Halting for some days opposite Hyderabad,[297] the Bombay troops received intelligence to the effect that the Reserve which had been sent to their assistance from the Presidency had arrived at Kurachee, under Brigadier Valiant. The 40th Queen’s Regiment formed a portion of this brigade. It had been brought from Bombay in a seventy-four gun-ship—the _Wellesley_—and Admiral Sir Frederick Maitland was on board. In the position which affairs had assumed in Lower Sindh, it seemed desirable that the English should possess themselves of the fort of Kurachee; so the Admiral summoned it to surrender. The answer of the Commandant was a gallant one. “I am a Beloochee,” he said, “and I will die first.” With characteristic mendacity the Sindhian boatmen in the harbour declared that the place was prepared to withstand a siege, and that one of the Ameers had come down with an army of 3000 men. The English sailor had now an answer to give as gallant as that of the Beloochee chief. “The more the better,” he said; “we shall have the first trial of them.” Everything was soon ready for the attack. But British humanity again interposed, and Maitland a second time summoned the garrison to surrender. The reply was a word of defiance, and a shot from the fort. Then was heard by the garrison that which had never been heard there before, and of which they had no conception—a broadside from an English man-of-war. The _Wellesley’s_ guns did their work in less than an hour, and the British colours soon floated over the place. The garrison had consisted of only some twenty men.[298]