after she was deserted by her consorts. Not being able to double upon the French line, an attempt was made to assault the Green-isle battery, which, being badly served by the Spaniards, had nearly ceased firing. But this attempt was anticipated by the arrival at the island of a party sent from the French frigate lying near; and the assault was defeated, with the loss to the English of one boat sunk and another taken: the Frenchmen renewing with vigor the fire of the battery. At the north end of the line, the French admiral was aided by seven gun-boats, which took so active a part in the fight that five of them were sunk or rendered unserviceable. The St. Jaques battery being, however, served sluggishly by the Spaniards, the French sent a party from the Dessaix to impart greater activity and effect. After the combat had continued about six hours, the British squadron drew off, greatly damaged, leaving the Hannibal 74 alone and aground; and she, after suffering great loss, was obliged to strike. The French insist that the Pompée, an English ship of SO guns, had struck her colors; but, as they could not take possession, she drifted off and was then towed away it is believed she was entirely dismasted.

We do not know the loss in the French squadron, but the killed, wounded, and missing, in the English fleet, amounted to 375 men; being more than twelve men for every ten guns against them, and being twice as great, in proportion, as the English loss in the battle of Trafalgar.

In this battle of Algesiras, there were 502 English guns afloat, acting against 306 French guns afloat. As the English chose their own time for the attack, and had the wind, it is only reasonable to suppose that 306 of the English guns were a match for the 306 guns in the French vessels. This will leave 196 English guns afloat, opposed to the 12 guns in the batteries; or, reckoning one side only of each ship, it shows 98 guns in the British fleet to have been overmatched by the twelve guns in the batteries.

There never was a more signal and complete discomfiture; and it will admit of no other explanation than that just given, namely, that the two small batteries, one of 5 and the other of 7 guns, partly 18 and partly 24 pounders, more than compensated for the difference in favor of the British fleet of 196 guns.

The Hannibal got aground, it is true; but she continued to use her guns, with the best effect, until she surrendered; and, even on the supposition that this ship was useless after she grounded, the British had still an excess of 122 guns over the French fleet and batteries.

These batteries were well placed, and probably well planned and constructed, but there was nothing extraordinary about them; their condition before the fight was complained of by Admiral Lenois; and they were badly fought in the early part of the action: still the 12 guns on shore were found to be more than equivalent for two seventy-fours and one frigate..

Battle of Fuenterabia.

This recent affair introduces steam batteries to our notice.

On the 11th July, 1836, six armed steamers, together with two British and several Spanish gun-boats, attacked the little town of Fuenterabia. The place is surrounded only by an old wall; and two guns of small calibre, to which, on the evening of the attack, a third gun of larger calibre was added, formed the entire of its artillery. The squadron cannonaded this place

during a whole day, and effected absolutely nothing beyond unroofing and demolishing a few poor and paltry houses, not worth, perhaps, the ammunition wasted in the attack. What may have been the number of guns and weight of metal which the assailants brought, is unknown; though the superiority, independent of the superior weight of metal, must have been at least ten to one: but not the slightest military result was obtained. (See United Service Journal, August, 1836, page 531.)

We will now turn to affairs of a similar character on our own coast. In June, 1776, Sir Peter Parker, commanding a squadron of two ships of 50 guns, four of 28 guns, two of 20 guns, and a bomb ketch-in all (according to their rate) 252 guns-attacked Fort Moultrie, in Charleston harbor, South Carolina.

It is stated that the fort mounted "about thirty pieces of heavy artillery." Three of the smaller vessels were aground for a time during the action; and one of them could not be floated off, and was in consequence burnt by the English. Deducting this vessel as not contributing to the attack, and supposing that the other two were engaged but half the time, the English force may be estimated at 200 guns; or, reckoning one broadside only, at 100 guns against 30 guns.

The English were defeated with great loss of life, and injury to the vessels; while the fort suffered in no material degree, and lost but 30 men. The killed and wounded in the squadron were reported by the commodore to be 205; being for every 10 guns employed against them more than 68 men killed and wounded-a loss more than eleven times as great, in proportion to the opposing force, as the loss at the battle of Trafalgar.

In September, 1814, a squadron of small vessels, consisting of two ships and two brigs, mounting about 90 guns, attacked Fort Boyer, at the mouth of Mobile bay. A false attack was at the same time made by a party of marines, artillery, and Indians, on the land side. The fort was very saiall, and could not have mounted more than 20 guns on all sides, nor more than 15 guns on the water fronts. The action continued between two and three hours, when one of the ships, being so injured as to be unmanageable, drifted ashore under the guns, and was abandoned and burnt by the English; the other vessels retreated, after suffering severely. There were ten men killed and wounded in the fort; the loss on the other part is not known.

