Index of Historians

Decarie: In layman's terms, I suppose, one can say that Downie comes down, his intention is to sail his fleet, bombard the British at a distance, where they can't reach him, and then sail back again, bombard them again from the other side, again at a distance, but he runs out of wind. And he ends up not only he can't sail along, but he also ends up closer to the Americans than he wanted to be. What goes wrong?

Allan: Well,I think we have to put into perspective the conditions on Lake Champlain, for one thing. It's a very, very interesting lake. It's long, very, very, long. Narrow. You're never too far from land at any given point, therefore wind conditions can vary very, very much depending on whether the winds are from the north, the south, the west wind, all of these conditions would have affected the conduct of the sailing vessels and, of course, the orders that were being [given] aboard these sailing vessels.

I think that these naval captains, who were blue water men, must have found it rather difficult to adjust to some of the flukie winds that come off the lake, particularly at Cumberland Head, Crab Island, a little bit to the south. They had to adapt to all of this, plus the fact that there's a lot of shoal water in various parts of Lake Champlain. So we have very large vessels trying to maneuver into position. In the middle of September, the lake begins to be stormy. On occasion, it could also be very calm. But as the fall proceeds, conditions on the lake become more and more variable.

Fitz-Enz: So poor Downie is leading this fall British fleet, and his intention is to sail down the American line at a distance, and hammer them, at a distance where they can't reach back to him. Then he's going to turn around and sail back the other way and do it all over again. But he runs out of wind.