http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaind...924057721.xmlA British man-of-war, the HMS General Hunter, that was captured by CommodoreOliver Hazard Perry's American fleet in the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813 mayhave been found buried and largely preserved under a sandy beach in Canada.The shipwreck lies on the shore of Lake Huron at Southampton, Ontario,slightly tilted to its starboard side.There is some damage to the port bow and severe shattering of timbers aboutmidship along the hull.Researchers have found hundreds of ceramic pieces from bowls and plates,clay pipes, eating utensils, 36 buttons from U.S. and British militaryuniforms, four cannon balls, a musket bayonet, gunflints and parts of whatappear to be pistols. The artifacts, which were recovered last summer, areat the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, where they are beingcleaned and preserved.The ship was reburied last autumn to protect it. Researchers from theconservation institute will continue working with artifacts over the nextseveral months.If the sunken vessel proves to be the General Hunter, it could be the oldestshipwreck ever located on the Great Lakes.Canadian researchers and officials said in interviews this week that theyare 99 percent certain the shipwreck was a fighting ship built in the age ofsail.And the only currently known warship on Erie, Huron, Michigan and Superiorthat closely matches the wreck's dimensions - about 70 feet long and 20 feetwide - was the two-masted brig that carried 45 sailors when it fought thefledgling U.S. Navy for control of the Great Lakes."We're not 100 percent sure, but the circumstantial evidence is prettycompelling we've got the General Hunter. You Americans captured it in 1813,but we've probably got it back as a wreck," said Pat Folkes, a Canadianmarine historian studying the ship."There are two or three other possibilities, but the construction of thehull is for a naval, not a merchant, vessel. The timbers are verysubstantial," Folkes said. "And we've found a lot of military artifacts,including a cannon."Some scholars on the U.S. side are using words like "priceless" and"treasure" to describe the find.When it sailed into combat on Lake Erie, the 180-ton square-riggerbrandished eight cannons and was festooned with a huge flag and pennantssymbolizing the might of the British Empire.