her wealth have been poured into the Crimea and have been there consumed. The lengthened siege has been to her as a wounded artery which could not be healed.

It appears to me that English people generally take a very partial view of things—we make light of what we ought really to consider as disasters-such as our failure at the Redan for instance, and the prestige we have lost by our terrible army-mismanagement. While, on the other hand, we consider that enough has not been done by that service, which has in reality performed all that it was in its power to do. I allude to the navy-we exclaim against them for not having done more in the Baltic. It does not appear to me that they could have done more with the means in their power. They were deficient in gun-boats, for which we must blame the Admiralty-not the navy. No matter how skilful naval officers may be, they can no more take large ships into shoal water than a watchmaker can work with the tools of a blacksmith, or a sportsman shoot snipes with a six-pounder; and as for attacking large forts, especially

308 OUR FLEET IN THE BLACK SEA.

earthworks, at long range, with big ships, it would be the act of a madman to do itnothing but misfortune could follow.

It is the same in the Black Sea. Sir Edmund Lyons is not the man to have neglected any opportunity that offered, and I am convinced that everything that could have been reasonably expected has been done by the fleet under his command; and since England has become a naval power, never have her sailors excelled in skill and daring the deeds of those who formed our squadron in the Sea of Azoff. In the Black Sea the large ships have never had an opportunity of doing anything. The experience of the 17th of October only proves what I said above about ships attacking forts, where they cannot get close in; and I think that even the greatest fool alive does not expect them to go overland to attack an army, or to go under a battery and get sunk, without being able to defend themselves.

We make light of the fact that the Russian fleet never dared to come out of Sebastopol harbour, even in the presence of an inferior

THE POSITION REVERSED.

309

force, but preferred to sink at their anchors. Neither do we consider that for two summers our fleet has been within a few miles of St. Petersburg, that the Russian ships have not ventured to come out; and that not even a small boat could creep along shore unmolested.

Let us reverse the position. How should we feel, and what would the world think, if a Russian fleet blockaded the Thames, and not a ship of ours dared to put to sea? Let us put gun-boats and mortar-rafts into the hands of our sailors, and then if they do nothing, it will be time to blame them, and I am very much mistaken if they will not say that they deserve it.

As for the German echo of the Russian story, that Sebastopol is not yet taken, and that the strength of the place is on the north side, it is all Barnum.' Certainly, as long as they hold the north forts, they will prevent our using the harbour, and neutralize the services of a large part of our army, and it is of use to them as a strategical position; but the aggressive power of Sebastopol lay in the

310

SEBASTOPOLIS' TAKEN.

south side. The north side is nothing but a fort and earthworks; there is no town, or great accumulation of warlike matériel there. The guns, stores, arsenal, dockyard, &c., lay in the south side, and are now in our hands; the Russian ships lie at the bottom of the harbour, and will soon be rotten or wormeaten. We possess Sebastopol, which was the arsenal and fitting-out port-the Woolwich and Portsmouth, combined, of Southern Russia. Nicholaieff is their chief building-yard, and perhaps answers to our Chatham.

CHAPTER XXI.

TO ENGLAND.

September 21st.-To Balaklava. My old friend. the Stromboli was in the bay, waiting to take the Duke of Newcastle to Eupatoria. I went on board, and while there, the Royal Albert and most of our ships came round from Kasatch. The next day they went to Eupatoria, took some French troops, and made a demonstration there. While on board the Stromboli I saw some models of rafts, designed by Captain Coles, and intended to float mortars and heavy guns into shallow water. One was to be worked by steam