fore they owe suit to this court; and further, the constables of the borough have always made search in the Person's home, and the sergeants have divers times made arrests there; all which do prove the tenants of Person's ho me to be of this leet."

From good Queen Eleanor down to Catherine Parr, the revenues of Lyme seem generally to have been applied, in conjunction with those arising from many other towns, to secure the dowry or pay the pin-money of the Queen. Lyme, with its appurtenances to the value of £35 10s., was made over for this purpose, to mention only one instance, to Margaret of France, second wife of Edward I. In 1328 it was granted by Edward III. to the Queen Dowager Isabella for the term of her life.

The first charter of Inspeximus was the 14 Edw. II., for which four marks were paid by the town. It confirmed the charter of Edward I. with some trifling exceptions. I will not take up time and space by mentioning any more recent charters, except such as introduced serious alterations. I have mentioned already Queen Mary's grant of fairs and a market.

There is no actual notice of the Cobb before the 2nd year of Edward III. It occurs in a petition from the burgesses to the king, wherein they set forth that their town was on the sea in a place where there was no harbour or mooring ground (portus seu applicatio navium) except a certain work called Le Cobbe, built of timber and rocks (de moremis et petris), which was beat down and quite destroyed by the violence of the sea, and that their means were inadequate for its restoration. They prayed for a grant of kaiagium or keyage, which they obtained, though not quite immediately, for a term of five years, afterwards extended, on all goods belonging to townsmen or not, salt or other commodity, brought into or sent from the town by land or water, upon every pound one penny; upon every ten shillings one halfpenny. The Cobb of those days differed widely from the present structure. There exists a plan of it as it was in the reign of Elizabeth, in the anxious year preceeding the Spanish Armada. It consisted then of a triple row of great timber baulks, composed of whole oak trees standing a little distance apart, fronted and backed and all the interstices filled up with great round uncemented stones, locally called cow-stones, taken from the neighbouring beach, or even beyond the Devonshire boundary, for the Corporation claimed this right. There was no smooth walk upon the top, nor causeway connecting it with the shore, that dates only from 1756. But at one time, if the old measurements are correctly given, the outer pier was longer by

more than 100 feet than it is now. The ancient quay, which was very narrow, was only widened about the beginning of the present century. Such was our harbour, of which Camden writes, "It was well defended from the winds by rocks and tall trees." And such, or yet simpler in its construction, must have been the Cobb from which vessels went forth to the siege of Calais or the Scottish war. Even so late as the last great restoration of the Cobb in 1825, portions of these old wooden piles remained, but at that time protected by a wall. The townsmen had an ancient right to fell forest timber for this and certain other purposes from the forest, which until a comparatively recent date covered Trinity Hill and Lambert's Castle. It was probably rather from the failure of this source of supply than from any other reason, that about the time of James I. or Charles I., the old timber structure became converted into one of stone. Silver Street derives its name from being the road leading to the forest. It is silvestre stratum, the provincial and post classical form of the more correct via silvestris, the woodland road.

(To be continued.)

Z. EDWARDS.

A QUARTER OF A CENTURY IN THE PUNJAUB.

CHAPTER IV.

The First Siege of Mooltan; the Action of Sooruj-Khoond, and operations till the beginning of the Second Siege.

MOOLTAN, the ancient city of the "Malli"-where the great Macedonian, leading the assault in person, so nearly came to grief-lay before us amidst dense foliage and gardens" plaisaunces" of successive Mahomedan governors. These enclosures, with mosques and their precincts, together with other strong ground outside the walls-such as natural mounds and canal banks-presented a formidable defensive position if, as it turned out, ably defended. At the time I write of, Mooltan was almost unknown to Europeans, scarcely any Englishman had ever visited it, but enough of its precincts had been reconnoitred to enable us to commence operations by an attempt to drive the enemy within his walls, preparatory to "breaking ground"—an attempt only partly successful.

