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HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. 4(51

joined the advance division in the Irrawaddy. Early on the
morning of the 6th of March, the whole of the flotilla, having;
entered the main stream on the previous evenini^, got under
weigh, and took up a position about two miles below Donabew,
while General Cotton and Captain Alexander proceeded to
reconnoitre. " It was evident," says the General, " that
the enemy had prepared to receive us below his position,
having a succession of formidable stockades, commencing at the
Pagoda, and continued increasing in strength, until completed
by the main work, which is lofty, upon a very connnanding
site, surrounded by a deep abattis, with all the customary
defences. The guns appeared to be numerous, and the garrison
were seen in crowds upon all the works."
A summons to surrender was first sent to Bundoola, who
commanded in person, and, upon receipt of a refusal. General
Cotton made a reconnaissance with one hundred and sixty men
of the 89th Regiment, covered by the light division and some
row-boats. The enemy's war-boats retired under the guns on
the opposite side, and, during the reconnaissance, says the
General, " the enemy kept up a heavy fire from about thirty
pieces of cannon, msinj of heavy calibre ;" and the precision
Avith which they w^ere directed, suri)rised the British officers.
General Cotton would have preferred assaulting at a point above
the main stockade, but, owing to his having only six hundred
available bayonets, he considered that it would not be advisable
to divide so small a force in attacking a garrison estimated at
twelve thousand men. " I had," he says, " no option but that
of landing below the whole of the works, attacking them in
succession, while the flotilla defended the river." At sinirise
on the 7th, five hundred men were formed into two columns,
and, under the fire of the guns and rockets, advanced upon the
first, or Pagoda, stockade; nothing could withstand the head-
long valour of the troops, who carried the work under a heavy
fire, inflicting an enormous loss on the enemy. The second
defence was 500 yards distant from tlie Pagoda stockade and
the same distance from the main work which commanded it.
Some guns and mortars, with a fresh su})ply of rockets, were
brought up and opened fire, and when it was thought that a
suflicient impression had been made, a column of two hundred
men, under Captain Rose, <Sl,)th Regiment, advanced in two
parties to the storm. But the enemy, who reserved their fire,
opened it now from all parts of the face of the work with such
destructive effect that Captains Rose and Cannon of the 8ilth
Regiuient, and many men were killed, and a large number
wounded. Seeing that the attack had failed, the General
directed the assaulting column to retire, antl landed two S-inch
mortars and four li^-jiouuders from the gunboats, to sln-ngthen
the batterv, and, in the evening, General Cotton, seeing the