The In a war with France or England, we should be subject to far more formidable grand descents than would have been attempted at any past time. There has been no period of the world's history when transmarine expeditions could assume such gigantic proportions, or wield such formidable power, as now. great advances in ship-building-the rapid expansion of commercial transportation, and especially the general introduction of steam-power, both for military and commercial operations, have removed much of the difficulty incident to sending expeditions across the Atlantic. Powerfully as our inferior naval force and privateering militia could operate against the transportation of supplies for such an expeditionary force, success in landing, and in putting under contribution a portion of our country, would secure subsistence for the troops thus thrown among us, and the conflict would become one for superiority in the field-that field being some devoted section of the sea-board states. England, with her small available land force, could not long sustain such a conflict; but France, with her plethora of excellent soldiers, could give us a severe trial. One chief obstacle to grand descents is, the danger and difficulty of effecting a landing, when this is contested with any vigor. Unless some town, furnished with available wharves, can be seized, the landing of men, guns, and materials, must be effected by the aid of small boats-a process slow, laborious, inadequate, and especially precarious when no good anchorage is secured. It has always been held essential, in landing an expeditionary force, quickly to make sure of some harbor, where the fleet and transports can ride in safety. The recent increase of draft, in merchant ships, has augmented this difficulty, and much restricted the number of harbors which would suffice as bases of operations, in grand descents. Another obstacle to great expeditions, which is of recent date, is, that by the aid of rail-roads and steam-boats, our local troops can be concentrated with great rapidity, to contest the landing, and obstruct the operations of a transatlantic invading force. Our sea-coast strategic points are chiefly those where these facilities for concentrating troops exist in full vigor. As against grand descents, this element is of great importance; but it is absolutely null for A glance at the history of grand descents, will show how difficult they have. always been found to be; and yet, that they have been a not infrequent resource. Ancient history presents some remarkable examples of such enterprises, on a scale of great magnificence, both in organization and in results. Xerxes is said to have had 4,000 vessels, when he invaded Greece. At the same time, 5,000 vessels are said to have landed 300,000 Carthaginians in Sicily, where they were defeated by Gelon. Three expeditions, under Hannibal, Himilco, and Hamilcar, ranged from 100,000 to 150,000 men, each. Pyrrhus landed 26,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry at Tarentum. Regulus is related to have taken into the naval battle of Ecnon 340 large vessels, with 140,000 men, while the Carthaginians had fifty more vessels, and from 12,000 to 15,000 more men. Regulus then descended, with 40,000 men, on the African coast. The Romans lost 28,000 men and 100 vessels, at Drepanum. Lutatius took 300 galleys and 700 transports into the battle of the Egean Isles, and the Carthaginians there lost 120 vessels. Scipio Africanus compelled the Carthaginians to burn 500 ships. Paulus Emilius descended on Samothracia, with 25,000 men. In the third Punic war, 80,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry were transported from Lilybæus to Utica. Mithridates had a fleet of 400 vessels-of which 300 were decked. In Cæsar's second descent on Britain, he had 600 vessels, and about 40,000 men. also transported 35,000 men into Greece, and 60,000 into Africa. Augustus transported 80,000 men and 12,000 horses, to meet Antony in Greece, who had 170 ships of war, 60 Egyptian galleys, and 22,000 infantry, beside the rowers. Germanicus took 60,000 men, on 1,000 vessels, from the Rhine to the Ems. Genseric descended from Spain, on Africa, with 80,000 Vandals. In 902, Oleg is said to have embarked 80,000 men, in 2,000 barks, on the Dnieper, proceeding thence through the Black sea, to Constantinople. William the Conqueror made his descent with from 60,000 to 70,000 men. Louis IX. made a crusading descent on Egypt, with over 1,800 vessels, and with about 80,000 He men. Mahomet II. is said to have sent 100,000 men in the expedition for the second siege of Rhodes! Edward III. debarked 40,000 men from 800 vessels, to besiege Calais. Henry V. also descended on France, with 30,000 men, 6,000 being cavalry. Charles V. took Tunis by an expedition of 30,000 men, in 500 ships. Soliman I. besieged Rhodes, with 140,000 men. Mustapha, in 1565, descended on Malta, with 32,000 Janizaries, and 140 vessels. In 1527, an expedition of 200 galleys and 55,000 men proceeded against Cyprus. The Invincible Armada consisted of 137 armed ships, 2,630 bronze guns, 20,000 soldiers, and 11,000 sailors. The Turks sent 55,000 men, in 350 galleys, to Candia, in the war of 1615, and, again, 50,000 men in 1667. Charles XII. descended on Denmark, with 20,000 men, in 200 transports. In 1775, an expedition of 15,000 to 16,000 Spaniards attacked Algiers. In 1779, Count d'Estaing, with 25 ships of the line, landed 6,000 troops in the United States, while Orvilliers, with 65 ships of the line, was covering a contemplated descent of 40,000 men, in 300 transports, from Havre and St. Malo, on the British coast. Hoche's frustrated expedition against Ireland consisted of 25,000 men. Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition consisted of 23,000 men, 13 ships, 17 frigates, and 400 transports. The AngloRussian expedition against Holland, in 1799, was raised, by successive debarkations, to 40,000 men. Abercrombie's expedition into Egypt carried 20,000 men. Cathcart's expedition against Copenhagen, in 1807, contained 25,000 men. Moore's army, in Spain, amounted to 25,000, and Wellington had 30,000 English at Oporto. The British Antwerp expedition, in 1809, consisted of 40,000 land troops and 30,000 sailors, or, according to some authorities, a total of 100,000 combatants. The British Ostend and Antwerp descent, in 1813, was scarcely less extensive. The British expedition against Washington consisted of 7,000 to 8,000 troops, and that against New Orleans, in 1814, of near 10,000; which was also about the force sent to Canada, the same year. The great expedition which Napoleon had organized against the English coast, consisted of 150,000 men, in 3,000 transports. The French descent on Algiers was made with 30,000 men; and the French army, in Algeria, has Our since amounted to 120,000 men. own descent on Vera Cruz was among the most remarkable, in its events and results. But no previous descent has ever compared, in magnitude of means, and in the numbers finally debarked, with that which has passed, as it were, under our immediate notice-the descent of the Allies in the Crimea. The Carthaginian expedition to Sicily alone claims to equal it in numbers; but this claim is exceedingly apocryphal. Probably a real effective land force of over 200,000 men was never before transported over seas. No age of the world has seen such an example of the immense mechanism of a first-class descent, as this expedition has afforded. Many minor descents might be cited; but the general place of such operations in history is sufficiently indicated by these examples. We should be very liable to such operations in a war with France; for, with its now powerful navy and its unequaled army, it would require but a slender accession of means to reproduce its Crimean army on our shores. The consummate military skill of the French, vigorously directing such an army against our chief seats of power, would give a severer shock to our national fabric than any other external force to which we are liable. In brief, a war with France would bring upon us overwhelming descents; while war with England would lead to naval conflicts at sea and naval bombardments along our shores, beside field operations in Canada. Bombardment is the peculiar liability of a marine frontier whose towns are not effectively defended by sea-coast batteries. If we suppose our coast destitute of such defenses, a hostile fleet or even a single vessel of war might lay city after city in ashes, or exact the extreme of tribute. The shipping and ship-yards of each harbor in turn might be destroyed or seized; until our whole coast and commercial marine should be utterly laid waste. Our sea borders, wherein so large a portion of our wealth and strength is gathered, might thus be shorn of every element of vital power, by a force in itself totally insignificant, but cased in an unassailable floating citadel. We must either entirely drive an enemy from the seas, or, by local defenses. close our harbors against his approach; or else we must patiently endure the annihilation of ports, ships, and com merce. A sea-port population, though numbered by millions, could, in itself, effect well nigh nothing against a bombarding fleet. By heavy guns, duly placed in sea-coast batteries, and by them alone, can any impression be made on such beleaguering, bomb-speeding pachyderms. Imagine a hostile fleet coming up the Narrows, and no forts, no batteries to obstruct its progress; all New York, taking to muskets and field pieces, sparrow shot and shillalahs, pitchforks, and tape scissors, worse than the Celestials turning somersets-of-war! Verily, of little use are the million "strong arms and stout hearts" in such a case; of little defensive force, a wall of human flesh, against 32 pounders and 10 inch shells! Truly, it were better that Sandy Hook, the Narrows, Bedloe's, Ellis's and Governor's Islands, should settle this matter with iron than Wall-street with gold. New York is worth defending in the best possible manner; and an insurance on our many sea-port towns is certainly worth the nation's solicitude. We cannot effect this object by establishing a supremacy on the sea. Our naval force is now totally unable to cope in mass with the English or French navies. We are not prone to consider how much these outnumber our gallant few. The following table exhibits the strength of some European navies in 1829 and 1840. 