Having got rid of the white women, Sewell and his companions set to work to hold the fort against the attack that was inevitable.  From the old records we get an idea of what the fort was like.  As designed by Brabourne, it covered a square of about sixty yards each way, but this did not include the two Trankers, palisaded out-works, alluded to in Gyfford’s note.  Ten years before, the attention of the Council at Bombay had been drawn to the bad condition of the

“Fort house, being no more then timber covered with palm leaves (cajanns) so very dangerous taking fire,” and the chief of the factory was ordered to build “a small compact house of brick with a Hall, and conveniencys for half a dozen Company’s servants.  And being advised that for want of a necessary house in the Fort, they keep the Fort gate open all night for the guard going out and in, which irregularity may prove of so pernicious consequence as the loss of that garrison, especially in a country where they are surrounded with such treacherous people as the Natives and the Dutch,” it was ordered that a “necessary house over the Fort walls” should be built, and the gates kept locked after 8 o’clock at night.

How far these orders had been carried out does not appear; but the Company’s goods were still kept in a warehouse outside the walls:  some of the Company’s servants also had houses outside, and the palm-leaf roofs were still there.  For garrison they only had about thirty-five boys and pensioners, ‘whereof not twenty fit to hold a firelock,’ and, for want of a sufficient garrison, it was necessary to withdraw from the Trankers, which were thought to be so important for the safety of the place.  Desperate as was the outlook.  Gunner Ince exerted himself like a man, animating everybody by his example.  By his exertions, seven hundred bags of rice, with salt fish for a month, and the Company’s treasure were got in from the warehouse, and an urgent appeal was sent to Calicut.  The surgeon had been killed with Gyfford; they had no smith or carpenter or tools, except a few hatchets, and the Attinga people swarming into Anjengo burned and plundered the settlement, forcing a crowd of women and children to take refuge in the small fort.  Though no concerted attack was made at first, the assailants tried with fire arrows to set fire to the palm-leaf roofs, which had to be dismantled; and all through the siege, which lasted six months, the sufferings of the garrison were increased by the burning rays of a tropical sun or the torrential rains of the monsoon.

On the 25th April, they were cheered by the arrival of two small English ships from Cochin, where the intelligence of the disaster had reached; and received a small reinforcement of seven men with a consignment of provisions.  A message of condolence also had come from the Rajah of Quilon, who offered to receive the women and children, so one hundred and fifty native women and children, widows and orphans of the slain,