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George Downie was a British naval officer., He was born in Ireland and died in 1814. In 1812 he commanded the Canadian squadron, and was killed at the Battle of Plattsburg, fighting against Commodore Macdonough.
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The Battle of Plattsburgh was an American victory over the British during the War of 1812. In August, 1814, General Prevost with 14,000 men and a flotilla of sixteen vessels advanced from the St Lawrence to attack the American land force entrenched at Plattsburgh and the fleet on Lake Champlain. The American land force consisted of 3500 troops and about 4000 militia, under General Macomb. The naval force was made up of fourteen vessels, commanded by Captain Macdonough. The British army on September the 5th was eight miles away. The next day it advanced in two columns, but was held partly in check by the American militia. On reaching the north bank of the Saranac General Prevost constructed works and on the eleventh tried to force his way across in two places.
At the same time the two fleets fought desperately for over two hours in Plattsburgh Bay. This ended with the defeat of the British, who lost about 200 men and the commodore of the fleet. The news of this victory came to the fighting armies at the critical part of the battle and turned the tide in favour of the Americans. The British withdrew to Champlain and on September the 24th they returned to Canada.
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The USS MacDonough was an American Farragut Class destroyer of 1395 tons displacement launched in 1934. The USS MacDonough was powered by four Yarrow oil-burning boilers providing a top speed of 36.5 knots and a range of 9600 km. She was armed with five 5 inch dual-purpose guns; four machine-guns and eight 21 inch torpedo tubes arranged in two quadruple arrangements.
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