After much debate it was decided to attack the city, which was surrounded by an ordinary turreted wall, the usual enceinte of Indian cities, and flanked by towers at intervals. The citadel, a steep natural mound built which dominated the city, had been further strengthened by a "Rownee" (or chemin des rondes) with flanking bastions thrown out, devised by the foreign officers in the service of Runjeet Sing-"the Lion of the Punjaub."

up,

I now refer to my journal, 5th Sept., 1848. "The Siege of Mooltan began by a succession of assaults on some strong positions of the enemy, with severe loss on our side; several walled villages and strong masonry buildings repulsed several night attacks, and our loss-especially in officers -was severe; on the other hand the enemy was ultimately forced to evacuate them, and, during the day at any rate, to content himself with

long bowls from his guns brought outside the city and planted on such points of vantage as the Mundee Awa-a lofty natural mound in front of the city. In one of these outposts, called the Dhurmsala, stormed by H.M.'s 10th (who had suffered severely in an unsuccessful night attack and gave no quarter) several hundred corpses of Sikhs and Rohillas-an entire regiment of Moolraj's-were counted; they had sworn on the holy book, the Gránth, to hold the place, which was, in fact, a temple with its surrounding offices I recollect seeing pages of the Gránth scattered all over the courtyard, in which the enemy's dead was lying three deep-a gruesome sight.

Of these operations, which cost us over 300 casualties-and unsuccessful after all, partly owing to the defection of our Sikh allies, partly to other causes-I have kept a minute journal; which, however, need scarcely be referred to; suffice to say that our sap and trenches had to be carried from one of the strong positions alluded to (when captured) to another, in which batteries were placed at intervals. After nine or ten days' severe fighting and trench work, and after several strong positions of the enemy had been successively captured, we had arrived within breaching distance of the "Koonie Boorj" (the bloody bastion), at the south-east angle of the city. It was then that our Sikh allies-10,000 strong with twelve guns-went over to the enemy. The abandonment of the siege thus became a necessity. We had to withdraw the guns from the trenches and raise the siege, and a very ticklish job it was. This reverse, chiefly caused by the defection of our Sikh allies as mentioned above, may also be partly attributed to numerical weakness on our side, our force being insufficient to furnish working parties in the trenches and protect camp, added to the nature of the ground on which the attack was made, which comprised a series of strong outposts, each of which had to be stormed in succession. Every hollow or bush was the cover of matchlockmen, and on every wall or hut “Zumbooruks (wall or swivel pieces) were established by the enemy, who showed great spirit, and ran up counter trenches to oppose us in an incredibly short time," so says my journal written on the spot; and I may add that in my opinion the conditions of the operations involved their failure; I thought so then, and think so still, and at a very early period of the siege I became convinced it would end in failure. Several reasons, scarcely to be entered on here, led me to this conviction; amongst these I had reason to know, several days before the event occurred, that our gallant allies, the Sikhs, I would desert us. I confess I was anxious for the result, as had that

contingent only had the mala fides to attack us in the rear, whilst our camp was denuded of troops for the working parties in the trenches, it would have gone hard with our force, encumbered as it was with a large siege train. As it was, days before they openly went over, the Sikh soldiery, who as our allies had free access to our trenches and batteries during the day, would return at night as enemies, leading attacks with full knowledge of our weak points.

Several panics occurred amongst our troops about this period, and several false alarms. It was my fortune, however, on one occasion, to be called on to defend a battery against a real attack one night, when we had only three officers and some ten or twelve men left to resist several hundreds of the enemy, who crept up and closed with the embrasures. Luckily for us they had not the pluck to jump down on us inside, or they might easily have cut us all up and spiked the guns. I only saw one man standing on the parapet ready to do so, and I covered him with my pistol several moments. Happily I did not pull the trigger, had I done so the bullet would probably have fallen at my feet, for on examination I found that it had slipped half-way down the barrel-this was in the days of the old M.L.R.B. pistols, before the general use of revolvers. I from that day discarded the use of pistols, and made up my mind never to trust my life to one again; nor have I much changed my views in that respect since. During these operations the heat was very great: September's sun poured its burning rays on the toilers in the trenches, and it was no child's play, even at night, when (as occurred in the case just related) one was enjoying sleep under a tree behind the battery beneath the silent stars, after a rough, busy day in the trenches; but, as said before, the attacks were not always real, perhaps some fatuous sepoy would discharge his musket en l'air, thereby giving the alarm of a false attack; a false defence would follow, and firing, as though a general action was going on, would result, and perhaps, prevail for an hour before quiet could be restored. The best troops are at all times liable to this sort of thing, but as a rule, I believe it argues a feeling of weakness, and may often be regarded as the forerunner of disaster.

Though foreseeing the failure of these operations, and anxious for the result, being (if I know myself aright) one of those more given to foresee danger at a distance than to regard it when present, I am proud to remember that I did not allow the knowledge to interfere with my performance of duty in the smallest degree; but I was anxious about the result of these operations, and I confess I think the force was very lucky to get out of the