A French 36-Pounder cast in 1808 is displayed at Fort McHenry to represent the similar French 36-Pounders which armed the fort in 1814.

The heaviest cannons mounted in Fort McHenry on September 13th, 1814 were French 36-Pounders which had been taken from the 74-Gun Ship of the Line Éole. That ship had been part of a French squadron sent to the West Indies in late 1805. It was dismasted in a storm off of the US coast in August of 1806. In order to get his ship safely to port, the captain of Éole, Louis Gilles Prévost de Lacroix, detained five or six passing American merchant ships and requested (or required) those ships to escort his damaged vessel. Éole reached Annapolis on December 9th, 1806.

The damaged French Line of Battle Ship, which had been built at Lorient from 1787 to 1790, remained at Annapolis. Languished at Annapolis might be the better description. She was ordered sold in October 1810, and she was sold and decommissioned in January of 1811 (Winfield, Rif. French Warships in the Age of Sail, 1786–1861: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. pg. 255) The Wikipedia Article for the ship claims that Éole was not broken up until 1816 (without citing a source for 1816, though the article seems otherwise accurate).

A September 1806 letter from Jacob Wagner to then Secretary of State James Madison notes that the three of the merchant captains who rendered assistance had made official protest to the French seeking compensation for their service. (Letter at the National Archives.) In 1807, the French Consul at Baltimore published a notice in a newspaper calling for “persons having any account for furnitures against his majesty’s ship L’Eole […] to apply to Mr. Bindault, the purser of said ship, to have them regulated, and afterward they shall be paid at the French consul’s office, in Baltimore” (Annapolis Maryland Gazette, 11 June 1807 via the National Archives).

Walter Lord (author of A Night to Remember) wrote in his account of the Battle of Baltimore, “During the scare of 1813 [Militia Major General Samuel Smith] had greatly strengthened the place. Among other things, he had improved the “water batteries” close to the river, built a furnace for heating shot, and installed 15 36-Pounders from the L’Eole, a French warship stranded in the port.” Lord wrote further that during the battle in an attempt to reach out to the British fleet taking advantage of the long range of its 13-Inch mortars, Major George Armistead commanding Fort McHenry ordered his cannons loaded with heaver-than-standard propellant charges, but “the best the fort could do was 1,800 yards with the 24-Pounders and 2,800 yards with the big French 36-Pounders”. The cannon’s shot still fell short of the British fleet which was anchored two miles away (Lord, Walter. The Dawn's Early Light: The War of 1812 and the Battle That Inspired Francis Scott Key to Write "The Star-Spangled Banner." pp. 187, 209)

The French 36-Pounder, due to differences in systems of measurement, actually fired a shot somewhat heavier than their English designation would suggest. The shot weighed something like 38 to 39 pounds. The 36-Pounder was carried on the lower gun decks of French ships of the line (a 74-Gun Ship carried twenty-eight 36-Pounders on the lower gun deck). It was somewhat heavier than the 32-Pounders generally used by the Royal Navy for that purpose.

The French 36-Pounder displayed at Fort McHenry was not present at the battle. (As it was manufactured in 1808, it could not have been aboard Éole which arrived in 1806.) As the sign next to it notes, it is similar to the cannons which were mounted at Fort McHenry. Displayed underneath the cannon is a 36-Pounder round shot which was recovered from Baltimore Harbor in 2004 and likely was fired by the fort’s cannons during the battle.

As someone who is interested in the design history of the United States Navy, I was surprised to learn that a French 74-Gun Ship had been present in the United States for several years in the lead up to the War of 1812. Éole been built to the design of Téméraire. Some 120 ships of the Téméraire-class, originally designed by Jacques-Noël Sané, would be built from 1782 to 1813 (Winfield, pg 249.) Among the 120 ships of the class was Duguay-Trouin which after capture at Trafalgar served the Royal Navy as HMS Implacable and survived until 1949 when it was scuttled.

I have never seen any reference to this ship influencing the subsequent design of American ships of the line. I wonder if any American ship designers took the time to visit and examine this ship and if Sané’s famous design had any impact upon the design of United States ships. If anyone happens to know anything more about Éole, I would be very glad to hear it.

A very nice model of Éole made in 1789 is in the collection of Royal Museums Greenwich and can be seen here: https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-66517