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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XII. 



and the fortress, where the soldiers made pits in the sand, 

 and from these kept up such volleys, that not only were the 

 enemy unable to prevent their overlaying the bastion, but 

 they harassed them in the battery,^ in which relief work 

 they were engaged for five days, in which time it was 

 overlaid, £as wa s intended. Daylight of the 26th saw the 

 battery finished, and in it five demi-cannon and a 38-pounder, 

 with which they battered us the whole of that day, whereby 

 we suffered some loss in that same bastion, more from the 

 ruins of the parapets, which were of unhewn stone, than 

 from the balls of the enemy. And in order as speedily as 

 possible to return their battering, we formed a platform on 

 that part of the seashore at the foot of the bastion of S. Joao, 

 a very convenient position, in which we placed two demi- 

 cannon and also a 38-pounder, with which we knocked 

 down the houses that were close to their battery, where they 

 had their quarters, and obliged them to protect themselves 

 with an entrenchment. The firing from one and the other 

 side continued for some days, on one of which both the 

 38-pounders were fired at the same time, and the balls struck 

 each other midway : that of the enemy turned its course 

 backwards, and entered the mouth of its own cannon, and 

 knocked it to pieces. At the beginning of November they 

 had made good progress with the approach, an affair of 

 thirty paces, where they set up another battery with six 24- 

 pounders and two "borers," 6 and with both they con- 

 tinued to batter away vigorously until the 12th. Their General 

 Giraldo Holf ot, seeing that with such slow progress he would 

 not for a long time attain to the end of his hopes, determined 

 that on the next day an assault should be made on the city, 

 and disposed his forces in the following manner. 7 



He ordered that two strong ships 8 should be got ready, 

 provided with good infantry, and that these at the time that 

 the assault was being made on land should enter the bay, 

 and should set to work to batter the Gouraga of Santa Cruz, 

 and that in the thick of the conflict they should, by means of 

 their boats, seize that position, which was very convenient 