1850, England had 150 war steamers, besides 60 to 70 merchant steamers, for which 32 pounder armaments were actually prepared, and 240 more capable of having lighter armaments. In 1851, the French had 1 line of battle 90 gun steamer, 14 first class steam frigates, with 8 to 16 heavy guns, 15 steam corvettes, and 40 dispatch steamers, mostly mounting from 2 to 4 shell guns. Many of the English steamers are old naval vessels transformed. Our navy has now but about 70 vessels when all told, of which not over 40 could be brought into service in 90 days. Our 12 armed steamers carry from 1 to 10 guns each, or 73 in all. The cost of building and maintain ing the English, French and American navies need only be stated, to show that we should entertain no thought of coping in regular naval force with either of those powers. The expense of maintaining the Annual average of do. Annual average, do. (32 years), From 1689 to 1789, From 1776 to 1783, From 1783 to 1786, $2,283,644,277 46,604,284 1,356,248,803 79,779,341 927,395,437 28,981,106 The annual cost of maintaining the French Fleet, was: 1808, 1814, 41 148 222 12 94 102 80 63 105 25 24 81 The cost of maintaining the United States navy has been, for the 41 years: 15 23 6,594,053 Vessels. From 1831 to 1837, 31,393,151 Annual average (6 years), 5,232,191 Naval bill appropriation for 1853, 6,958,827 Estimate for 1855, 8,351,171 Spain, 9 16 Holland, 54 14 33 48 16 57 Since this period, the English and French navies have been greatly increased by the addition of steamers. In It has been estimated that, in this country, the average cost of constructing vessels of war has been over $6,000 per gun, and that the annual expense of their repairs is over 7 per cent. of their first cost; also, that the average cost of our fortifications has slightly exceeded $3,000 per gun; and that It has been their annual expense of repairs amounts to one-third of one per cent. of first cost. In 1842 the cost of building the United States navy, then afloat, had been $9,052,725; and the cost of repairs on the same vessels, $5,579,229, or a total of $14,631,984. found from large experience, that the effective duration of a man-of-war in the French navy, averages but 12 years; while in the British navy, this duration has been estimated at 7 to 8 years in time of war, and from 10 to 14 years in time of peace. Besides this marked superiority of actual French and English naval force, and the great cost of maintaining and repairing vessels of war, we may add, as additional considerations adverse to our embarking in this competition of navies, the subtraction of force which such a step would make from our commercial marine, our deep-rooted objections to the formation of large standing forces under the federal government, the lack of any adequate cause for such an overwhelming enlargement, our reliance on privateering as a marine militia, our secluded, semi-insular position, and the strong bias of our national traditions. vital, But even supposing our naval policy thus revolutionized, and that our augmented naval force could directly measure its strength with France or England, our navy could not then effectively guard our immense coast from naval assault. The case is plain; for while we have at least ten primary strategic points to be covered, points scattered along our entire Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts, we should have but one fleet to do this widespread duty. The hostile squadron might choose any one of these ten points for a rapid attack, strike its blow and be again at sea, or gone to a new attack, before our fleet could be brought to bear. It is a question of chances, and the probability of security is ten against one. Absolute security would require, for these ten points alone, ten home squadrons, each superior in force to the hostile fleet. Of course, no one dreams of any such chimerical balancing of power, and it is, in fact, only by most protracted, long-suffering persistence that any petty augmentation of our gallant little navy can be wrung from Congress. It certainly is not our true naval policy to anchor our fleets in our own harbors, and all enlightened minds must agree with Webster, who declared that, in the war of 1812, he "was for doing something more with our navy than to keep it on our shores for the protection of our coasts and harbors." One of the most distinguished ornaments of our own navy says: "This arm can only fill its special mission in war, that of aggression, by being enabled to leave the great sea-ports and exposed points of our maritime frontier to a more certain and economical system of protection, in order to carry the sword of the State' upon the broad ocean; sweep from it the enemy's commerce; capture or scatter the vessels of war protecting it; cover and convoy our own to its destined havens, and be ready to meet hostile fleets in other words, to contend for the mastery of the seas, where alone it can be obtained-on the sea itself." A navy has far greater powers for sea-coast attack than for sea-coast defense, and this is especially true of our own navy. If it would defend our coasts, let it attack the enemy's unguarded ports and exposed points. A new Paul Jones, commanding such swift-sailing and steaming vessels, as American skill could now supply, would transfer the contest to the marine frontiers of England or France, and thus defend our own ports. That our navy is pitiably small; that, when the six new steamers are completed, we still shall have but 18 armed steam vessels, and the inconvertible Collins' ferry