On The 4th Of August Before Day-Light [406], Raju Advanced In Silence To
Give The First Assault, But Was Discovered By The Lighted Matches Of His
Musqueteers.
The enemy applied their scaling ladders at the same time to
the three bastions of St Michael, St Gonzalo, and St Francisco, while
2000 pioneers fell to work below to undermine the works.
Many of the
assailants were thrown down from their ladders on the heads of the
workmen employed below, while numbers of the enemy who were drawn up in
the field before the town were destroyed by the cannons from the walls.
Everywhere both within and without, the fort resounded with the cries of
women and children, and the groans of the wounded, joined to the noise
of the cannon and musquetry and the shrill cries of elephants, which,
forced to the walls by their conductors, were driven back smarting with
many wounds, and did vast injury in the ranks of the besiegers. Such was
the multitude of the enemy that they did not seem lessened by slaughter,
fresh men still pressing on to supply the places of the killed and
wounded. Brito was present in every place of danger, giving orders and
conveying relief, and after a long and arduous contest, the enemy at
length gave way, leaving 400 men dead or dying at the foot of the walls.
During this assault, some Chingalese who had retired into the fort to
escape the tyranny of Raju, fought with as much bravery as the
Portuguese.
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