“In the beginning of August, the prince of Sarrawaddy sent down a force to occupy a strong post at the mouth of the Pegu river, a few miles below Rangoon, giving his people strict orders to block the channel of the river in our rear, that not one of the ‘wild foreigners,’ or ‘captive strangers,’ might escape the punishment that was about to overtake them. Sir Archibald Campbell presently detached a small corps, under Brigadier Smelt, to dislodge Sarrawaddy’s warriors. Our land-troops were brought to a stand-still, when within musket-shot of the place, by a deep and impassable creek; but a party of sailors from his Majesty’s ship _Larne_, under Captain Marryat, threw a bridge over the creek; and soon as the column of attack pushed forward, the enemy began to fly, leaving eight guns and a quantity of ammunition in their stockade. A strong pagoda, with a numerous garrison, and with cannons pointing down every approach, was next carried with equal facility. Other ports on the rivers and creeks were successively and successfully attacked. Such of the enemy as had had any experience of our way of fighting seldom stopped to fight in their stockades, but a new set of people from the interior made a good stand in a succession of stockades on one of the rivers, and cost us the loss of a good many brave men. These affairs of posts were very numerous. “At last the astrologers told the prince of Sarrawaddy that the stars had told them that the moment was come for a decisive action; and on the night of the 30th of August, a body of the King’s Invulnerables promised to attack and carry the Great or Golden Dagon Pagoda, in order that the princes, and the sages and pious men in their train, might celebrate the usual annual festival in the sacred place—a place now crowded, not with Bouges, but with English grenadiers. And, true so far to their promise, the Invulnerables, at the hour of midnight, rushed in a compact body from the jungle under the pagoda, armed with swords and muskets. A small picquet, thrown out in our front, retired in slow and steady order, skirmishing with the Invulnerables until they reached the flight of steps leading from the road up to the pagoda. The moon was gone down, and the night was so dark that the Burmese could be distinguished only by a few glimmering lanterns in the front; but their noise and clamour, their threats and imprecations upon the impious strangers, if they did not immediately evacuate the sacred temple, proved their number to be very great. In a dense column, they rolled along the narrow pathway leading to the northern gate of the pagoda, wherein all seemed as silent as the grave. But, hark! the muskets crash, the cannons roar along the ramparts of the British posts, drowning the tumult of the advancing column; and see—see by the flash of our guns, the column reels back, the Invulnerables fall mortally wounded, and the rest turn their backs on the holy place, and run with frantic speed for the recovery of the jungle.