In the contemporary accounts of these sieges we meet with no intimation of excessive rain having fallen, which, no doubt, adds exceedingly to the fatigues and hardships incidental to troops in trenches, and we are therefore rather at a loss to understand what the excessive hardships caused by the season, adverted to in the general orders, were; the heat in the month of March, in the provinces, is not overpowering, and we cannot help smiling when we recollect that within a few months these very troops were to form part of that army which Lake, contemning the seasons, led, in the hottest parts of successive years, through the Dooab and Rajasthan. CHAPTER VI. Lord Lake’s campaigns—Captain Hutchinson’s proceedings in the neighbourhood of Rampoorah—Sieges of Komona, Gunnourie, and Adjeegurh—Augmentation by adding golundaz—Increase of horse artillery—Ordnance-drivers organized—Colonel Horsford, Commandant—Expeditions to the Isle of France and Java—Bundlecund campaigns—Callingur—Gribeauval pattern carriages introduced—Additional golundaz companies—Head-quarters removed to Dum Dum. The conduct of the Mahrattas having rendered hostilities unavoidable, the Governor-General determined to carry them on upon such a scale as would completely destroy their power, and, at the same time, eradicate the French party from the Dooab, where Mr. Perron, nominally a commander of Scindia’s disciplined brigades, had in reality established a small independent principality of his own. To carry out his intentions, the Governor-General assembled forces in the Dukhun, Guzerat, Cuttack, Mirzapoor, Allahabad, and in the Dooab; with all of which, except the first, were portions of the Bengal Artillery. The main army (in Bengal) was under the personal command of the Commander-in-Chief, General Lake; the corps composing it were put in motion early in August, 1803, and collected, on the 13th, at Arowl, on the Kali Muddee. They reached Coel on the 28th of the same month. The following artillery were attached to it:— Lieutenant-Colonel Horsford, Commandant. Lieutenant Brown, Brigade Major. Lieutenant Butler, Brigade Quarter-Master.