Insurgents rapidly learned artillery and even returned fire with captured enemy shot

Evidence

Although at first many insurgents did not know how to use the cannon they captured, loading them improperly, they soon learned. One group took control of a battery along the coast, and when a French ship fired on the battery to dislodge them, they braved a barrage of 250 cannon shots. They then used the cannon balls that had landed around them to fire back at the ship, which was seriously damaged before its crew managed to sail it away. — Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World_ The Story of…, 378