The HMS Rose normally mounted 24 nine pounder guns (meaning they fired a shot weighing nine pounds, not that the gun itself weighed nine pounds - in fact, a nine pounder weighed about 2,850 pounds). The number of guns actually varied, and the Rose carried 32 guns when she took part in the invasion of New York. A majority of the men on board the ship were positioned on the gun deck in battle, particularly those with no skills, since much of the work on a gun was merely grunt labor.

The process for loading a gun was as follows: Once a gun was fired it recoiled inboard until it fetched up against its breach ropes, the heavy ropes attaching it to the side fo the ship. One of the six man gun crew ran the worm down the barrel of the gun to extract any bits of wadding that may have been left inside.

Next the swab, dipped in water, was run down the barrel to extinguish any burning embers. Fully recoiled, the end of the barrel was only a foot or two inboard of the gun port making it necessary for the gun crew to lean out of the gunport in order to insert the worm, swab and rammer. Once the gun was cleaned the powder was inserted. The powder, in pre-made flannel cartridges, was brought to the gunsby the powder monkeys.

The powder monkeys were ship's boys, between the ages of eight and thirteen who served a number of functions on board. They were ideal for carring powder because they did not have the strength to work the guns and were short enough to run under the low overhead of the gun deck.

A long nine pounder used 4.5 pounds of gunpoweder (half the weight of the ball) in a standard charge. This was rammed home with the rammer. A piece of wadding was placed on top of that and then the shot was rammed home. The most common shot was round shot, a nine pound ball of cast iron. Other loads included chain and bar shot used for cutting up rigging or grapeshot which consisted of nine small balls lashed together to create a shotgun effect when fired. Cannister shot was a tin can or bag filled with musket balls, and the langrage was a sack of old bits of metal. Both were effective short range, anti-personnel weapons.

When the shot was loaded another wadding was rammed down on top of the whole mess to ensure that the ball did not roll out as the ship heeled over. The gun Captain then took an iron skewer called a priming iron and jammed it down the touch hole to break open the cartridge. The touch hole was then filled with a fine powder from the powder horn. The gun crew laid into the side tackles, the block and tackle moounted on teh sides of the gun, and ran the gun out of the gun port. The Gun Captain (the one who named the gun) took the linstock, a forked stick, out of the tup in which it was kept. The linstock held the slowmatch, a cotton wick soaked in lye or some other substance which was lit and glowed like the end of a cigarette. The glowing slowmatch was touched to the powder in the touch hole which in turn ignited the powder charge in the barrel and fired the gun. The gun would recoil and the whole process was begun again.

During a battle a gun's crew would simply load and fire as fast as they could. Since the guns of the day were very inaccurate, naval engagements normally took place at close range where rate of fire was of prime importance. A minute and a half to two minutes was considered a good speed for loading and firing, but a gun crew could not maintain such an exhausting rate of fire for very long. The men on the gun deck were more often killed by the splinters thrown off by enemy shot hitting the hull than by the shot itself. On the weather deck the greatest threat was musket fire from the enemy'sRose's complement of Marines would pose the same threat to any enemy. The deck and ceiling (interior side planking of the ship) of the gun deck were often painted red to disguise the blood that was spilled there.