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Updated: May 6, 2025
It was, indeed, time for the British to retire; for besides the big guns and swivels of the brig, every accessible point of the cliffs above their head appeared covered with musketry, and several heavy pieces sent forth their messengers of destruction from beneath the walls of the castle.
I suppose they are all pretty much alike, crammed with explosives and combustibles; old swivels and guns loaded up to the muzzle, grenades, and all sorts of things like that, some of them invented for the occasion. We must give these fellows a wide berth when once they are set alight; for they will burn mightily, and shower lead and fire upon everything within reach.
The other defences were more insignificant even than this; and the enemies' artillery amounted, by account, to three six-pounders and numerous swivels; from 350 to 500 men, about half of whom were armed with muskets, while the rest carried swords and spears. They were scattered in many forts, and had a town to defend, all of which increased their weakness.
To say that he was proud of this distinction is stating it but tamely. The Minister of War has also in his charge some venerable swivels on Punch-Bowl Hill wherewith royal salutes are fired when foreign vessels of war enter the port. The chagrin of the missionaries has never been comprehensively expressed, to this day, profanity not being admissible.
Here the Virginians, exhausted by fatigue, hunger, and vexation, declared they would carry the baggage and drag the swivels no further.
When they engage, they put up a strong bulwark of thick plank; the Illanoon proas are much larger and more formidable, and commonly carry from four to six guns, and a proportionable number of swivels, and have not unfrequently a double bulwark covered with buffalo hides; their crews consist of from forty to eighty men.
Not for a moment during the afternoon did the enemy's fire slacken, and the strain began to tell upon our men. The pieces grew foul, there were only two screw-rods in the camp with which to clean them, and as the hours passed, our fire grew less and less. The swivels had long since been abandoned, for the gunners were picked off so soon as they showed themselves above the breastwork.
A bull-ring, however, without a bull would only be a memento of the decadence of the times, and she felt herself constrained to abandon the idea. Quintains, however, she was determined to have, and had poles and swivels and bags of flour prepared accordingly.
I replaced the lost hooks by a still larger set, with the stoutest gimp and swivels, and once more I tried my fortune with a bait exactly resembling the first.
George for England!" sweeping them back by showers of arrows and musquet balls, thrusting them down with pikes, hurling grenades and stink-pots from the tops; while the swivels on both sides poured their grape, and bar, and chain, and the great main-deck guns, thundering muzzle to muzzle, made both ships quiver and recoil, as they smashed the round shot through and through each other.
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