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Updated: June 15, 2025
"Ring the bell like blazes!" shouted Barradas as soon as the last words of the service were uttered, and big Joe and a native sailor raced together to ring the ship's for'ard bell; then the two six-pounders on the main-deck were fired by Mosé, and the marriage ceremonies of Velo and his pretty Paní were over.
At the time of our arrival the protective armament of this primitive Fort, besides the small-arms of the garrison, consisted of three pieces of light artillery, brass six-pounders of antique pattern, relics of the Revolution.
Our gun crews had been standing to their guns for some time past, all ready for action, and as we swept out to seaward, crossing the Russians' bows, we let fly at them with our twelve-pounders and as many of our six-pounders as could be brought to bear, concentrating our fire as much as possible upon the enemy's guns, several of which we succeeded in dismounting.
"A five-inch shell is worth $60, and as we fired about two hundred and fifty, it means just $15,000 worth of five-inchers alone." "Then there are the six-pounders." "They cost $20 a shot," resumed "Hay," reflectively. "I guess we must have fired about a million of them." "Hardly that," smiled Tommy, "but we expended enough to bring the total up to $18,000 at the very least.
My instructions to the captain were attended to with the most perfect accuracy, for scarcely had my foot indented the sand when the four six-pounders of the brigantine quite gravely rolled out their brute thunder.
She was named the Essex Junior, carried twenty guns, of which half were long six-pounders and half eighteen-pounder carronades, and was manned by sixty of the Essex's crew under her first lieutenant. The first service of the Essex Junior was to convoy to Valparaiso the Barclay and four of the British prizes.
These large prahus are too heavy to pull well, though they carry thirty, forty, and even fifty oars: their armament is one or two six-pounders in the bow, one four-pounder stern-chaser, and a number of swivels, besides musketry, spears, and swords.
They were, however, not only quickly recovered, but the two pieces, a six pounder and a five and a half inch howitzer, which the enemy had brought up, were captured by the British, together with several tumbrils; and in limbering up the British guns, at one period, one of the enemy's six-pounders was put, by mistake, upon a British limber, and one of the British six-pounders was limbered on one of the enemy's.
The infantry in the rifle pits supporting the batteries were driven out by five-inch shells from the Castine, which fired during the morning and afternoon 250 shots. The Prairie used thirty-eight of her six-inch shells and about 100 six-pounders. The Castine and Hawk had taken the steamer, and the Hawk then reported to the fleet at Havana.
Then the brass six-pounders were loaded and primed, and two pieces of slow match were cut off, ready for lighting. I must confess that I looked forward to the prospect of a fight with a considerable amount of trepidation, for, in the first place, the odds were exceedingly heavy against us thirty of a crew, of whom only twenty-four could be armed, against, probably, two hundred.
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