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arrival of general Wellesley at Aurunga- Stevenson, then about eight miles to his bad, they moved from Jalna to the south-left, to apprise him of this intention, and ward and eastward, menacing a march to direct his advance. upon Hyderabad. The general marching eastward, along the left bank of the Gadavery, frustrated their design effectually; and, by the same movement, covered the safe advance of two important convoys coming up from Moodgul. The enemy now returned to the northward of Jalna. Colonel Stevenson attacked and carried that fort on the 2d of September: upon the night of the 9th he surprised a detached encampment of the enemy, created no small disturbance and alarm, and caused them much loss. The confederate chieftains had hitherto been marching solely with their cavalry, supported by a few thousands of the irregular foot, armed with matchlocks. They were now joined by sixteen battalions of regular infantry, and a large train of artillery, under the command of French officers. The whole of these forces were collected at Boker-left, and all the guns. The position of dun, and lay between that place and Jaffierabad.

The camp colours were plucked from the ground, and the little army of Wellesley marched on. With the 19th light dragoons, and three regiments of native cavalry under colonel Maxwell, the general himself advanced to reconnoitre. The infantry followed. After a march of about four miles, from an elevated plain in front of their right, he beheld the Mahratta camp. A host of near 50,000 combatants, horse, foot, and artillery, lay strongly posted behind the river Kaitna. A smaller stream, called the Juah, flowed past their rear; and its waters joined those of the Kaitna at a point considerably beyond their left, leaving there a vacant peninsulated piece of ground of some space. The line of the enemy ran east and west along the northern bank of the Kaitna. The infantry lay upon the

this wing was a little retired upon the Juah, having its point d'appui on the village of Assaye, which leaned upon that river. The right consisted entirely of cavalry. The north bank of the Kaitna is high, rocky, and difficult; the front, for the most part, unassailable.

mass, 30,000 horses. The cavalry under Maxwell formed up their brilliant line, and remained steady. Wellesley with rapid glance surveyed the ground. From beneath the thick plumes of red horsehair, which drooped over their bronzed cheeks, the manly eyes of the bold 19th dragoons looked on severely. The general resolved for battle. That this was the calm decision of a consulted judgment is not probable; but "there is a tide in the affairs of men:" he felt it swelling in his bosom, and took it at the happy ebb.

On the 21st of September, general Wellesley and colonel Stevenson met and conferred at Budnapoor. They here arranged a combined attack of the enemy for the morning of the 24th. Stevenson was detached by the western route, the Upon his bay Arabian sat Wellesley, general himself taking the eastern; in just opposite the enemy's right, then disorder that by this division of the force tant about a mile and a half, and prethey might be enabled to effect the pas-senting to his view, in one magnificent sage of the defiles in one day, and by occupying both prevent the enemy from escaping to the southward; a manœuvre by which they might otherwise have avoided the encounter of our army at that time, and, perhaps, altogether. The common hircarrahs of the country reported the enemy to be at Bokerdun; and, according to the information which he had received about roads and distances, the general directed his march, so as to encamp within twelve miles of that place on the 21st. When on the morning of that day he arrived at the proposed halting ground, he learned, to his surprise, that he was only six miles from Bokerdun. At the same time intelligence was brought, that the cavalry of the Mahratta camp were already in movement to the rear, and that the infantry and guns were preparing to follow. The general determined to march upon the infantry, and engage it. He sent a messenger to

A body of the enemy's horse moved out, advanced to within half a mile of the British cavalry, and threw out skirmishers, who fired a few shots. Some British troopers were ordered to drive back these skirmishers, and all again was quiet. The general, observing a spot with a few houses beyond the left of the enemy, where there was probably a ford, and

towards the left, so numerous and weighty were the guns, and so thickly were they disposed immediately near the village.

The fire was rapid, furious, and terrible in execution: the British guns, few in number, opened as the line advanced, but were almost on the instant silenced. Their gunners dropped fast, and the cattle fell lacerated or killed beside them. With the fierceness of the struggle and the fearfulness of the hazard, the undaunted spirit of the general rose. He at once abandoned the guns, and directed an advance with the bayonet: with the main body he soon forced and drove the enemy's right, possessing himself of their guns by a resolute charge.

