She was not a fighting ship of the squadron, but an armed storeship, although originally a ship of war, and therefore by her thickness of side better fitted for defence than an ordinary merchant vessel.

Placing her seems to have been an afterthought, to close the gap in the line, and prevent even the possibility of the enemy's ships turning in there and doubling on the van.

Thus Howe avoided the fatal oversight made by Brueys twenty years later, in Aboukir Bay.] [Footnote 25: It may be recalled that a similar disposition was made by the Confederates at Mobile against Farragut's attack in 1864, and that it was from these small vessels that his flagship _Hartford_ underwent her severest loss.

To sailing ships the odds were greater, as injury to spars might involve stoppage.

Moreover, Howe's arrangements brought into such fire all his heavier ships.] [Footnote 26: A letter to the Admiralty, dated October 8th, 1779, from Vice-Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot, then commander-in-chief at New York, states that "at spring tides there is generally thirty feet of water on the bar at high water."] [Footnote 27: These four ships were among the smallest of the fleet, being one 74, two 64's, and a 50.