The Gun Fleet

The Gun Fleet is an English Country Dance. It was published by John Young in 1721. It was interpreted by George Williams in 2025. Originally a Triple Minor this version is a proper Duple Minor dance. The minor set lasts 32 bars.

John Young writes:

Note: Each Strain is to be play'd twice over.

The first Man turn about, and run quick to the Corner of the Room, his Partner and the 2. cu. run after at the same time, then his Partner runs to the other Corner, and the other three follows her at the same time Then the 2d Man does the same, and his Partner and the first cu. follow him, then the 2d Wo. the same, and they follow her Then the first cu. cross over and whole Figure with the 2d. cu And lead thro' the 3d cu. and thro' the 2d, and turn your Partner

I find the image of everyone running after one person (presumably like a fleet of ships chasing an enemy) rather charming. But the fourth time, they need to return to their original places... that might be rather tricky in a long line of dancers.

The only thing I have trouble with is And lead thro' the 3d cu. and thro' the 2d, and turn your Partner. We've got 8 bars, and that looks like 12 bars of movement. It could probably all be squeezed in to 8, but I'm just going to leave out the partner turn.

The animation plays at 120 counts per minute normally, but the first time through the set the dance will often be slowed down so people can learn the moves more readily. Men are drawn as rectangles, women as ellipses. Each couple is drawn in its own color, however the border of each dancer indicates what role they currently play so the border color may change each time through the minor set.

The dances of George Williams (including interpretations like this one) are licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA license.

If you find what you believe to be a mistake in this animation, please leave a comment on youtube explaining what you believe to be wrong. If I agree with you I shall do my best to fix it.

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A1	1-4	M1, chased by everyone else, turns and runs away
	5-8	W1, chased by everyone, runs away
A2	1-4	M2, chased by everyone else, runs away
	5-8	W2, chased by everyone, runs home
B1	1-4	1s cross, go below, as 2s lead up
	5-8	1s half figure eight up through 2s
B2	1-4	1s lead through the couple below and cast back to place
	5-8	1s lead through the couple above and cast back to place