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On the 17th of May parties of the enemy were moving in 

 different directions on the opposite banks, and a second letter was 

 sent from Lntoph Ally, repeating the contents of the former; and 

 urging, as an additional motive to a surrender of the fort, that the 

 batteries would be finished and mounted with heavy cannon in 

 two days; to this no answer was returned. The next day brought 

 intelligence from undoubted authority of the capture of Bednore, 

 and the loss of the British army. 



Early in the morning of the 10th of June the enemy opened 

 his battery, and kept it up the next day from seven pieces of 

 cannon, twelve and eighteen pounders. As they constantly drew 

 the guns within the merlons after firing, the fort was cautious in 

 its firing slowty, from such guns only as played directly into their 

 embrazures. Tins was renewed for four hours the day following, 

 when the guns were better served than usual, and no longer with- 

 drawn. As the stock of eighteen pound shot in the garrison was 

 small, the fire from it was deliberately and carefully managed; 

 and its aim confined to disabling the enemy's guns. The fortress 

 now began to suffer greatly from the weakness of its defences. The 

 rampart was narrow and bad; the high walls not more than three 

 feet thick, generally more a mass of mud than of masonry, and 

 through which an eighteen-pound shot easily passed. Against 

 these and the cavalier tower, the enemy had hitherto principally 

 directed his fire. The engineer, lieutenant Blachford, an active 

 and spirited young man, and all the officers, laboured indefa- 

 tigably to remedy these defects by field works. An embrazure 

 was opened to the right of the cavalier, to effect a more direct 

 fire on their eighteen pounder, and the palisading of the covert- 



