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While belonging to the Hastings, he was gazetted as having served with the rocket-boats at the bombardment of Sveaborg.
The allied fleet, consisting of seventeen British men-of-war, fifteen gunboats, and sixteen mortar-vessels, with two French men-of-war, six gunboats, and five mortar-vessels, left Nargen on the 6th of August, and anchored the same night among the islands about five miles from Sveaborg.
Among the more important performances of the allied fleet in the Baltic was the severe injury inflicted on the fortress of Sveaborg, one of the strongest belonging to Russia to keep her neighbours in awe in that part of the world. The fortress of Sveaborg is built on a granite island about a mile in advance of Helsingfors, the Russian capital of Finland.
The smaller vessels cruised off the coast, destroying all the government magazines and stores they could reach, and capturing innumerable merchant-vessels; while the admirals were preparing for an attack on the fortress of Sveaborg, which had been considerably strengthened since the preceding year.
Our chief, who was opening his letters, suddenly threw a despatch over the table to S , the admiral of the fleet, saying, 'What would ye do, mun, if ye received a letter like this? S , after reading the letter said, 'If I received a letter like that, I'd attack Revel or Sveaborg if I lost half my fleet. Our chief's answer I shall never forget.
And it is a fleet commanded by such Admirals as these that is to sweep the German navy from the seas! During the Crimean war the allied British and French navies distinguished themselves by their signal failure to effect the reduction of such minor fortresses as Sveaborg, Helsingfors, and the fortified lighthouses upon the Gulf of Finland.
That superb fleet was intended chiefly for the Baltic, where it was hoped that not only would it humble the pride of the Czar, by capturing Sveaborg, Helsingfors, and Cronstadt, but might lay Saint Petersburg itself under contribution.
So we fell back on Sveaborg, which place was bombarded by the combined fleets, I venture to think most successfully, and I believe, had we had a force to land, we could have taken possession of that large and important fortress. Our losses during the operation were small on board the squadron of mortar-boats which I had the good luck to command some fifty-eight men hors de combat.
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