The affair of Stonington, during the last war, affords another instance of successful defence by a battery. In this case there were only two guns, (18 pounders,) in a battery which was only three feet high, and without embrasures. The battery, being manned exclusively by citizen volunteers from the town, repelled a persevering attack of a sloop of war, causing serious loss and damage, but suffering none.

The only other instance we will adduce is that of the late attack on the castle of St. Juan de Ulloa. Having before us a plan of this work, made on the spot, after the surrender, by a French engineer officer who was one of the expedition; having, also, his official account of the affair, as well as narratives by several eye-witnesses, we can fully understand the circum⚫stances attending the operations, and are liable to no material errors.

On the 27th of November, 1838, Admiral Baudin anchored at the distance of about seven-eighths of a mile in a northeast direction from the castle, with the frigates La Nérëide, of 52 guns, La Gloire, of 52 guns, and L'Iphigénie, of 60 guns; and, after being a short time in action, he was joined by La Créole, of 24 guns: in all 188 guns, according to the rate of

the ships. In a position nearly north from the castle, and at a distance of more than a mile, two bomb ketches, carrying each two large mortars, were anchored. The wind being adverse, all the vessels were towed into position by two armed steamboats belonging to the squadron. "It was lucky for us," says the reporter, "that the Mexicans did not disturb this operation, which lasted near two hours, and that they permitted us to commence the fire." He further says: "We were exposed to the fire of one 24 pounder, five 16-pounders, seven 12 pounders, one S-pounder, and five 18-pounder carronades in all, 19 pieces only." In order the better to judge of these batteries, we will convert them, in proportion to the weight of balls, into 24-pounders; and we find these 19 guns equivalent to less than 12 guns of that calibre. But we must remark, that, although this simplifies the expression of force, it presents it greatly exaggerated; it represents, for example, three S pounders as equivalent to one 24 pounder; whereas, at the distance the parties were engaged (an efficient distance for a 24 pounder) the S pounders would be nearly harmless. It represents also the 18 pounder carronades as possessing each three-fourths the power of a long 24-pounder; whereas, at that distance, they would not be better than the 8-pounders, if so good. Although the above estimate of the force of the batteries is too great by full one-third, we will, nevertheless, let it stand as representing that force.

There were, then, twelve 24-pounders engaged against 94 guns (estimating for one broadside only of each ship) and 4 sea-mortars. During the action, a shell caused the magazine in the cavalier to explode, whereby three of the nineteen guns were destroyed, reducing the force to about ten 24 pounders.

Considering the manner in which this work was defended, it would not have been surprising if the ships had prevailed by mere dint of their guns; but our author states, expressly, that though the accident just mentioned completely extinguished the fire of the cavalier, still "the greater part of the other pieces which could see the ships, to the number of sixteen, continued to fire till the end of the action." They were not dismounted, therefore, and the loss of life at them could not have been great. What, then, was the cause of the surrender of the castle?

Much has been said of the great use, made by the ships, of horizontal shells, or shells fired at low angles, from large guns; and it is a prevailing idea that the work was torn to pieces, or greatly dilapidated, by these missiles. This engineer officer states that, on visiting the castle after the cannonade, he found "it had been more injured by the French balls and shells than he had expected; still the casemates in the curtains, serving as barracks for the troops, were intact." "Of 187 guns found in the fort, 102 were still serviceable; 29 only had been dismounted by the French fire. The heaviest injury was sustained by the cavalier" (where a magazine exploded) "in bastion No. 2; in battery No. 5," (where another magazine was blown up.) "and the officers' quarters." They found in the castle 25 men whose wounds were too severe to permit their removal with the rest of the garrison.

Of the 29 guns dismounted, 5 were thrown down with the cavalier; the remaining 24 guns were no doubt situated in parts of the work opposite to the attack, being pointed in other directions; and were struck by shots or shells that had passed over the walls facing the ships. There is reason to suppose that, of the remaining 16 guns pointed at the French, none were dismounted; and we know that most of them continued to fire till the end of the action.

The two explosions may, certainly, have been caused by shells fired at low angles from Paixhan guns. But it is much more likely they were caused by shells from the sea-mortars, because these last were much larger, and therefore more likely to break through the masonry; because, being fired at high angles, they would fall vertically upon the magazines, which were less protected on the top than on the sides; and because there were more of these large shells fired, than of the small oues, in the ratio of 302 to 117.

But, considering that the cannonade and bombardment lasted about six hours, and that S,250 shot and shells were fired by the French, it is extraor dinary that there were no more than two explosions of magazines, and that no greater injury was done the fort; since it is certain that there were no less than six other similar magazines situated on the rampart, in different parts of the work, not one of which was shell-proof. The surrender, after these explosions, was a very natural event, with a governor and garrison who seem to have known as little about the proper preparation for such contests as about the mode of conducting them. The second explosion must have satisfied them, if the first did not, that they had introduced within their own precincts much more formidable means of destruction than any it was in the power of the French to send from gun or mortar.

