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Updated: June 4, 2025
Eastward of the Lighthouse, at the distance of two thousand yards, were placed the bomb-vessels; whose shells were thrown with admirable precision by the Marine Artillery. The smaller vessels, except the Mutine, which anchored, continued under sail, firing occasionally wherever they saw opportunity.
The tide rising enabled several of the ships to get afloat, and run up the Charente out of the way of danger. The Imperieuse, without waiting for orders, after signalling for assistance, stood towards three of the French ships, the Calcutta, Varsovie, and Aquilon. After some time she was joined by some gun brigs and bomb-vessels, and later by the Indefatigable, and other frigates.
An ultimatum was at once sent to the Mexican Government, a brief time only being allowed for a reply, because the claims of the French cabinet were already clearly understood. On the 25th of November the last of his squadron, two bomb-vessels, arrived. On the 21st he had given notice that he would wait till noon of the 27th for the final decision. On the 28th the attack was made.
One shell struck and dismounted one of the twenty-four-pounders, killing and wounding several of its men. Admiral Cochrane, who commanded the attacking fleet, saw this incident, and ordered three of his bomb-vessels to move up nearer to the fort. This gave the Americans the opportunity for which they had been longing, and instantly every gun in the fort opened upon the three luckless ketches.
Immediately after the capture of Washington, Captain Gordon, in the frigate Seahorse, accompanied by the brig Euryalus, and several bomb-vessels, entered the Potomac. Without much difficulty he overcame the intricacies of the passage leading by that river to the metropolis, and on the evening of the 27th, the expedition arrived abreast of Fort Washington.
That day the orders came from the Admiralty to go to sea; and the next, March 12, the ships then present sailed, fifteen ships-of-the-line and two fifties, besides frigates, sloops of war, brigs, cutters, fireships, and seven bomb-vessels, for, if the Danes were obstinate, Copenhagen was to be bombarded.
Of the squadron of gun-brigs, only one could get into action; the rest were prevented, by baffling currents, from weathering the eastern end of the shoal; and only two of the bomb-vessels could reach their station on the Middle Ground, and open their mortars on the arsenal, firing over both fleets.
The admiral immediately detached the German troops to Reggio, under the convoy of two ships of war. Then he stood through the Faro after the Spanish scouts that led him to their main fleet, which before noon he descried in line of battle, amounting to seven-and-twenty sail large and small, besides two fire-ships, four bomb-vessels, and seven galleys.
A little later, and just before the bombardment of Vera Cruz, the "Ohio," with seventy-four guns, joined, together with the bomb-vessels "Vesuvius," "Hecla," and "Stromboli." There were also a number of small steamers and gunboats to operate in shallow water. These constituted what was called the "mosquito fleet."
The expeditionary and the captured vessels were, nevertheless, so skilfully navigated, and the fire from the bomb-vessels was so well directed that not a single ship took the ground, and the Americans were driven from their guns, the whole squadron being thus permitted to emerge from the Potomac, with its prizes, in safety.
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