Throughout the long war which broke out ten years later the carronade played a considerable part in the succession of duels and actions which had their climax off Trafalgar. It was now generally adopted as a secondary form of armament, captains being permitted, upon application, to vary at discretion the proportion of long-gun to carronade armament which they wished to carry. In the smaller classes especially, a preponderance of carronades was frequently accepted; the accession of force caused by the substitution of small carronades for 6-and 9-pounder long guns in brigs and sloops could hardly be disputed. In ships-of-the-line the larger sizes continued in favour. The French now benefited, too, by their adoption; on more than one occasion their poop and forecastle carronades, loaded with langrage, played havoc with our personnel. Spaniards and Dutchmen did not carry them. How far their absence contributed to their defeats it is not now to inquire; but how the tide of battle would have been affected by them--if the Dutch fleet, for instance, had carried them at Camperdown--may be a not unprofitable speculation. Early in the war the carronade system was to score its greatest defensive triumph, and this, by a happy coincidence, in the hands of the old _Rainbow’s_ commander. The _Glatton_, one of a few East Indiamen which had been bought by the admiralty, was fitted out in 1795 as a ship of war, and left Sheerness in the summer of the following year under the command of Captain Henry Trollope to join a squadron in the North Sea. At her commander’s request she was armed with carronades exclusively. She was without ahead or astern fire, without a single long bow or stern chaser; she carried 68-pounder carronades along her sides, whose muzzles were so large that they almost filled the small port-holes of the converted Indiaman and prevented more than a small traverse. Off the Flanders coast she fell in one night with six French frigates, a brig-corvette, and a cutter; and at ten o’clock a close action began. The _Glatton_ was engaged by her antagonists on both sides, her yard-arms almost touching those of the enemy. She proved to be a very dangerous foe. Her carronades, skilfully pointed and served by supply parties who worked port and starboard pieces alternately, poured out their heavy missiles at point-blank range. So heavy was her fire that one by one the frigates had to haul off, severely damaged, and the _Glatton_ was left at last to spend the night repairing her rigging unmolested, but in the expectation that the French commodore would renew the attack in the morning. To her surprise no action was offered. The blows of the 68-pounders had done their work. Followed by the _Glatton_ with a “brag countenance,” the enemy retired with his squadron in the direction of Flushing. The action had more than one lesson to teach, however, and no more ships, except small craft, were armed after this upon the model of the _Glatton_.