towards the Fort, that we might see how to pass
between them a little before daylight, and without being
discovered by the enemy.

"At length the glorious morning of the 23rd of March
arrived." Clive's men gallantly stormed the battery covering
the narrow pass,[50] "and upon the ships getting under sail the
Colonel's battery, which had been finished behind a dead
wall," to take off the fire of the Fort when the ships passed
up, began firing away, and had almost battered down the
corner of the south-east bastion before the ships arrived
within shot of the Fort. "The _Tyger_, with Admiral Pocock's
flag flying, took the lead, and about 6 o'clock in the morning
got very well into her station against the north-east bastion.
The _Kent_, with Admiral Watson's flag flying, quickly followed
her, but before she could reach her proper station, the tide of
ebb unfortunately made down the river, which occasioned her
anchor to drag, so that before she brought up she had fallen
abreast of the south-east bastion, the place where the _Salisbury_
should have been, and from her mainmast aft she was exposed
to the flank guns of the south-west bastion also. The accident
of the _Kent's_ anchor not holding fast, and her driving down
into the _Salisbury's_ station, threw this last ship out of action,
to the great mortification of the captain, officers, and crew,
for she never had it in her power to fire a gun, unless it was
now and then, when she could sheer on the tide. The French,
during the whole time of the _Kent_ and _Tyger's_ approach
towards the Fort, kept up a terrible cannonade upon them,
without any resistance on their part; but as soon as the
ships came properly to an anchor they returned it with such
fury as astonished their adversaries. Colonel Clive's troops
at the same time got into those houses which were nearest
the Fort, and from thence greatly annoyed the enemy with
their musketry. Our ships lay so near to the Fort that the
musket balls fired from their tops, by striking against the
_chunam_[51] walls of the Governor's palace, which was in
the very centre of the Fort, were beaten as flat as a half-crown.
The fire now became general on both sides, and was
kept up with extraordinary spirit. The flank guns of the
south-west bastion galled the _Kent_ very much, and the
Admiral's aide-de-camps being all wounded, Mr. Watson went
down himself to Li