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which he so piously expresses, were not inappropriate. He had taken the chance of a contest with the elements, which Providence spared him. Had he buried every Arab under the ruins of Algiers, there was still no harbor for his fleet; and, save to fight a battle, no admiral in the British fleet would anchor where he did for an hour.

There was no anxiety to clear the vessels from the contest that was over; and as to there being "a power unconquered," and this power an unsubdued energy in the batteries, four hours after his first guu was fired, save some pieces on the heights "beyond the reach of sea guns," a battery did not exist in the city of Algiers.

Why resort to excuses such as these? The reporter knows that an army is beaten, and a besieged city is subdued, when "the defence is exhausted, although many guns may be fired afterwards." As to a continuation of the fight the next day, there was in fact no one to fight; and as to the rejection of the admiral's demands, there was no choice left the Dey. They had been rejected in the morning by the Dey in the plenitude of his power; which, before the evening, was destroyed, and submission was imperative. Lord Exmouth carried out his instructions to the letter.

That the battle was well contested is shown by the fact that, comparing the number of men engaged, "the total loss of the combined squadrons exceeded the proportion of any of our former victories. Between 6,000 and 7,000 of the Algerines were killed and wounded."

Does it not show another remarkable fact, illustrative of the point in question, with how little loss and in how short a time a fleet can demolish the strongest fortifications? The entire loss in the combined squadrons amounted to 883 men.

Compare this with the multitudes of men, the time, and the vast treasure, which it cost the French to subdue this same place a few years after, by regular approaches, in the most approved fashion.

The united broadsides of the combined fleet only amounted to 500 guns, and not the 1,000 recited by the reporter-but a trifle more than half the number in the fortifications in Algiers.

Now, the city of New York, or, rather, the fortifications to the harbor, will at no time bring to bear upon a fleet this same force of metal, which was silenced by a fragment of the British fleet.

It is clear, then, that, if the defensive force must be "equal in power to the attacking force," we must look to other means for the defences of our country. England could have sent her thirty ships of the line to the city of Algiers, and, as France did subsequently, her twenty thousand troops; but a fifth part of the assumed standard of force sufficed both at Copenhagen and Algiers.

In the instance cited by the reporter, of the attack upon Gibraltar, the case is not in point, The floating batteries were not a fleet. They were hulks prepared by the engineer, D'Arcon, were manned by convicts; and, like all the attacks by the besiegers on shore, failed. Gibraltar was only once in its history attacked by a fleet, when it was taken by a squadron under Admiral Rooke.

Even the French, never distinguished in maritime affairs, begin to follow in the footsteps of their nautical neighbors over the British channel; and instead of transporting armies, with all the eircumstance and cost of such a warfare, to attack a distant point covered by fortifications, now equip a fleet and bombard their enemy to terms.

Witness St. Juan D'Ulloa, a fortress of which it was once remarked that "it was built of dollars," constructed, by the ablest engineers, of the best material, upon which were mounted at the time of the attack 187 great guns, and which was thronged with troops for the defence, falling before a small French squadron, after a few hours' cannonading. Three frigates, a corvette, two armed steamers, and two bomb vessels, reduced this fortress in a few hours; and this with a loss to the assailants of thirty-three men killed and wounded!

Here, as elsewhere, I have taken the liberty of correcting a mistake of the board, in their estimate of guns on both sides. The fort was defended by 187 guns, and not the twelve 24-pounders only which are quoted as the full amount. I am aware that the reporter means that these twelve guns were all that the castle could bring to bear on the French force. But this, as before observed, constitutes the strength of fleets. The French admiral concentrated his fire upon a single face of the fortification; thereby reducing the effective strength of a great fortress to the force of the selected front: and this position fleets can always choose, in defiance of the passive and fixed arrangements of permanent works, and fully accounts for the uniform results. Nor is it to the accident of the magazine explosion that its speedy reduction was alone owing; the accident itself, of frequent recurrence as we shall see, was the result of the arrangements of the assailants. The flanking and enfilading fire which ships can secure by this choice of position is very apt to find the way to the magazines. We shall take occasion to recur to this again.

The board next in their report enter into comparative estimates of the loss of life and casualties occasioned by conflicts between ships, and betwixt ships and fortifications, greatly to the advantage of the latter. For example, in the battle of the Nile, the loss in Nelson's fleet was 895 in killed and wounded, and at Trafalgar the British fleet lost 1,587 in killed and wounded; whereas in the affair of Algiers the batteries caused a loss of 883 in killed and wounded in the fleet, being an effect of more than thrice that produced by the French ships at the Nile, and more than four times as great as that produced by the same enemy at Trafalgar.

