enterprise of offence and defence, and probably could not be remedied in the course of a war.

The levying of contributions might not be disregarded where means so ample were placed by the chances of war within the grasp of an invader. These objects individually are sufficient to warrant a military attempt on a large scale. The number and character of the works arranged by the engineers are best set forth in the language of the "Report," page 54:

"At the Narrows, about seven miles below the city, the passage becomes so contracted as to permit good disposition to be made for defence. On the Long Island side of the Narrows is Fort Lafayette, which is a strong water battery, standing on a reef at some distance from the shore; and immediately behind it, on the top of the bank, is a small but strong work called Fort Hamilton. Some repairs being applied to these works, this position may be regarded as well occupied.

"On the west side or Staten Island side of the Narrows are the following works belonging to the State of New York, viz: Fort Richmond, which is a water battery; Battery Hudson, which is at some height above the water; Battery Morton, which is a small battery on the top of the hill; and Fort Tompkins, which is also on the top of the hill, and is the principal work. All these need great repairs, but, being once in proper order, would afford a very important contribution to the defence of the passage, nothing further indeed being contemplated for this position except the construction of a small redoubt. on a commanding hill a little to the southwest. The repairs of these works cannot too soon be taken in hand, and it is hoped some arrangements may soon be made with the State authorities to that end.

"With the Narrows thus defended, and the works near the city in perfect order, New York might be regarded as pretty well protected against any attack by water through this passage."

That these works are themselves perfectly capable of resisting the attack of any fleet there is no doubt, but that they are able to interdict the passage to a like naval force is very far from being certain; on the contrary, the chances of passing, without suffering to any material extent, are reasonable enough to warrant the attempt in view of the great results to be derived therefrom.

The distance between the nearest batteries is seventeen hundred yards. The water is deep to the very shore of Staten Island, and the edge of the reef well marked, on the Long Island side, by the water battery. The largest ship, therefore, may choose the course likely to be most advantageous in receiving the least weight of metal.

If the officer in command run mid-channel he will be under the fire of both sides at a most effective distance (eight hundred yards) when right abreast of them, but by taking one side or the other he will recede from one fire, and in approaching the other be exposed to no great increase of effect.

Suppose he choose to keep the left shore and risk the fire of these batteries, while, by doing so, he will place fourteen or fifteen hundred yards between his ships and the Long Island batteries.

The sketch annexed shows the course within the scope of effective fire, which is about two statute miles. It will hardly be questioned that a decent sea steamer should run ten knots hourly (sea miles) in smooth water; these are equal to eleven and a half statute miles. Of course, she takes the strength of a flood tide and spreads every stitch of canvas to a fair wind, which ought to add another mile, making the total speed twelve and a half statute miles per hour, (three hundred and sixty-seven yards per minute,) at which rate she will pass over a mile in four and three-fourth minutes.

Tracing the assigned course through the scope of the guns on both sides, marked by the circles, it will be found that the distance run is about two miles; that is, the steamer will not be more than ten minutes under fire.

The 32-pounders and the 42-pounders of the Long Island water battery will require an elevation of about three degrees to reach the enemy, the 8-inch seacoast howitzers about four degrees-both unfavorable to ricochet; for the projectiles will bound high in rising, and with a power much diminished even when the weather is smooth; but with the ripple occasioned by the moderate breeze, which is supposed to be taken advantage of, the ricochet could not be depended on for direction or force, and therefore the direct firing only will be available on the right hand, especially from Fort Hamilton, which is five hundred yards in rear of the water battery, and the guns there mounted would need at least five degrees; their shot could have no ricochet whatever, and would generally sink where they strike the water.

Taking into consideration the deviation of the projectiles and the rapid movement of the steamers, the chances of oblique impact from the incurvation of the trajectory, the variety of curved surfaces forming a ship's side, and the constant change in their manner of presentation to the direction of the ball, it is probable that not more than one shot or shell in ten can be relied on at this distance to produce a maximum penetration.

The principal work on the left, Fort Tompkins, is situated on a high hill, and two other batteries (Hudson and Morton) are in elevated positions.* Their fire is therefore not so efficacious for short distances.

