Note 01 — Chapter XII · PRESENTING ONE OF THE WORLD’S TRAGEDIES.

I heard nothing more certain than this until the morning, when Mr Hurstwood, who had returned punctually from the Doddalay the night before, with his Charlotte’s full consent and approbation, came in and told me that all the Portuguese women and children were to be embarked at once, but whether this portended a general retirement or not, he could not say. The duty of seeing these unfortunate persons put into boats and despatched to the ships fell to Mr Baillie, who set to work very early, with all the disinterested kindness and generous activity imaginable. Our short season of peace was now over, for with the light the firing upon us began more fiercely than ever. So wickedly ingenious were the enemy that they had employed the hours of darkness not only in filling up the ditches which we had dug across the Park and other open grounds (and which had served them for ready-made breastworks behind which to fire at us the day before), and bringing their artillery over ’em, but in turning against us the abandoned guns of our own Eastern Battery, which did us more damage than all their own weapons. Not content with this, they had mounted cannons at the gates of Mr Bellamy’s compound and the Play-house compound, which commanded the church, as well as three at the corner of the Park, two in the Loll Buzar beyond the Gaol, and two at a spot near the Horse-stables, from all of which they rained their missiles upon us, while shamsingees[01] and wall-pieces were fixed at every corner, and bercundauzes[02] or matchlockmen were in readiness to shoot at any person that appeared on our walls. Finding that the enemy had not seized upon the Company’s house, which he had been forced to abandon the night before, Ensign Piccard led out a party to occupy it again, in the hope of at least diverting a portion of the firing from the Fort; and the President, adventuring his person boldly enough, made the tour of the ramparts, and finding it almost impossible to hold them in their ruinous state, which every moment became worse, ordered them to be strengthened with bags of cotton, affording a very sufficient protection against bullets. Seeing his honour and Mr Holwell, with Mr Hurstwood and Padra Mapletoft, busy in front of the chamber where I sat in cutting open the bales and filling the cotton into bags to carry it to the ramparts, I made bold to offer them such help as I could in closing the bags, and we all worked hard for some minutes, until a messenger came to call away Mr Drake, to whom, just as he was departing, Mr Hurstwood cried out that he would go on board the Doddalay again for five minutes to see his lady, and return at once. Mr Holwell also going off, there was only the Rev. Mr Mapletoft left, who came and looked in upon my papa, and said in a dolorous voice that he had understood a retirement was decided upon, and he wished some gentleman would be so wise as to begin it, which on Captain Colquhoun hearing, who came up at the moment, he rebuked the Padra very sharply for his dejected air, and bade him take pattern by the excellent Mr Bellamy. I don’t know how the poor divine covered his confusion, for on entering the chamber I found to my delight that my papa’s eyes were open, though he was not looking at me, but at Captain Colquhoun.