Admiral Watson, at
his request, at once landed five hundred and sixty sailors, under the
command of Captain Warwick of the Thunderer. A considerable portion of
the enemy had crossed the Mahratta Ditch, and encamped within it. The
nabob himself pitched his tent in the garden of Omichund (a native
Calcutta merchant who, though in the nabob's camp from motives of
policy, sympathized entirely with the English), which occupied an
advanced bastion within the Mahratta Ditch. The rest of the army were
encamped between the ditch and the saltwater lake.
Clive's intentions were to march first against the battery which had
played on him so effectually the day before; and, having carried this,
to march directly against the garden in which the nabob was encamped.
The force with which he started, at three o'clock in the morning of
the 3rd, consisted of the five hundred and sixty sailors, who drew
with them six guns, six hundred and fifty European infantry, a hundred
European artillery, and eight hundred Sepoys. Half the Sepoys led the
advance, the remainder covered the rear.
Soon after daybreak, the Sepoys came in contact with the enemy's
advanced guard, placed in ditches along a road leading from the head
of the lake to the Mahratta Ditch.
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