A body of ten 

 thousand, with their wives and children, rushed along the 

 Mysore bridge to reach the western territory. The loss of 

 the British army amounted only to live hundred in killed 

 and wounded. 



Tippoo, on discovering the extent of his disaster, made 



