1811	Loss of the St: George, Defence, and Hero	349

brigs taken with her, was officially stated to be 18 guns ; but we doubt if any of these vessels had their guns on board. In this case the ports only (a practice that ought to be laid aside) would be reckoned ; from which, in a single decked vessel, a deduction of two is always to be made for the bridle or bow ports. Hence the Gluckstadt and her companion, when fitted out in the British service, carried no more than 16 guns. The only Danish vessels taken on the same occasion, capable of mounting 20 guns, were the Fylla and Little-Belt, and they measured but 490 tons ; less, by 20 or 30 tons, than the generality of French ships carrying the same number of guns. Upon the whole, we conclude, that the Lougen, and her consorts of the largest class, carried 18-pounders, about six feet in length and weighing from 26 to 28 cwt. ; and that consequently, even at a moderate range, they were a full match for the largest class of British brig-sloops:

This year closed with a lamentable catastrophe, which befell a part of the British Baltic fleet, on its return to England for the winter months. On the 9th of November the British 98-gun ship St.-George, Captain Daniel Oliver Guion, bearing the flag of Rear-admiral Robert Carthew Reynolds, accompanied by several other men of war of the Baltic fleet and a convoy of 120 merchant vessels, sailed from Hano sound for England. On the 15th, when the fleet lay at anchor off the island of Zealand waiting for a fair wind, a violent storm arose, in which about 30 of the convoy perished, and the St.-George drove on shore, but eventually got off with the loss of her three masts and rudder. The men of war, with the remainder of the convoy, then proceeded to Wingo sound ; where the St.-George was fitted with jury masts and a Pakenham's rudder, and the whole fleet got ready to depart with the first fair wind.

On the 17th of December the fleet, consisting of eight sail of the line, several frigates and smaller vessels of war, and about 100 merchant vessels, sailed from Wingo sound ; and as the St.-George was, as we have seen, in a greatly disabled state, the 74-gun ships Cressy and Defence, Captains Charles Dudley Pater and David Atkins, were appointed to attend her. The fleet had just cleared the Sleeve, when a tremendous gale of wind came on, which blew successively from the west-north-west, the west, and south, and then shifted, with greater violence than ever, to the north-west. On the 24th, after combating with the gale for five days, the St.-George and Defence were wrecked on the western coast of Jutland ; and the whole of their united crews, except six men of the one, and 12 of the other, perished. The Cressy saved herself by wearing from the starboard tack, and standing to the southward ; but Captain Atkins of the Defence could not be persuaded to quit the admiral without the signal to part company, and therefore shared his melancholy fate.

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