which he saw they had neglected to guard, resolved to pass the Kaitna at that point; to throw his small force entire upon that flank; to attack their infantry and guns; and thus to neutralise the presence of their vast cavalry, or compel them to bring it into action under very confusing disadvantages, and on a more confined field. A bright and bold conception. The general, bidding Maxwell keep his present ground for a time, went back, and brought up the infantry in person. With these last, in steady columns, he now moved down upon the river. They marched silent and firm, every man in his place. It was to be the triumph of discipline. The courage of the heart was to be aided by the quick eye, the obedient ear, and the keeping calmly in the ranks. A cannonade played upon their line of march as they approached the ford: it was distant, and without effect. As they passed up out of the river, and the head of the column gained the clear ground above, a field battery, within range, opened upon them hotly. It was at this the anxious moment of directing with care the formation of the lines for battle, that the orderly dragoon riding close to the general, had his skull torn away by a cannon-ball. The horse, feeling the relaxed bridle and collapsing limb of his rider, fell a-trembling, and kicked and plunged franticly, till he got quit of the corpse. An incident not worth the notice, but for the moment of its occurrence, and the trouble it caused to those immediately near. Under this cannonade general Wel-ners in many instances actually suffering lesley formed up his people in three lines; themselves to be bayonetted at their posts, two of infantry, the third of his cavalry; in others lying dead, as it seemed, under which, as soon as the colums had crossed their cannon. These sepoys rushed on the ford, rode smartly down from their in pursuit. Their officers could not conposition, and took battle station in re-trol their elated ardour; but, happily the serve. As a watching check upon the enemy's right, were left the Mysore horse and some cavalry of the peishwah's which marched with our army; but, though useful here, they could not be ventured in the fight.

The order of the battle being thus skilfully changed, the infantry of Scindia was compelled to present a new front. They did so with greater ease than was expected. The line they now formed rested with its right upon the Kaitna, and its left upon the village of Assaye and the Juah. The front now presented by the enemy was one vast battery, especially

During this movement, the pickets and 74th regiment were losing men so fast by the fire from Assaye, that a body of Mahratta horse, which, hastening to that flank, had moved round the village, charged them, and with severe effect; though the heart, or centre, of the 74th still held gallantly together. Maxwell, with his dragoons, rode swiftly to their rescue, and spurring hard upon their assailants, drove them, with great slaughter, across the Juah. Amid a shower of musketry and grape, this leader and his cavalry rode on through the enemy's left: the gallant remnant of the pickets and 74th pressed on, and the battle was already won. The sepoys of the main body, possessed in great part the very ground on which the enemy had stood, and the guns which he had fought to the last, the gun

78th British, upon the left of all this early exultation, stood firm and steady, with unbroken ranks. A cloud of the enemy's horse hung dark upon the hill above, ready to burst, like a torrent, upon the brave confusion, but they durst not dash and break, as they must have done, upon that rock.

Some of Scindia's routed battalions clustered confusedly near Assaye, where numbers of the infantry and gunners, who had cast themselves upon the earth, to avoid the sabres of the cavalry, by feigning death, started up, and joined them. This body attempted a new formation;

again opened the guns, and renewed the battle.

A large column of the enemy, already 'n full retreat, rallied at the hopeful sound, turned, and formed again. These the brave Maxwell checked by a gallant charge, and in this good service closed his honourable life. Among the last efforts of a day of efforts was a second attack of the formidable artillery near the village of Assaye. This general Wellesley led up in person, at the head of the 78th and 7th native cavalry. The enemy fled without awaiting the shock; but as the general was advancing, his horse, struck by a cannon-shot that carried away its leg, fell under him. A field, flowing with blood, black with abandoned cannon, and covered with slain, remained in possession of the British. It was near dark when the firing ceased. That night Wellesley lay down, and slept upon the field of battle. For a time, this day, "the die had spun doubtful;" ;" but the secret impulse which prompted him to give the battle, did still, through all its thunder, whisper in his ear, " Victory !" The toss and fiery tramp of his favourite Arab were stilled in death, but the spur of the rider was not cold. A favouring Providence had shone kind on his bold hopes, and covered his head in battle. This success involved mighty consequences. | -"Never," says Dr. Southey, "was any victory gained under so many disadvantages. Superior arms and discipline have often prevailed against as great a numerical difference; but it would be describing the least part of this day's glory to say, that the number of the enemy were as ten to one: they had disciplined troops in the field under European officers, who more than doubled the British force; they had a hundred pieces of cannon, which were served with perfect skill; and which the British, without the aid of artillery, twice won with the bayonet.

estimated, both in India and at home. The Governor-general expressed his high and cordial approbation of the magnanimity, promptitude, and judgment of Major-general Wellesley, whose conduct, he rightly observed, united a degree of ability, of prudence, and dauntless spirit, seldom equalled, and never surpassed. Honorary colours, with a suitable device, were ordered to be presented to the corps of cavalry and infantry employed on the occassion; and the names of the brave officers and men who fell in the battle, would, it was said, be commemorated, together with the circumstances of the action, upon a public monument, to be erected at Fort William, to the memory of those who had fallen in the public service during the present campaign.

