Captain Lindsay was afterwards joined by the seventy-fourth grenadiers, and attempted to drive the enemy from the Pettah, but could not succeed, from the numbers which poured on him from all sides. This gallant officer then took post in a redoubt, where he maintained himself until morning, and then moved to the north bank of the river, where the firing appeared very heavy. He was there met by Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel the Honorable John Knox, of the thirty-sixth regiment, and by Lieut.-Colonel Baird, with the grenadiers of the fifty-second, and the light company of the SEVENTY-FIRST, together with some of the troops that composed the left attack.
During these occurrences the battalion companies of the fifty-second, SEVENTY-FIRST, and seventy-second regiments forced their way across the river to the island, overpowering all that opposed them, when Captain Archdeacon, commanding a battalion of Bengal Sepoys, being killed, that battalion was thrown into confusion, falling back upon the SEVENTY-FIRST. Major Stair Park Dalrymple, wishing to prevent the Sepoys intermingling with his men, ordered the regiment to oblique to the left, an operation that by chance brought him in contact with the Sultan’s redoubt, which was instantly attacked and carried. The charge of the redoubt was given to Captain Hugh Sibbald, of the SEVENTY-FIRST, with his company, who on the following morning was killed, nobly defending it against repeated and desperate attacks from the enemy. The commander-in-chief, General the Earl Cornwallis, in compliment to the memory of this officer, had the name of the redoubt changed to “Sibbald.”
In the evening of the 7th of February three thousand of the enemy’s horse attacked the British troops on the island, but were repulsed by the SEVENTY-FIRST regiment and the first Coast Sepoys. In the course of these operations the regiment had Captain Sibbald and Lieutenant Daniel Bayne killed; Ensign Duncan Mackenzie was wounded; about one hundred rank and file were killed and wounded.
The enemy’s loss was very severe, being estimated at 20,000 _hors-de-combat_. Eighty pieces of cannon were taken by the British.
On the 9th of February the army took up its final position for the siege of _Seringapatam_, and on the 15th Major-General Robert Abercromby joined with the Bombay force, consisting of the seventy-third, seventy-fifth, and seventy-seventh regiments, besides native troops, making a total of about 6,000 men.