Read "On the Blockade" by Oliver Optic online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
The two twelve-pounders in each boat were believed to weigh about six hundred pounds each, while the ordinary bronze boat gun of the same calibre weighs seven hundred and sixty pounds. The four guns, therefore, were rather too heavy a burden for the size of the cutters. But Christy was unwilling to throw the two without carriages overboard, for the water in this locality was so clear that they could have been seen at a depth of two or three fathoms. They were useless for the duty in which the expedition was engaged, and the commander of the expedition decided to land them on the Seahorse Key till he had completed his operations in the bay, when they could be taken off and transported to the Bronx as trophies, if for nothing better.
Mr. Flint was disposed to object to this plan, on account of the time it would require; but he yielded the point when Christy informed him that it was only half past two, as he learned from the repeater he carried for its usefulness on just such duty as the present expedition.