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Updated: July 8, 2025
The English fleet had 90 guns and 12 gun-boats; the American fleet had 83 guns and 10 gun-boats so that the British fleet had the superiority in number of guns and weight of metal. The American fleet was anchored opposite an American battery, commanded by General M'Coomb, at the head of 800 men.
For several months little occurred to relieve the monotony of ship-life beyond making regular trips from one end of their beat to the other; but when spring opened, gun-boats and transports, loaded with soldiers, began to assemble, and preparations were made for the Red River expedition.
By July, the trenches of the besieged and the besiegers were so close together that the opposing pickets could take to each other, and the gun-boats threw shells night and day into the town.
A rumour, indeed, prevailed, that a flotilla of gun-boats upon the Patuxent, commanded by the American Commodore Barney, was the point of attack; and that while the land force advanced up the river to prevent their retreat, armed boats from the fleet were to engage them in front.
The loss of the French and Spaniards, by their own accounts, was considerable; the former having three hundred and six killed, among whom were Captains Moncousu, of the Dessaix, seventy-four, and Lalonde, of the Indomptable, eighty-four, and near five hundred wounded; five gun-boats were sunk, and others damaged; and the forts, in which eleven men were killed, received considerable injury.
A wide sea rolled between the two countries, and, besides, there was an indistinct notion that Canada was wholly inhabited by Frenchmen, who might take care of themselves or not, as they pleased. The two first vessels belonging to the British on Lake Champlain, were built by the Americans. The British were contented with their fort at Isle-aux-Noix, and rejoiced in the luxury of two gun-boats.
They did not at all relish it, and went back again. On the same evening, the opposing gun-boats came into collision and some rounds were fired without any important result. Next day Colonel Morrison pressed the American General Boyd, so closely that he was compelled to stand and give battle.
Some new agency of steel must be invented to cope with the adamantine iron. And it becomes our Government, both for the armament of our ships and for defence against iron steamers, to adopt at the earliest moment every improvement in rifled cannon. The Navy Department has recently put under contract seven steamships and several steam gun-boats.
What would happen should one of the moribund Spanish gun-boats be suddenly galvanized into a flicker of active life did not trouble us, once we were inside the bay so completely did it appear out of the reach of a meddling world; and besides, in those days we were imaginative enough to look with a kind of joyous equanimity on any chance there was of being quietly hanged somewhere out of the way of diplomatic remonstrance.
The gun-boats, which were within a quarter of a mile of her, sweeping to her as fast as they could, as soon as they perceived our approach, directed their fire upon us, but without success, except the last discharge, in which, we being near enough, they had loaded with grape.
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