Let us carry the comparison further. The victorious fleet at the Nile occasioned a loss to the beaten enemy of upwards of 5,000 in killed, wounded, missing, &c. The victorious fleet at Trafalgar could not have caused a loss of less than 25,000 men in prisoners and from casualties. At Algiers, between 6,000 and 7,000 of the Algerines were killed and wounded; and at Copenhagen the loss of the enemy was more than double that in the British fleet. At St. Juan D'Ulloa the disparity was so great as to create astonishment. No mention is made of this in the report before us. There is one more military reminiscence bearing upon the point in question, though it shows the naval force in a defensive rather than the usual attitude of assailant character, which escaped the notice of the reporter, when culling for the occasion the "facts of history." I mean the siege of St. Jean D'Acre, in 1799, by the Emperor Napoleon, and its defence by Sir Sidney Smith with his little squadron. I say by Sir Sidney, for it is unquestionable that the French would have carried Acre by assault but for his presence with the ships. Sir Sidney writes, in his despatch to Lord Nelson, "indeed, the town is not nor ever has been defensible according to the rules of art; but, according to every other rule, it must and shall be defended." This siege, by a powerful army, with the master-spirit at its

head, lasted sixty days; and this successful defence excited, says the historian, "an indescribable feeling of wonderment throughout Europe."

Since this memorable defence, Acre has been looked to as the key to Syria, nay, to Egypt, and no care or expense has been spared to complete its defensive works. Yet this same fortified city, which resisted the "army of the East," with Napoleon at its head, for sixty days, and finally repulsed him, was demolished by a British fleet in a few hours, so that one stone scarcely lay upon another. Here, too, that same "accident" which occurred at St. Juan D'Ulloa blew up Acre-the vast magazine of powder and shells exploded!

The historical facts adduced, after the example of the board, might, I think, be deemed sufficient to shake the confidence of the public in this system of fortifications; nay, to establish the position here assumed, that fortifications. alone, constructed within reasonable limits, (that is, within the bounds of a nation's ability to meet the cost,) are inadequate to the object. They can resist attacks made by regular approaches for a time, but fall before the attack of fleets in a manner and with a certainty calculated to excite an "indescribable feeling of wonderment," to justify the distrust now so largely felt, and to make us, in the language of the Secretary, “inquire how the consequences of this state of things are to be best met and averted," "and whether the change which has taken place in the condition of the country will not justify a corresponding change in the nature of our preparations;" in short, "whether we may not depend more upon floating and less upon stationary defences."

The prominent objection urged by the board against the naval defence has been selected, and their own arguments inverted, to apply to their proposed system of defence by fortifications; and, if history be any guide to accurate conclusions, we have shown that this system, which will tax the resources of our country to the extreme of its ability, will not save the country from every "form of defence by naval means;" that henceforth, as the attack must be by naval means, a full provision of those means must be made to meet it; that, even should this great and expensive system be completed, it costs but a morning's work, and the sacrifice of a few ships. to a hostile fleet, to lay the proudest of these structures in the dust of their own ruins; and that this system is not adapted to the condition of the country, and "worthy of all reliance."

But there are other points on our extensive seacoast which may be deemed worthy of protection, from Boston to New Orleans. The proposed works for New York are shown to be inadequate, were they doubled; they would prove so against such an armament as England, for example, is prone to send abroad for a great blow. Shall those other points be more slightly guarded? If so, their fate is sealed when it suits our enemy. Or, are we prepared to make Gibraltars or Copenhagens of them all, and fortify them to the utmost? To fortify them as did Old Spain, when she had the mines of America to bear the cost? And to what end? We have already seen in part. And if the reporter will turn to the pages of history he will see that there has not been a port, from the Indies to the La Plata, however fortified, but has fallen, successively, before the broadsides of a fleet.

A bare enumeration of a part of them will suffice to prove this.

1. St. Jean D'Acre.-Reduced in a few hours by a British fleet, and taken possession of by the seamen and marines.

2. Algiers.-No less than five times bombarded into submission by ships of war.

3. The Cape of Good Hope.-Taken by the British fleet, and the commerce of the States ruined in those seas.

4. Admiral Drake took Carthagena in 1565. He carried off two hundred guns and a prodigious amount of bullion. Again, by the French, 1697; and once more by the British, in 1706.

5. All the West India Islands.-Repeatedly by the French and English fleets; the latter, as is their habit, laying their ships alongside the forts, beating them into submission.

6. Among the rest, the island of Guadaloupe is remarkably in point. A squadron of nine English ships appeared before the port in 1759. "The city appeared to be impregnable towards the sea, so well was it fortified; nevertheless, it was against this side that the English commodore (Moore) directed his attack. After a cannonade of nine hours, the batteries were nearly silenced by this vigorous assault, and the garrison, to avoid being made prisoners, fled to the mountains. (French account.)

