The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
History
The Junior Classics, Volume 7: Stories of Courage and Heroism
Children's literature
It is impossible to enumerate all the deeds of heroism performed
during the battle and the progress of the siege--the bravery of
Captain Hugh Sibbald, who, with a hundred Highlanders, captured
and defended the sultan's redoubt against innumerable odds; of
the courage of Major Dalrymple, with his Highlanders and Bengal
infantry, who, to draw attention from the working-parties, crossed
the Cauvery, and fell furiously upon Tippoo's cavalry camp. Every
British soldier seemed animated with a dauntless courage. Meantime
a trench had been opened within 800 yards of the walls, and the
advances carried on with spirit and energy. The anger of the Oriental
despot manifested itself by a continual discharge of cannon.
Eighteen days after the battle everything was ready for a grand
attack upon the citadel of Seringapatam. The British soldiers,
flushed with success, and burning to avenge the cruel sufferings and
murders of their countrymen, were eager to commence the assault.
The besieged, crushed, despairing, expected every minute to hear the
roar of the breaching batteries, and to see their stately mosques
in flames. At this moment, so full of anticipation, orders were
issued to cease all acts of hostility. Tippoo had sued for peace;
but at the very instant the order for cessation of firing was
issued, every gun that could be brought to bear upon the trenches,
and the musketry from all available points, were ordered by the
sultan to be fired.
In the treaty which was now drawn up Tippoo not only agreed to
release all his prisoners, but to pay the equivalent of $16,500,000,
yield up half his possessions, and to place in the hands of the
British his two eldest sons, to be retained as hostages till the
due performance of his pledges.
Never before had Indian history presented so touching a spectacle
as that seen on the day when the young princes were delivered into
the hands of their father's conquerors. On the morning of the 26th
of February, twenty days only after the appearance of the British
before the walls, the two youthful hostages, each mounted on a
richly-caparisoned elephant, left the fort. Soldiers and citizens,
stirred by deep sympathy, thronged the ramparts to take one last
look at the two boys. Even the stern and cruel Tippoo himself was
moved, and found it difficult to repress his emotion as, standing
on the bastion above the great entrance, he watched the procession.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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