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Updated: July 8, 2025
About midway across the stream there was also a fleet of sixty flecheras, or gun-boats, well-armed and manned, belonging to the enemy. Bolivar stood on the shore gazing disconsolately at the enemy's fleet, when Paez rode up to him and inquired the cause of his disquietude.
If it had been attempted, the little gun-boats, which could sail anywhere on the lake, would have destroyed the British army by boat-loads. There was nothing to be done until the saucy little fleet was out of the way, and to put it out of the way was not easy.
There was a perpetual exchanging of signals and beacon-fires and rockets among the patriots not a day or night, when a concerted attack by the Antwerpers from above, and the Hollanders from below, with gun-boats and fire-ships, and floating mines, and other devil's enginry, was not expected. "We are always upon the alert," wrote Parma, "with arms in our hands.
At a low estimate, our country requires an additional supply of at least six mail-clad steam frigates, twelve steam sloops-of-war, and twelve steam gun-boats, with similar armor.
The gun-boats were again placed in position, and Lieutenant Burgess was sent ashore with a flag of truce to demand unconditional surrender. In a dimly-lighted cell of a massive stone building not far from the palace of the Dey, sat Colonel Langley, Francisco Rimini and his two sons, Bacri the Jew, and the officers and men belonging to the Prometheus all heavily ironed.
On the day after they landed they heard heavy firing, and going up to the highest point of the rocky promontory on which Acre stood, could make out that a number of gun-boats were cannonading Caiffa. The place appeared to make no reply to the fire, and at last two gun-boats, believing that there could be but few French troops there, sailed up the harbour.
The evacuation of Corinth by Beauregard, and the movements of General McClernand's force toward Memphis, had necessitated the evacuation of Fort Pillow, which occurred about June 1st; soon followed by the further withdrawal of the Confederate army from Memphis, by reason of the destruction of the rebel gunboats in the bold and dashing attack by our gun-boats under command of Admiral Davis, who had succeeded Foote.
At last the breeze reached them and the frigate, light at first and then gradually increasing, while the Rebiera foamed through the water, and had now every chance of cutting off some of the gun-boats. The frigate trimmed her sails and steered towards the flotilla, which now thought proper to haul off and put their heads in-shore, followed by the frigate firing her bowchasers.
Prueba, 50 guns; Esmeralda, 44; Venganza, 44; Resolution, 34; Sebastiana, 34; Pesuela, 18; Potrillo, 16; Prosperina 14; Arausasu; seventeen gun-boats; the armed ships Aguila and Begonia; the block ships at Callao; and many merchantmen.
From the bluffs along the shore they might have been seen approaching with a mysterious play of lights across the shadowy waters. In the morning they were all there. Hardly a type was lacking the last 16,000-ton double-turreted battleship, the protected and heavy-armored cruisers, monitors, despatch-boats, gun-boats, destroyers, attendant transport, and supply ships.
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