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Updated: June 10, 2025
I visited the Flagstaff Tower each day when off duty, seemingly never tired of gazing at the glorious panorama spread out before me, and watching the batteries delivering their unceasing fire. With the exception of two 24-pound cannon taken from the enemy, for which we had no shot, the heaviest guns on the ridge were 18-pounders and a few small mortars.
Proceeding for a distance of about five hundred yards I turned off again and made tracks for my original point. In front, at a distance of about seven hundred yards, one of our forward field batteries of 18-pounders opened fire. I at first thought they were French 75 mm. owing to the extreme rapidity of fire.
She may carry 18-pounders on the Lake, and be superior to any vessel that can be built or floated from St. John's." Unfortunately for the Americans, their resources in men and means were far inferior to those of their opponents, who were able eventually to carry out, though on a somewhat smaller scale, Arnold's idea of a sailing ship, strictly so called, of force as yet unknown in inland waters.
About 1779 five frigates of 38 guns, and averaging 946 tons, were launched. They were the Minerva, built at Woolwich, the Arethusa, Latona, Phaeton, and Thetis. They were first armed with 28 18-pounders on the main-deck and 10 6-pounders, 8 18-pound carronades and 14 swivels on the quarter-deck and forecastle, and with a complement of 270 men.
The latter had six 18-pounders, with a long 24-pounder mounted on a traverse, and a crew of ninety men.... This enormous preponderance of force was greatly increased in effective power by being divided between two opponents.
Shortly afterwards he was raised to post-rank, the Confiance being rated as a post-ship, with an armament of 22 carronades, 18-pounders, and a complement of 140 men and boys, in order that he might still remain her captain.
She was as beautiful a craft as a seaman's eye had ever rested on: long and low upon the water, with a superbly-modelled hull, enormously lofty masts with a saucy rake aft to them, and very taunt heavy yards. She mounted seven guns of a side, apparently of the same description and weight as our own long 18-pounders, and there was what looked suspiciously like a long 32-pounder on her forecastle.
Well as I knew every curve and line of her beautiful hull, my glances now dwelt upon her with tenfold loving interest. She was a ship-sloop of 28 guns long 18-pounders with a flush deck fore and aft. She was very long in proportion to her beam; low in the water, and her lines were as fine as it had been possible to make them.
On a front of 4500 yards we had in action seventy-six 18-pounders, twenty 4.5-inch howitzers, and four 3.7-inch howitzers, while eight 60-pounders, eight 6-inch howitzers, and four 4.5-inch howitzers were employed in counter battery work. The absence of wind placed us at a heavy disadvantage.
The horrible dinning continued, from the sharp rat-tat-tat-tat of the French 75mm., of which we had several batteries in close proximity, and from the bark of the 18-pounders to the crunching roar of the 15-inch howitzer. The air was literally humming with shells. It seemed like a race of shrieking devils, each trying to catch up with the one in front before it reached its objective.
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