Page 490 - INDIANNAVYV1

458 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NA\Tr.

On the 14th of December, Burmese emissaries snccceded in
setting fire to Rangoon in several phices at once, b}' which one
quarter of the town was burnt. On the 15th Sir ArchibaUl
Campbell attacked the enemy with three columns, and, in less
than fifteen minutes, drove them in utter rout from the
formidable entrenchments they had been at so much pains to
construct.
The remainder of December passed away without any occur-
rence of importance, except that the army received large
reinforcements and the navy was strengthened by the arrival
of about twenty of the Company's gunboats from Chittagong.
In order to leave no enemy in his rear before advancing
upon Ava, the preparations for which were nearly complete. Sir
Archibald Campbell, on the 11th of January, 1825, detached a
small Expedition, under command of Colonel Elrington, against
the old Portuguese fort and factory at Syriam, which the enemy
had rendered a tolerably strong post. Accordingly, two hun-
dred men of the 47th Regiment and a party of the 1st
Battalion Madras Pioneers, were embarked on board two
divisions of gunboats, respectively under the command of
Captain S. T. Finucane of H.M.'s 14th Regiment and Lieu-
tenant J. H. Rowband of the Bombay Marine, together with
forty -eight seamen from H.M.'s ships, under Lieutenant Keele.
The detachment landed close to the fort, and were subjected
to a heavy fire while a bridge was thrown across a nullah by
the sailors, which was returned by two of the gunboats which
had been brought up the creek. The bridge completed, the
enemy's works were stormed, when Colonel Elrington, ad-
vancing on the following morning, carried the Syriam Pagoda.
The loss on this occasion was one officer (Ensign Geddes)
and one man killed, and three officers and thirty-two men
wounded; four guns and twenty jingals were found in the
works.
On the 22nd of January, H.M.S. ' Alligator' arrived at Ran-
goon, and Captain Alexander, as senior officer, assumed the
chief command from Captain Chads. Shortly after the defeat
of the Burmese Army on the 15th of December, Sir Archibald
Campbell, from motives of policy, issued a Proclamation to
the Peguers, and having contrived to introduce a copy into the
enemy's stockaded lines at Panlang, it had the desired effect
of detaching the major part of the army, who retired into the
Dalla district with their arms. Sir Archibald despatched a
coliman to support them against the attacks of the Burmese
force which had followed them, and the whole flotilla was also
employed, for four days, in protecting our new allies, whose
families came flocking into Rangoon in thousands. As the
Commander-in-chief deemed it necessary, before commencing
the attack on Ava, to dislodge the enemy's advanced division