or inconvenient soever, a new denomination.” While the products of the Carron firm were gaining unexpected success in the defence of merchant shipping, their value in ships of the line was not to remain long in doubt. Some of the heavier carronades had been mounted in the _Formidable_, _Duke_, and other ships, and their presence had a material effect in Admiral Rodney’s action of April, 1782. As had been generally recognized, the carronade was especially suited to the British aims and methods of attack--the destruction of the enemy by a yard-arm action. To the French, whose strategy and methods were fundamentally different, its value was less apparent. So that for long this country reaped alone the benefit of its invention; until in somewhat half-hearted way France gradually adopted it, and then mostly in the smaller sizes, and more apparently with a view to defence than for offensive purposes. In the action with de Grasse the carronades of the British fleet operated, in the opening stages, as an additional incentive to the enemy to avoid close quarters. And later, at the in-fighting, their weight of metal contributed in no small degree to the superiority of fire which finally forced him to surrender. It was later in this same year that the carronade won its most dramatic victory as armament of a small ship. In order to give a thorough trial to the system the navy board had ordered the _Rainbow_, an old 44, to be experimentally armed with large carronades, some of which were of as large a calibre as the original Smasher; by which her broadside weight of metal was almost quadrupled. Thus armed she put to sea and one day fell in with the French frigate _Hébé_, armed with 18-pounder long guns. Luring her enemy to a close-quarter combat, the _Rainbow_ suddenly poured into the Frenchman the whole weight of her broadside. The resistance was short, the _Hébé_ surrendered, and proved to be a prize of exceptional value as a model for frigate design. The capture was quoted as convincing proof of the value of a carronade armament, and the type continued from this time to grow in popularity, until the termination of the war in 1783 put a stop to further experiments with it. §