ere been a necessity for hauling the wind on the opposite tack,
she must have gone down:" her loss was eight. The tenth lost twelve. The
eleventh was much injured, with a loss of eight--making a total loss in
repassing the Dardanelles, of one hundred and sixty-seven; and in the
whole expedition two hundred and eighty-one, exclusive of two hundred
and fifty men who perished in the burning of the Ajax.

Such was the effect produced on the British fleet, sailing with a
favorable wind and strong current past the half-armed and half-manned
forts of the Dardanelles. Duckforth himself says, that "had he remained
before Constantinople much longer--till the forts had been completely
put in order--no return would have been open to him, and the unavoidable
sacrifice of the squadron must have been the consequence." Scarcely had
the fleet cleared the Straits, before it (the fleet) was reinforced with
eight sail of the line; but, even with this vast increase of strength,
the English did not venture to renew the contest. They had effected a
most fortunate escape. General Jomini says that if the defence had been
conducted by a more enterprising and experienced people, the expedition
would have cost the English their whole squadron.

Great as was the damage done to the fleet, the forts themselves were
uninjured. The English say their own fire did no execution, the shot in
all probability not even striking their objects--"the rapid change of
position, occasioned by a fair wind and current, preventing the
certainty of aim." The state of the batteries when the fleet first
passed, is thus described in James's Naval History: "Some of them were
dilapidated, and others but partially mounted and poorly manned." And
Alison says: "They had been allowed to fall into disrepair. The castles
of Europe and Asia, indeed, stood in frowning majesty, to assert the
dominion of the Crescent at the narrowest part of the passage, but their
ramparts were antiquated, their guns in part dismounted, and such as
remained, though of enormous calibre, little calculated to answer the
rapidity and precision of an English broadside."

Much has been said because the fortifications of the Dardanelles did
not hermetically seal that channel, (an object they were never expected
to accomplish, even had they been well armed and well served;) but it is
forgotten, or entirely overlooked, that twelve _Turkish line-of-battle
-ships, two of them three-deckers, with nine frigates,