The important points to be noticed in this contest are these:

1st. The French took such a position that their 94 guns were opposed by the equivalent of 10 or 12 guns only. 2d. In proof of the inefficiency of the Mexican guns generally, it may be stated, that, although the three French frigates were struck in their hulls about three hundred times, they lost but thirty three men in killed and wounded. The Iphigénie was hulled 160 times, and yet had but thirteen. men hurt; very few, therefore, of these 160 balls could have passed through her sides.

3d. It appears that very few, if any, of the guns exposed to the direct. action of the French broadsides were dismounted or silenced by their fire. 4th. The narratives of the day contain exaggerated statements of injury inflicted on the walls by shells fired from guns; the professional report above quoted, of the chief engineer of the expedition, neither speaks of, nor alludes to, any such injury. After deducting from the parts of the work said to be most injured-the cavalier, and also battery No. 5, in each of which a magazine exploded-there remain, as having suffered most, the quarters of the officers and bastion No. 2. As to the first, if it was elevated above the walls, (as is probable) it would of course suffer severely; because the walls of mere barracks, or quarters, are never made of a thickness to resist shot or shells of any kind; and if not elevated above the walls, but covered by them, the injury resulted most probably from shells fired at high angles from the seamortars, and not from shells fired nearly horizontally from the Paixhan

Whether the injury sustained by bastion No. 2 was the effect of shot and shells upon the face of the walls, or of shells falling vertically within the bastion, is not stated; it was probably due in part to both. If there had been any extraordinary damage done by the horizontal shells, we may reasonably suppose special mention would have been made of it, because it was the first time that this missile had been tried, in a large way, in actual warfare. That any thing like a breach could have been effected with solid shot, at that distance, and in that time, we know to be impossible; but it is neither unreasonable to suppose, nor unlikely, that many of the heavy vertical shells may have fallen in the bastion and caused much injury. Whatever may

have been the cause of the damage, or its amount, it did not, we have reason to believe, extinguish the fire of any of the five 16-pounders that were pointed from the bastion against the ships.

5th. So far as effects were produced by the direct action of the French armament, whether guns, bomb cannon, or sea-mortars, it does not appear that there was the slightest reason for the submission of the fort. There is little doubt that the 8.250 shot and shells fired at the castle must have greatly marred the surface of the walls; and it is not unlikely that three or four striking near each other may have made deep indentations-especially as the stone is soft, beyond any material applied to building in any part of the United States; but these are not injuries of material consequence, however they may appear to the inexperienced eye; and we should risk little in asserting, that, abstracting the effects of the explosion, the castle was as inaccessible to assault, after the cannonade, as before it; that, so far as regards the levelling of obstacles lying in the way of a sword in hand attack, the 8,250 shot and shells might as well have been fired in the opposite direction.

6th. The explosion, however, of two deposites of powder in the castle, (one of which is reported to have buried sixty men in its ruins,) showed the defenders that, although they might evade the vertical fire, and their works might cover them from the horizontal fire, of the French, there was no protection against, no evasion of, the dreadful ravages of exploding magazines. With this ruin around them, and a six-fold greater ruin likely, at every moment, to burst upon their heads, it is not surprising that a garrison, found in circumstances so unmilitary, doubted their power of protracted resistance.

7th. It must be borne in mind that these explosions have nothing to do either with the question of relative strength, or with the peculiarities of the French attack. No defences, with such management, can be effective; and no attack can fail. The French, not dreaming of such culpable, such inconceivable negligence, on a point always receiving the most careful attention, entered upon the cannonade with no other purpose, as is avowed, than that of somewhat weakening the defences, and dispiriting and fatiguing the garrison, before proceeding to an assault which was to have followed at night, and for which all preparations had been made. Had the Mexicans thrown all the powder of these eight magazines into the sea, or had they transported it to their barracks, and every man, making a pillow of a keg, slept through the whole cannonade (as might have been done safely) in their quarters in the curtain casemates, the castle of St. Juan de Ulloa would, we doubt not, have been as competent to resist the projected assault, as it was when the French first arrived before it.

Sth. The number of killed and wounded in the French vessels, in proportion to the guns acting against them, was, for ten guns, more than twenty-seven men-being upwards of four times as great as the loss sustained by the English at the battle of Trafalgar.

In concluding this reference to facts in military history, we will add, that we do not see how it is possible to avoid making the following deduction, namely that fixed batteries upon the shore are capable of resisting the attacks of ships, even when the armament of the latter is by far the most numerous and heavy.

There are several reasons for this capacity in batteries, of which the principal may be thus stated; and these reasons apply to vessels of every