h, in war time, could have no chance of safety
against fighting steam ships in the open sea, he deemed it especially
important that attention should be paid to a project calculated to
effect an entire revolution in the principles and methods of warfare. If
his project was feasible, it furnished an instrument by which
fortifications and harbours of refuge would be rendered useless, seeing
that the most powerful enemy might by it be effectually prevented from
coming within reach of those defences, or, if he was allowed to approach
them, could use it with a terrible effect, to which the most formidable
defences could offer no resistance. It was under this impression that,
on the 29th of November, 1845, finding Governments indifferent to his
arguments, he addressed a vigorous letter to "The Times."

"Had gunpowder and its adaptation to artillery," he there said, "been
discovered and perfected by an individual, and had its wonderful power
been privately tested, indisputably proved, and reported to a
Government, or to a council of military men, at the period when the
battering-ram and cross-bow were chief implements in war, it is probable
that the civilians would have treated the author as a wild visionary,
and that the professional council, true to the _esprit de corps_, would
have spurned the supposed insult to their superior understanding.
Science and the arts, both of peace and war, nevertheless, in despite of
all such retarding causes, have advanced, and probably will advance,
until effects and consequences accrue which the imagination can scarcely
contemplate.

"It is not, however, my intention to intrude observations of an ordinary
nature, but to endeavour to rectify an erroneous opinion which appears
to prevail, that consequences disastrous to this country may be
anticipated from the introduction of steam-ships into maritime warfare.
I am desirous of showing that the use of steam-ships of war, though at
present available by rival nations, need not necessarily diminish the
security of our commerce; that still less need it necessarily endanger
our national existence, which appears to be apprehended by those who
allege the necessity of devoting millions of money to the defence of our
coasts. I contend that there is nothing in the expected new system of
naval warfare, through the employment of steam-vessels, that can justify
such expensive and derogatory precautions, because there are equally
new, and yet secret, means o