Yet, in spite of all this, Prevost still had the means of making Downie superior to Macdonough.  Macdonough’s vessels were mostly armed with carronades, Downie’s with long guns.  Carronades fired masses of small projectiles with great effect at very short ranges.  Long guns, on the other hand, fired each a single large projectile up to the farthest ranges known.  In fact, it was almost as if the Americans had been armed with shot-guns and the British armed with rifles.  Therefore the Americans had an overwhelming advantage at close quarters, while the British had a corresponding advantage at long range.  Now, Macdonough had anchored in an ideal position for close action inside Plattsburg Bay.  He required only a few men to look after his ground tackle; [Footnote:  Anchors and cables.] and his springs [Footnote:  Ropes to hold a vessel in position when hauling or swinging in a harbour.  Here, ropes from the stern to the anchors on the landward side.] were out on the landward side for ‘winding ship,’ that is, for turning his vessels completely round, so as to bring their fresh broadsides into action.  There was no sea-room for manoeuvring round him with any chance of success; so the British would be at a great disadvantage while standing in to the attack, first because they could be raked end-on, next because they could only reply with bow fire—­the weakest of all—­and, lastly, because their best men would be engaged with the sails and anchors while their ships were taking station.

But Prevost had it fully in his power to prevent Macdonough from fighting in such an ideal position at all.  Macdonough’s American flotilla was well within range of Macomb’s long-range American land batteries; while Prevost’s overwhelming British army was easily able to take these land batteries, turn their guns on Macdonough’s helpless vessels—­whose short-range carronades could not possibly reply—­and so either destroy the American flotilla at anchor in the bay or force it out into the open lake, where it would meet Downie’s long-range guns at the greatest disadvantage.  Prevost, after allowing for all other duties, had at least seven thousand veterans for an assault on Macomb’s second-rate regulars and ordinary militia, both of whom together amounted at most to thirty-five hundred, including local militiamen who had come in to reinforce the ‘culls’ whom Izard had left behind.  The Americans, though working with very creditable zeal, determined to do their best, quite expected to be beaten out of their little forts and entrenchments, which were just across the fordable Saranac in front of Prevost’s army.  They had tried to delay the British advance.  But, in the words of Macomb’s own official report, ’so undaunted was the enemy that he never deployed in his whole march, always pressing on in column’; that is, the British veterans simply brushed the Americans aside without deigning to change from their column of march into a line of battle.  Prevost’s duty was therefore perfectly plain.  With all the odds in his favour ashore, and with the power of changing the odds in his favour afloat, he ought to have captured Macomb’s position in the early morning and turned both his own and Macomb’s artillery on Macdonough, who would then have been forced to leave his moorings for the open lake, where Downie would have had eight hours of daylight to fight him at long range.