ships; that we are not likely to cultivate this main-stay of future deeds of quickwinged daring; all this is true: but we still are strongly confident that our future wars will "be carried into Africa." Our readers can scarcely have forgotten the flutter of apprehension created in England, during 1845, by a pamphlet of the Prince de Joinville, in which he very coolly laid bare the fact, that the sea-girt isle was, like Wolsey, in its age, left naked to its enemies. By means of steamers, shooting out from their fortified coverts on the French coast, he showed how the imperfectly-secured ports of England might be overwhelmed and despoiled, and that even imperial London might be taught to give tribute. The reality of British sea-coast weakness was then fully attested by the general consterna tion, and by the promptitude with which new measures for harbor fortifications were adopted. A special commission was ordered to examine the condition and the system of the coast defenses and the harbors of refuge. The result has been, a rapid development of water batteries, and a general renovation of their armaments. In the three years from 1847 to 1850, the amount applied for repairing old works and erecting new ones, on the coast of Great Britain and Ireland, was $1,300,694. At Gibraltar, over $600,000 have lately been expended on the fortifications, and $367,887, were yet estimated for. At Malta, in addition to $180,000 similarly voted, $696,000 were estimated for. The defenses of Quebec are still progressing, and in like manner are those of most British colonial ports. tween 1839 and 1840, at least 2,000 new guns, of the largest calibres, have been mounted on the British seacoast fortifications. These facts are valuable, as showing how thoroughly conscious the first naval power on earth now is, that she cannot safely rest her sea-coast defense on her navy alone, and that the sphere of action for this arm is the open sea. Be France has always taken care to be incased in sea-coast armor. Her long series of naval humiliations never brought on her ports the disasters of bombardment. None can have failed to observe how, in every reverse, her fleets have found shelter in her fortified ports. The general exemption of these defenses from attack, during her interminable wars with England, is a supreme vindication of the efficiency of her sea-coast system. With her usual military sagacity, France has recently had her coast defenses reëxamined by a high special commission, representing all the arms of her immense military establishment. The result has been an extension of the previous system to many new points of her marine frontier, which are accessible by light draft steamers, bearing heavy guns. We should seek in vain for stronger evidence of the power of well-constructed harbor forts, to effect their proposed ends, than was afforded by that stupendous paralysis which Cronstadt impressed upon the allied Baltic fleet. Baffled and powerless before works which threatened annihilation, if approached, a squadron of unsurpassed armament, commanded by a notoriously daring officer, and surcharged with every element of naval power, shrunk from, or declined the encounter, and braved the fearful alternative of a crestfallen return. Why did not Napier take Cronstadt? Everybody well knows that he recoiled from its strength, and could only have lost his fleet in any serious attack. There, too, was Bomarsund, regularly breached by the French land battery, instead of being toppled down by broadsides. At Petropolowski, the attempt was made and signally failed. At Swenborg, by superior range of guns and by a land mortar battery, the allied fleet succeeded in burning some stores, leaving the defenses essentially intact. The Black Sea fleet before Sebastopol, though strong and well appointed, beyond precedent, wisely forebore to thrust itself into the lion's den, though this forbearance led to the alternative of that life-consuming siege, now world renowned, during the progress of which this grand fleet chiefly coöperated in the transport function. We must not here attempt the historical examination of that well-discussed theme-the ability of fleets to contend with forts. Suffice it to say, that a great body of experience has already been amassed, tending conclusively to show the great superiority of forts in these contests. The few instances wherein fleets have seemed to succeed in a fairly engaged fight of this nature, all resolve themselves, on examination, into bad conduct of the garrison, or its commander, or into some radical fault of construction or armament; such as magazines not bomb-proof, scarps too thin, guns placed too high, calibres too small, or carriages unserviceable. A long array of instances might be cited, in which forts have beaten off fleets; and, in many of these, the disproportion of strength amounts to the grotesque. Fort Moultrie, Fort McHenry, Mobile Point, and Stonington Point, are good illustrations in our own history, though in each of these cases the works were small and of weak profile. In general, we can safely declare that the true defense of sea-coast harbors, cities, and grand dépôts, consists in covering lines of heavy water batteries, wherever these can be so located as to act effectively on the channels of approach, or the positions which a bom |