Page:Royal Naval Biography Marshall sp4.djvu/107

 Vergennes, for the purpose, if practicable, of destroying the vessels lately launched there, and of intercepting the ordnance and supplies for their armament and equipment.

Captain Pring accordingly sailed on the 9th May; but, on arriving off Otter Creek, on the 14th, he found the Americans so fully prepared to receive him, and their vessels so strongly defended by batteries, as well as a considerable body of troops, that after a cannonading with some effect from his gun-boats, he judged it most advisable to abandon his intended plan of attacking them, and to return to Isle-aux-Noirs. The appearance of the flotilla, however, on Lake Champlain, is stated by Sir George Prevost, to have been “productive of great confusion and alarm at Burlington, and other places along its shores; and the whole of the population appeared to be turned out for their defence.”

In the early part of Aug. 1814, the British naval force on Lake Champlain consisted of the Linnet brig. Captain Pring; Chubb cutter, Lieutenant James M‘Ghie; Finch cutter. Lieutenant William Hicks; and ten sail of gun-boats. These vessels mounted between them 2 long 24-pounders, 5 long eighteens, 16 twelves, and 2 sixes; 1 medium 18-pounder; 6 thirty-two and 16 eighteen-pounder carronades: their joint crews amounted to 444 persons, the greater part British soldiers and Canadian militia, with a due proportion of boys. On the 25th of that month, the Confiance, a ship hastily constructed in the vicinity of Isle-aux-Noirs, was launched, and soon afterwards commissioned by Captain George Downie, then arrived from Lake Ontario. Her armament consisted of 27 long 24-pounders, 4 thirty-two-pounder carronades, and 6 twenty-four-pounder ditto; her complement was 270 officers, men, and boys.

In consequence of the earnest solicitations of Sir George Prevost, for the co-operation of the navy in an intended attack upon the enemy’s works at Plattsburg, every possible exertion was used to accelerate the equipment of the Confiance, that the military movements might not be postponed at such an advanced season of the year, longer than was absolutely necessary. On the 3d Sept. Captain Pring was

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