ADVENTURE OF A TAR.

THERE was a little, daring, inveterate sloop of war, that was engaged in cruising off the north-western coast of France, during almost the last ten years of hostilities. From Calais to Etaples was her range; and her orders were to harass and alarm, to keep a strict watch upon the ports of Calais and Boulogne, and to learn the amount of the garrisons, whether increased or diminished: in short, to gather all that was going on upon the coast, or in the region round. Sometimes she was engaged in transporting secret emissaries backward and forward. And sometimes a peep into Brest, St. Maloes, or Dieppe, was commanded to be taken by her, by way of recreation.

Her commander was the then Lieutenant

-; the honest tar would blush, did he see his name in other print than that of a dispatch, or of the Gazette; where, alas! he has not figured often. And so we will veil his modesty beneath that convenient mask a ———. He was a sturdy Kentish man, a true heart of oak, and knew every cranny of coast from Deal to Dungeness, and from Dieppe to Dunkirk. That he was especially chosen for his task, speak sufficiently to his hardy and trustworthy character. And as he lorded it in his tiny sloop-I think it was called the Ariel-over a considerable boundary of the Emperor Napoleon's dominions, and at times over not a few of his subjects, so did the gallant Captain of the Ariel The brilliancy of this victory was justly" do his spiriting gently."

The loss of his little band was a third killed and wounded: the sepoys had vied with the British in ardour; and the native cavalry had rode stirrup to stirrup with the heroes of the 19th dragoons. Of the enemy, twelve hundred were found dead upon the field; their wounded were countless, and scattered over all the immediate neighbourhood.

gave a summary account of the Emperor's disasters, and invited the population, if I am not mistaken, to throw off the yoke of the usurper, and to return to the allegiance of their ancient sovereigns. To have awaited thick weather, and to have distributed them amongst the fishingboats, would have been the safest way of executing the task, but tars are not given to such constructions of their orders; and as the military were amongst those chiefly addressed, the object evidently was to transmit them to the several depôts and guard-houses on the coast. This was, indeed, for whoever undertook the enterprise, going with information to the lion's mouth. Lieutenant would not entrust it to any under his command, but resolved himself to execute the task, which he deemed of the greatest importance.

His most usual duty was to drop inshore with the night-tide, amuse himself at times by landing and beating up the Frenchmen's quarters; for their coast, like the wall of a beleaguered town, was lined with sentinels, ensconced in guardhouses, and sentry-boxes erected in solid masonry. These mouldering proofs of our past blockade still remain, and have often flattered my musings, as I chanced to wander on the heights of Boulogne or the flats of Calais. Sometimes she lay ensconced, awaiting the sallying forth of those little privateers, which ventured out like mice from time to time, when our cruising cats were out of sight. A fog, however, was her special delight; the Flemish and French coast not rarely affording the indulgence. Then would the little Ariel venture under cover of the dense atmosphere, even within the very harbour of the enemy, intercepting lugHe caused himself, accordingly, to be gers, schooners, and fishing-smacks, and put ashore, on a certain night, northward boarding them often more with a view of considerably of Etaples, where the shore demonstrating Britain's rule of the sea, rises from beach and sand-hills into cliffs, than for any purpose of capture or rapine. if a lofty coast, consisting more of clay In most cases, the crews, of the captured than rock, can be so called. His boat he fishermen especially, were ordered aboard ordered to await him on the morning the Ariel, brought down to its little cabin, after the following night, off the little plied with grog sufficiently, and then cape betwixt Wimereux and Ambleteuse, pumped, with all a tar's adroitness, of many leagues distant from the spot of what little information they could give. his disembarkment. He soon began, This procured, they were set afloat on under cover of the darkness, to execute board their own smack again, and allowed his mission. The heights were thick to return to harbour. In the course of a with batteries, but the long survey of them, few years, such was the frequency of fogs, which he had taken from the sea, served and the activity of the Ariel, that not a as a guide to his steps. Those he at first fisherman ever caught mackerel on the approached were not thickly manned: coast, who did not become acquainted neither the troops of the line nor of the with Lieutenant · who did not par- artillery occupied them, but merely the take of his grog, and who did not retail or national guard of the neighbouring town. invent to him stories, which no doubt still Here his task was not difficult; every exist amongst the treasured-learning of empty sentry-box or rather sentry-house, the Admiralty. They were grateful to he garnished with a proclamation. To him; he was as dreaded and admired as the doors of the very guard-houses, to a corsair; and when a French fishing- the barriers of the batteries, he affixed boat sailed, it would as soon set out with- them; and even on the affuts of the out its rudder or its nets, as without a French cannon were found in the mornMoniteur, a new Bulletin, or some tit-ing these sensible traces of an enemy's bit, in the way of news, for the master of the Ariel.

