“The Commander-in-Chief is proud thus publicly to declare his high sense of the gallantry of Lieutenant Gahagan, of the ——­ cavalry.  In the storming of the fortress, although unprovided with a single ladder, and accompanied but by a few brave men, Lieutenant Gahagan succeeded in escalading the inner and fourteenth wall of the place.  Fourteen ditches lined with sword-blades and poisoned chevaux-de-frise, fourteen walls bristling with innumerable artillery and as smooth as looking-glasses, were in turn triumphantly passed by that enterprising officer.  His course was to be traced by the heaps of slaughtered enemies lying thick upon the platforms; and alas! by the corpses of most of the gallant men who followed him!—­when at length he effected his lodgment, and the dastardly enemy, who dared not to confront him with arms, let loose upon him the tigers and lions of Scindiah’s menagerie.  This meritorious officer destroyed, with his own hand, four of the largest and most ferocious animals, and the rest, awed by the indomitable majesty of British valor, shrank back to their dens.  Thomas Higgory, a private, and Runty Goss, havildar, were the only two who remained out of the nine hundred who followed Lieutenant Gahagan.  Honor to them! honor and tears for the brave men who perished on that awful day!”

*****

I have copied this, word for word, from the Bengal Hurkaru of September 24, 1803:  and anybody who has the slightest doubt as to the statement, may refer to the paper itself.

And here I must pause to give thanks to Fortune, which so marvellously preserved me, Sergeant-Major Higgory, and Runty Goss.  Were I to say that any valor of ours had carried us unhurt through this tremendous combat, the reader would laugh me to scorn.  No:  though my narrative is extraordinary, it is nevertheless authentic; and never, never would I sacrifice truth for the mere sake of effect.  The fact is this:—­the citadel of Allyghur is situated upon a rock, about a thousand feet above the level of the sea, and is surrounded by fourteen walls, as his Excellency was good enough to remark in his despatch.  A man who would mount these without scaling-ladders, is an ass; he who would say he mounted them without such assistance, is a liar and a knave.  We had scaling-ladders at the commencement of the assault, although it was quite impossible to carry them beyond the first line of batteries.  Mounted on them, however, as our troops were falling thick about me, I saw that we must ignominiously retreat, unless some other help could be found for our brave fellows to escalade the next wall.  It was about seventy feet high.  I instantly turned the guns of wall A on wall B, and peppered the latter so as to make, not a breach, but a scaling place; the men mounting in the holes made by the shot.  By this simple stratagem, I managed to pass each successive barrier—­for to ascend a wall which the General was pleased to call “as smooth as glass” is an absurd impossibility:  I seek to achieve none such:—­