Admirals -- Great Britain -- Biography; Exmouth, Edward Pellew, Viscount, 1757-1833
All the works around the harbour were covered with the strongest
fortifications. Immediately beyond the pier-head stood the Lighthouse
battery, a large circular fort, mounting between sixty and seventy guns,
in three tiers. At the extremity of the point of rock beyond the
lighthouse was a very heavy battery, of two tiers, mounting thirty guns
and seven mortars in the upper. The mole itself was filled with cannon,
like the side of a line-of-battle ship, mostly disposed in a double
tier, with ports below, and embrasures above; but the eastern batteries,
next the light-house, had an inner fortification, with a third tier of
guns, making sixty-six in these batteries alone. All these batteries had
together above two hundred and twenty guns--eighteen, twenty-four, and
thirty-two pounders; besides two, at least sixty-eight pounders, and
upwards of twenty feet long. On the sea wall of the town were nine
batteries; two at the southern extremity; then the Fish-market battery
in three tiers, bearing three hundred yards west of the molehead; three
between the Fish-market and the gate leading to the mole; one over this
gate; and two on the wall beyond it. Along the shore, within twelve
hundred yards south of the town, were three batteries, and a very heavy
fort. Another large fort, and six batteries, commanded the bay to the
N.W. Many guns in other parts of the fortifications of the town, and in
forts and batteries on the hills around it, were in situations which
enabled them to fire upon ships. Altogether, the approaches by sea were
defended by scarcely less than five hundred guns.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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