To an enemy which should thus attempt to escape the fire of Fort Lafayette, by steering in with the Staten Island shore, the guns of the water battery (Fort Richmond) would be very formidable.

This work mounts twenty-seven 42-pounders,* of which it is probable that not more than a third can be made to bear on any one point.

At two hundred yards, which is to be the nearest approach of the ships in passing, the maximum penetration of 42-pounder shot in oak will not exceed fifty inches.

The time of exposure to the fire of the fort would be about fifteen minutes for a sailing ship at the rate of eight knots, and about ten minutes for a steamer going eleven knots.

Would the damage received in that time be likely to injure so many vessels as to prevent the design on the city entirely, in consequence of the reduction of the force?

In attempting to arrive at some satisfactory response to this query one is bound to avoid possible contingencies, and to adhere to those which experience has indicated as probable.

A shell properly placed will sink a ship; a hot shot will set her on fire; but it would be very unwise thence to infer that this would necessarily be the effect of every shot fired at the ship.

The Hornet sank the Peacock in fifteen minutes; but no naval officer would infer from the fact that a sloop-of-war could generally obtain a like result. So far from that, it is unprecedented and may hardly occur again.

Uncertainty as to the distance, change of position, interposition of the smoke in a covered battery, lack of deliberation, will cause the failure of many shot to strike the object at all.

The exactly fatal spot is limited to a few inches of surface near the water line; in other places a ship will sustain a large number of shells.

The prodigious endurance of line-of-battle ships will appear to any one who will look over the records of sea fights. Hour after hour they have been known to sustain an unceasing fire at each other, with every gun on the whole broadside, and yet but one or two cases of sinking during a fight will be found.

See report of Board of Engineers.

Let us note a few instances of endurance that have occurred in well-known engagements:

In 1770 the Sandwich, ninety-eight, received seventy shot holes, seventeen of them between wind and water. (Rodney and DeGuichen.) She continued to form part of the English fleet, and cruised actively, as the flag-ship, until Rodney went home, eighteen months afterwards.

At Copenhagen, Nelson anchored his ships about three hundred yards from the Danish line, and received its fire for more than three hours. Of the fleet

not one was sufficiently injured to interfere with the active operations against Sweden and Russia that followed.

More recently, in an affair ill calculated to maintain the prestige of ships in attacking batteries, it will be seen that a line-of-battle ship received the fire of two batteries, of four guns each, during seven hours. The deliberate operation of one of these with hot shot, through the whole afternoon, was entirely unmolested by the fire from the ship, as it appears hardly more than half a dozen shots from her struck near the battery; yet she did not take fire until six in the evening. I allude to the action of the Danish ship Christiana VIII, of eightyfour guns, Eckenfjorde, 1849.

At Algiers (1816) the Impregnable received two hundred and sixty-eight shots in her hull, of which fifty penetrated below the lower deck, and three, of 68-pounders, six feet below the water line.

Even frigates will endure severe service. The Macedonian received one hundred shots in her hull in the engagement with the frigate United States, and was brought safely into port. After receiving repairs in her topworks she was used in the United States navy for sixteen years, after which she was broken up and rebuilt entirely.

In 1810 the Galatea, a small thirty-two gun frigate of eight hundred tons, received seventy-eight shots in her hull,* many between wind and water. She continued to cruise, however.

A fleet of line-of-battle ships, then, would have little to dread, it is believed, from Fort Richmond in attempting to pass it, and could probably do so without material damage. If the enemy should deem it advisable to allow the leading ship to anchor abreast the battery during the thirty minutes occupied by the line in passing, the other ships would be insured against the severest of the fire, and the entire loss devolved on one which certainly ought to endure this without being disabled.

Steamers have the additional liability of injury to the machinery or boilers, thereby suspending the action of the engine. But if their sides are lined, as they should be, with the coal bunkers, their contents would suffice to arrest the progress of the shot or shells, and prevent damage to the machinery; the explo sion of the latter might be rendered comparatively harmless in the loose masses of coal, unless it were bituminous, and on that account susceptible of being ignited.