7. Jamaica was taken by the British fleet in Cromwell's time.

8. Madras, Calcutta, Pondicherry, Ceylon, were all taken by the British fleets, which laid the foundation of their power in India.

9. Sumatra, Java, and the rich city of Manilla, the latter by Admiral Cornish who obtained an immense booty.

10. Canton, but just now.

11. Malta was taken by the French fleet, which sailed into the harbor and carried the city during the panic.

12. Porto Bello, taken by Admiral Vernon in 1740.

13. Rio Janeiro, taken by Duguy Truin with a small fleet. He forced his way into the harbor, in defiance of the fire of the numerous and heavy batteries which defended the harbor. He assaulted and took the city, which was ransomed.

14. Senegal, taken from the English by a small French squadron.

15. The British fleet forced the passage by Flushing, and took the city, in 1809.

16. Mocha, in Arabia, was bombarded and taken by Captain Lumly with one frigate.

17. Chagres in 1741, and Carthagena again; the latter had 700 guns and several ships in battery.

18. In 1763, Admiral Pocock, with a fleet and 15,000 men, attacked and took Havana. The troops were landed from the ships in boats "at the nearest beach," where, by the way, there chanced to be a castle, which Captain Harvey, in the Dragon, first silenced.

19. Sir John Duckworth forced the passage of the Dardanelles with six ships of the line, and was rebuked because he had not continued on to Constantinople, and, with his small force, assaulted a city which had withstood a hundred thousand men.

20. Constantinople was once taken by the Venetian fleet.

21. Curaçoa was stormed and taken by Sir Charles Brisbane, with four small ships, boarding the castle at the entrance from his boats.

22. A combined attack was planned against Fort St. Louis, Martinique, of 1,100 seamen and marines, together with a body of light infantry, and the sloops Asia and Zebra. The joint attack was, however, anticipated

by Captain Faulkner, of the Zebra, who laid his ship alongside the fort, and carried it at the head of his crew.

23. So at Guadaloupe, again, the captain of the Winchester "carrying his ship close to the enemy's batteries, soon silenced them."

24. Most of the West India islands were recaptured by D'Estaing's fleet, though well fortified and defended by Englishmen.

25. Quebec was taken from the French by Admiral Saunders, who, with twenty-one sail of the line, entered the St. Lawrence in 1759. His fleet conveyed the gallant Wolfe and ten thousand troops to the walls of the city, which capitulated in less than three months.

26. Louisbourg was attacked and taken by a naval force.

27. During the attack on Long Island, in our revolutionary war, the frigate Roebuck silenced "the efficient batteries at Red Hook ;" and a writer upon this battle remarks that it was surprising to see the enemy's ships pass the batteries with so much ease.

28. At Baltimore, the attacking fleet could not approach the works erected for the defence of the city, and therefore neither received nor in flicted much injury. But the fortress on the Potomac, which had more "than two guns behind a parapet," and was well placed, like the case cited by the reporter at Cape Licosa, had a good garrison, nay, where all the requisite "conditions were fulfilled," was evacuated by the fire of two hostile frigates, which passed on to Alexandria.

29. Charleston was taken notwithstanding the attack on Fort Moultrie failed. The bar of Charleston harbor is its best defence, as it excludes all but the smaller ships, which are feeble, comparatively, in attack.

30. Such also is the condition of Mobile fort. It surrendered, after the failure of the attack on New Orleans, to a force landed from the ships, which could not cross the bar. It fell without resistance, yielding up nearly five hundred regular troops, officers, and men, and a full supply of the necessaries for a vigorous defence.

This is within two hundred of the number assigned in "the system" the future war garrison of the same work. Shall we not look for a similar result from a like attack?

In following the shores of the American continent, whenever we find a city of sufficient wealth to be defended, or within the reach of hostile fleets to invite attack, on looking into their history, respectively, we see that at one period or other they have fallen before the assault of ships. Asia and Africa tell the same story. European cities on the Mediterranean shores have, almost without exception, forcibly received a hostile fleet within their harbors; and on the Atlantic shores, save on the coast of the British isles, alternately and successively, have submitted to the same irresistible power.

The British coasts, their cities, their shores, have alone been intact the singular exception to this universal rule. Why is this? Why do we never hear of a British city being laid in ruins, their commerce blocked up in their ports, and ruinous contributions levied upon her people, by a haughty foe, at the cannon's mouth? For centuries the fires of an English hearth have never been extinguished by the rude mercenary. How is this, I ask? for England, comparatively speaking, is not "fortified" at all.

Is not a "system" which produces such results "a well-digested system," "worthy of all reliance ?" And should we hesitate in confiding in such a system, quite as well adapted to the condition of our country? And

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