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On the 28th, at daylight, Lieutenant Burgess was sent on shore with a flag of truce, and the demands of the preceding morning; the bomb-vessels at the same time resuming their positions. The captain of one of the destroyed frigates met the boat, and declared that an answer had been sent on the day before, but that no boat was at hand to receive it.
Sir George Byng sailed from Spithead on the fourth day of June, with twenty ships of the line, two fire-ships, two bomb-vessels, and ample instructions how to act on all emergencies. He arrived off Cape St.
Great Britain then sent an ambassador to Denmark, backing him with a fleet of nine ships-of-the-line, with bomb-vessels; and at the end of August a convention was signed, by which the general subject was referred to future discussion, but Denmark agreed for the time to discontinue her convoys. The importance of the subject to Great Britain was twofold.
Meanwhile the other ships had done terrible execution on the walls and houses immediately opposite to them, while the bomb-vessels threw their deadly missiles right over their own ships and into the town and arsenal, with tremendous effect.
Once or twice the French attacked us by throwing shells with their bomb-vessels: and one day as a French vessel was throwing shells at our ships she broke from her springs, behind the isle of I de Re: the tide being complicated, she came within a gun shot of the Nassau; but the Nassau could not bring a gun to bear upon her, and thereby the Frenchman got off.
The frigates and the bomb-vessels were directed to follow this detachment, and the larger ships were to proceed in afterwards, should their assistance be found necessary. It was arranged that the troops should at the same time land and attack the forts on either side of the harbour.
The damage done by these shell-shot was inconceivably greater than that by the shell from the bomb-vessels, owing to the former striking horizontally, while the latter fell vertically upon the bomb-proofs, doing but little damage.... I am satisfied of one fact viz., that they might have bombarded with the bomb-vessels for a month without success, while the frigates would in four hours more, with their shell-shot, have reduced the fort to a heap of ruins."
The bomb-vessels were to anchor in the King's Channel, but well outside the line of battle, from which position they threw some bombs. Alongside each ship-of-the-line was towed a flat-boat, intended to carry soldiers in an attempt to storm the Trekroner, if circumstances favored; and other boats were sent for that purpose from Parker's division.
Proceeding next to Alexandria, the bomb-vessels assumed a position which effectually commanded the shipping in the port, and the enemy were compelled to capitulate, when two and twenty vessels, including several armed schooners, fell into the hands of the British, and were brought away in triumph. There was some difficulty, however, in bringing off the prizes.
A special service of great importance was presently intrusted to him. When in the beginning of 1862, an expedition was set on foot to open the Mississippi River to New Orleans, he was assigned to the command of a fleet of bomb-vessels to co-operate with the squadron of Captain Farragut in that enterprise a service which he carried out with distinguished ability.
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