The fire of the ships would, of course, be kept up, though probably with very little damage to casemated works. The smoke enveloping the hulls would, however, tend to increase the difficulties of distinguishing from the fort sufficiently, and would embarrass the aim, while the entrance of an occasional shot into an embrasure might dismount a gun and fracture the cast iron casemate carriage into atoms, thereby doing infinite mischief.

It has been assumed that the enemy attempts the passage of the Narrows in broad day. But suppose he choose a dark night and mid-channel. The strait is more than three-fourths of a mile wide, without a shoal nearer than the shore. There is neither difficulty nor danger, so far as the navigation is concerned; and the random fire of guns at eight hundred yards, from both sides of the shore, would be a small matter.

The brief outline of the probable results of a well-designed and well-conducted endeavor to pass the Narrows may perhaps fail to shake the faith of military men in the capacity of the works to exclude ships. But would it be wise to trust the fate of the city even to a chance, remote as it may be? For if successful, even the board of engineers would hardly rely on the works about the city

* In a squadron that captured the French frigate Renommeé, afterwards named the Java, and taken by the United States ship Constitution.

as a means of further prevention. Speaking of them, (Fort Columbus, &c.,) the report says, (page 53:)

"It is a disadvantage of their positions, however, that the destruction of the city might be going on simultaneously with the contest between these forts and the fleet."

If the Narrows are forced, certain it is that in less than half an hour the steam frigates will be within range of the batteries of Governor's island and the small forts about the city. What now will intervene to prevent the destruction of the public works? Should the enemy choose to pass some of his ships round to the northward of Governor's island, every shot from our own guns that misses his hulls will tell on the devoted city, and effect more damage than the enemy himself would, in cold blood, be willing to inflict. A force now may also be detached to the navy yard and other places. Rockets, carcasses, and shell put in operation, and in a few hours the flames will strip us of the public and private resources. If a detachment be landed, meanwhile, to aid, the work will be done effectually; and the ebbing tide convey the fleet to the lower harbor, there to intercept the commerce and to blockade. Two or three steamers of the attacking force may be destroyed, the detachment on shore cut off; but what would such losses be in comparison to those inflicted?

In the conclusion from certain premises, then, the views here entertained accord with that of the engineer's report, as thus expressed:

"If the mere passing under sail, with a leading wind and tide, one or even two sets of batteries, and then carrying on operations out of the reach of these or any other, were all, the enemy might perhaps accomplish it."

At the same time there can be no doubt that the defence of a port may be made good, when its shore line permits of the condition prescribed by the report as sufficient, thus:

"Batteries should succeed each other along the channel, so that the enemy may nowhere find shelter from the effective range of shot and shells while within the harbor, even should he succeed in passing the first batteries. Provided the shores admit this disposition, and the defences be supplied with an armament, numerous, heavy, and selected with reference to the effects on shipping, the facts we have quoted from history show that these defences may be relied on."

The only question will be as to the certainty of so disposing the land works. Other passages which occur in the report of the board of engineers seem far more applicable to the case under consideration, and I cheerfully avail myself of them as fully expressing all that I desire to add on this head.

"There are, doubtless, situations where it may be necessary for us to present a defensive array, at the same time that to do so by fortifications alone would be impracticable; and it is not, therefore, prejudging the question we are about to examine; it is neither underrating fortifications, nor overrating these floating defences, to say that these last are, some or all of them, indispensable in such position.

"Any very broad water, where deep soundings may be carried at a distance from the shores greater than effective gun-range, and where no insular spot, natural or artificial, can be found or formed nearer the track of ships, will present such a situation, and we may take some of our great bays as examples.

"Broad sounds and wide roadsteads, affording secure anchorage beyond good gun-range from the shores, will afford examples of another sort; and harbors with very wide entrances and large surfaces exhibit examples of still another

kind.

“As in all such cases fortifications alone will be ineffectual, and, nevertheless, recourse to defences of some sort may be unavoidable, it has not failed to be a recommendation in the several reports on the defence of the coast since 1818, that there should be a suitable and timely provision of appropriate floating defences. And until the invention of man shall have caused an entire revolution