United States or Palestine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As soon as it had been discovered the Indians quickly picked up the little dogs and stowed the shivering creatures in warm bags on their backs. Now the boys were able to see the use to which these great big pounders, hewn out of the young birch trees, were put.
Her former armament had been increased and she now carried thirty guns, of which ten were thirty-two pounders. A subsequent search showed that her hold was stored with valuable goods; which had, by the marks upon the bales, evidently belonged to several ships; which she had, no doubt, taken and sunk after removing the pick of their cargoes.
They spurned the proffered mercy; so to show them that we were in earnest, we commenced by giving them a salvo from our twenty-four pounders, accompanied with three cheers.
In the afternoon the Germans made some determined counterattacks, but their advancing waves were mowed down by the British machine guns and eighteen pounders, and finally they were thrown back in confusion. The British now advanced beyond the village, while the Germans were forced to retreat from the trench below.
The fort General Oglethorpe erected here for the defence of Georgia had several eighteen pounders mounted on it and commanded the river both upwards and downwards. It was built of tappy, with four bastions, surrounded by a quadrangular rampart, and a palisadoed ditch, which included also the King's stores, and two large buildings of brick and timber.
On these they vigorously set to work with their axes, and so cut or trimmed these down, except a foot or fifteen inches at one end, so that when finished they were like gigantic pounders. With these made and thrown over their shoulders they took their way to the pond, only carrying in addition the two little dogs. When the pond was reached the little dogs were set down in the snow near the edge.
Two twenty-four pounders and the two twelves, the landing of which had been retarded by the difficulty of communication with the fleet from which we derived all our supplies, having been now brought on shore, we broke ground in the evening, and notwithstanding the rocky soil, had them to play next morning at daylight.
Wong-lih also had no intention of retiring during the short time that still remained before they were ready to leave, so he invited the young Englishman into his own spacious and luxuriously-fitted quarters in the stern of the ship, where the two remained smoking, talking, and drinking coffee, until the sound of the morning gun from the fort, followed by the report of one of the twenty-four pounders on deck, announced that it was "official sunrise", and that the hour had arrived for them to take their departure.
His heart gave a great bound. Yes, it was the English flag defiantly flying. And more there were two old 12 pounders being trained on the French squadron. For the first time in years a low laugh burst from his lips. "O mai grand doux," he said in the Jersey patois, "only one man in the world would do that. Only Elie Mattingley!"
She was commanded, I found, by Captain Henry Trollope, and carried fifty-six guns, twenty-eight long eighteen-pounders on the upper deck, and twenty-eight carronades, sixty-eight pounders, on the lower deck. Her crew consisted in all of three hundred and twenty men and boys, our arrival almost making up the complement.
Word Of The Day