But not near all of these could act upon the fleet as it lay.

Other English accounts state the number of guns actually opposed to the fleet at from two hundred and twenty to two hundred and thirty.
Some of these were in small and distant batteries, whereas nearly all the fleet was concentrated on the mole-head works.

(Fig.

36.) Supposing only one broadside of the ships to have been engaged, the ratio of the forces, as expressed by the number of guns, must have been about as 5 to 2.

This is a favorable supposition for the ships; for we know that several of them, from their position and a change of anchorage, brought both broadsides to bear; moreover, at no one time could _all_ the guns of the water fronts of the batteries bear on the attacking ships.