★ Find a new page on our Untranscribed Manuscripts list.
Cherson Oct 12th/23 1788 OS.
As the post from this part of the country uncertain
at all times is very little to be depended upon in
the first state of affairs, I am happy in having
found an opportunity of sending a letter by a
merchant who I have just now heard sets out
tomorrow for different parts of Germany.
Since we began fighting this summer I write
twice to let you know of my existence once
after an action of the 7th of June & once after
those of the 17th & 18th of the same month, and these
were the last I had any part in, for though
I continued with the Flotilla till the middle
of August there was no more fighting in that
time except on the 1st of July and I was then
absent on a commission Prince Potemkin had
given me to transport 8 vast sea mortars
from Cherson & to employ them on a land
battery.
You My I think, must have
known, that last autumn, when the
Turks declared war by attacking two of our
ships here, we were as little prepared as
possible. 3 or 4 very indifferent frigates was
all the force we had at this port to defend
ourselves against a force ten times as great
on the side of the Turks. It was found
necessary therefore to arm in some manner
or other every bark that could swim.
The Vessels and which had been used
to transport the court down the Dneiper,
though very ill constructed for such a purpose
were to become immediately vessels of war.
and as I happened to be at Cherson at
that time, Mardvinoff pressed me into
the Admiralty service, to assist in fitting
out this heterogeneous fleet of small vessels, which then first took the name of the
Flotilla. some of the people who ought
to have been the most acting were sick<lb?. others absent, so that it happened that
on several & some of the most important
occasions I may say the whole business
of the Admiralty rested on me. The employing
great guns of 36 & even 40 pounders on such
---page break---
|
Identifier: | JB/540/487/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 540. |
|||
|---|---|---|---|
|
540 |
|||
|
487 |
|||
|
001 |
|||