The year 1814 brought orders of a more perilous nature than usual to the British officer. A packet of printed proclamations, addressed to the French people, was put into his hands, with the desire that they might be distributed along the coast. They inveighed against Napoleon,

visit. The alarm was given, scouts and parties went out in every direction, though some of the national guard declared, that none, save the enemy of mankind himself, could have ventured over ditch, parapet, chevaux-de-frise, and sentinel, to achieve the sticking up of a few pieces of paper.

The greatest difficulty to the galant

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to the northern froutier, were stopped by the vigilant commander, and posted for the night on the bank of the river Wimereux. Its whole line and its solitary bridge were thus guarded; and so, upon approaching it, was found to be the high road; thus all progress northward was prevented, and escape into the interior equally cut off and precluded. More than once did the commander of the Ariel endeavour to swim the little basin of Wimereux; but at first it was too well guarded, and when the tide ebbed, the profound mud formed an insurmountable barrier, on which the enemy no doubt relied, as they abandoned their watch. To pass the high road was as impracti cable; although he once over-mastered a sentinel, and rushed upon the road: he was encountered by another, and forced to escape into the garenne, luckily without receiving any wound. Now aware that the spy was surrounded, they only awaited the daylight to venture after and take him.

The lieutenant concealed himself in a rabbit-burrow for some time, but his pursuers were on the watch, and when he emerged from his hiding place, they closed upon him. He ran with desperate speed, but his retreat being cut off, he made for a chateau on the sea side.

lieutenant was to pass Boulogne and to gain the coast to the northward of that town. The commander, an inveterate Buonapartist, made use of every exertion to catch the spy, whom he vowed, in his soul, to hang, in revenge for the shattered fortunes of Napoleon. The laws of warfare gave him but too good a right to inflict this punishment, provided he could but entrap the interloper. Unfortunately the Ariel was descried in the offing, making up the channel; and that she had something to do with the mischief, was easily conceived. The hidden emissary would, no doubt, bend his course in the same direction with her. The line of the Liane was therefore carefully guarded. On the fall of the second evening, Lieutenant however, swam the wide basin, that the Emperor had of old formed, and then gained the northern heights by the shortest and least frequented of paths. In the coarse blouze, or peasant frock, that he had over his uniform, he did not even fear to mount the streets of the town itself, nor to affix a copy of the proclamation to the door of the very Prefecture It was seen a very little time after by the aid of some public functionaries' lanterns, and the passage of the audacious enemy was known. The streets were likewise strewn with the treasonable document. Instead of concealing the course of his track, the seaman marked it, and his pursuers followed him by his scattered papers, as hounds trace their game by the scent. Even the immortal column, erected to commemorate French intentions against With no wiser instinct, however, than England, was profaned by bearing the that of the over-hunted fox, the unfortuobnoxious placard on each side of its nate sailor rushed towards the bleak base. Here, too, as in the region on the chateau, entered its court, its door, and preceding night, the little guard-houses, rushed up a short stair into its saloon. A ensconced in their several hollows, or lady was seated there, as also a boy, her protected by mounds from British shot, son apparently, at her feet. Ere she received what Lieutenant called could recover from her surprise, the inhis visiting cards. And all along that truder made known who he was, his imclosely guarded line, where no longer the mediate danger, and craved refuge and national guard, but the regular troops concealment. It was not to be expected, were stationed, the proclamation was dis- and was perhaps asked without the exseminated, till not one of the whole knap- pectation. The lady, not without comsack-full remained. His task thus suc- miseration, bade him fly elsewhere; that cessfully completed, it remained for the it was the residence of the commandant, bold sailor to regain his vessel; this, that she was his wife, and that there was which he had reckoned upon as the no possibility, no chance. The door below easiest point of accomplishment, proved was dashed open; the pursuers rushed up. to be the most difficult and serious. A As the commandant himself entered, with large body of conscripts, about to marcha legion at his back, the fugitive, taking,

The possessor of the chateau, or at any rate its tenant, was the commandant himself, whose family at that very time occupied it, no doubt for the salubrity of the sea-breezes, and the convenience of its position to his duties.

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