Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
"Well, at this distance yonder vessel offers to my eye very little resemblance to the usual type of British gun-brig; she is longer, and much lower in the water, and her masts are certainly further apart than is the case with our brigs generally, you must see that for yourself; and it would be unreasonable to expect me to give a more decided opinion at this distance and in so vague a light."
This success procured him a gun-brig, and with her he was still more fortunate; actually cutting out, with her boats, a French sloop-of-war, that was not half manned, it is true, but which was still considered a handsome prize. For this affair he got the sloop; thus demonstrating the caprice of fortune, by whose means he found himself a commander in less than three years after he had been a mate.
How perfect was the discipline of the fleet may be inferred from the fact, that with so many ships, and on a station where the enemy had the chief part of his naval force, he lost, in three years that he held the command, not a single vessel by capture: and only one, a small gun-brig, by shipwreck.
It happened however, one day that an English gun-brig had appeared off Suez, and sent her boats ashore to take in fresh water. Now fresh water at Suez is a somewhat scarce and precious commodity: it is kept in tanks, the chief of which is at some distance from the place. Under these circumstances the request for fresh water was refused, or at all events, was not complied with.
After the capture of one of them, by an English gun-brig, Admiral Montagu reported, November 23rd, 1803: "It is impossible to suppose for an instant that anything effective can be produced by such miserable tools, equally ill-calculated for the grand essentials in a maritime formation, battle and speed: that floored as this wretched vessel is, she cannot hug the wind, but must drift bodily to leeward, which indeed was the cause of her capture; for, having got a little to leeward of Boulogne Bay, it was impossible to get back and she was necessitated to steer large for Calais.
The first faint pallor of the coming dawn was insidiously extending along the horizon ahead as H.M. gun-brig Shark the latest addition to the slave-squadron slowly surged ahead over the almost oil-smooth sea, under the influence of a languid air breathing out from the south-east.
After the capture of one of them, by an English gun-brig, Admiral Montagu reported, November 23rd, 1803: "It is impossible to suppose for an instant that anything effective can be produced by such miserable tools, equally ill-calculated for the grand essentials in a maritime formation, battle and speed: that floored as this wretched vessel is, she cannot hug the wind, but must drift bodily to leeward, which indeed was the cause of her capture; for, having got a little to leeward of Boulogne Bay, it was impossible to get back and she was necessitated to steer large for Calais.
Gun-brigs, indeed, are of some use; but between a gun-brig and a gun-boat there is almost as much difference as between a line-of-battle ship and a frigate. I have lately seen half a dozen of them lying wrecked on the rocks.
You cutter and gun-brig midshipmen go about in such a dirty state, that you are hardly acknowledged by us who belong to frigates to be officers, much less gentlemen. You look so dirty, and so slovenly when we pass you in the dockyard, that we give you a wide berth; how then can you suppose strangers to believe that you are either officers or gentlemen?
They were carried in the brig Curlew to Fernando Po, and after an examination, were put in irons and conveyed to England, and there put on board the British gun-brig Savage, and arrived in the harbor of Salem on the 26th August, 1834. Her commander, Lieut.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking