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Captain d'Aillebout, the commandant, was on the wratch, pacing the battery platform; but he seems to have seen nothing unusual till about a hundred and fifty men had got on shore, when they had the folly to announce their presence by three cheers. Then, in the words of General Wolcott, the battery "blazed with cannon, swivels, and small-arms."
She mounted 6 guns & 12 swivels, & had a crew of 30 hands, two of whom were Englishmen, who had been taken prisoners, and had entered their service. We now made all the sail we could crowd after the brigantine, which by this time was almost out of sight.
At this time, a desperate character, named Cayatano Aragonez, commanded a schooner called the Zaragonaza, of 120 tons, carrying a long swivel 18-pounder, 4 long 9-pounders, and 8 swivels, with a crew of between 70 and 80 men. Hearing of the way his friends had been treated, looking upon it as an ungenerous act, he vowed to take fearful revenge on all the English he could capture.
This time, the fire was not applied too soon, and the English fleet was for some time in great danger, but was again saved by the sailors, who, in spite of the storm of missiles, vomited out by cannon, swivels, grenades, shell, and gun and pistol barrels loaded up to the muzzle, grappled with the burning mass, and towed it on shore.
But when a small English vessel, armed with two swivels, forced a privateer row-boat from Dunkirk to strike, but was not able to board her, because the English vessel has only three men, and no arms but the swivels, the Frenchman being filled with a well armed crew; and subsequently, the row-boat was forced to put into the port of Ostend, then the port of an ally; this might not be a capture under the act, so much as it was under the general maritime law.
Immediately after the battle of Fallen Timbers the American army moved down the river and encamped within view of the British garrison. Fort Miami occupied a well fortified position on the north bank of the Maumee near the present Maumee City. There were four nine-pounders, two large howitzers, and six six-pounders, mounted in the fort, and two swivels.
Of the hundred remaining with the grand army, about half were armed with muskets. A few brass guns composed our artillery; and in the boats were a good many swivels. The Dyaks amounted to about 200, of various tribes, viz., Sibnowans, Paninjows, Bombak, Sarambo, Kampit, Tabah, Sanpro, Suntah; but these were merely pioneers, and would not face the report of fire-arms.
Aided by the gunner, he applied matches to the two swivels, which had been placed in readiness for a last resort. The deck was enveloped in smoke, and, when the vapor lifted, the forward part of the ship was as clear as if man had never trod it. All who had not fallen, had vanished.
Clark took the Terror of France up the river in midday, running perilously close to the batteries; and though they pounded at him petulantly, foolishly angry at his contemptuous defiance, he ran the gauntlet safely, and coming to the flagship, the Sutherland, saluted with his six swivels, to the laughter of the whole fleet and his own profane joy. "Mr.
Well, that is the shore battery, and as it possesses certain small ordnance, such as falconets and swivels, which we could not spare the time to destroy, I would recommend that, as we must pass it close, the men be instructed to lie down behind the bulwarks as we sail by, lest haply any of them be hit; for I make no doubt that they will discharge at us every piece they have as we pass."
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