e importance now from the fact that the application of
steam-power to a system of predatory warfare constitutes every harbour a
port of naval equipment, requiring to be watched, not in the passive
manner of former blockades, but effectively by steam-vessels having
their fires kindled at least during the obscurity of night. The cost and
number of such blockades need not be dwelt on, nor the indefinite period
to which prudence on the part of the enemy, and vigilance on that of the
blockading force, might prolong a war. One hundred millions sterling
added to our national debt would solve a doubt whether the most
successful depredation on British commerce could produce consequences
more extensive and permanently injurious. The memoir obviously
anticipates that 'l'usage des canons bombes, dont les atteintes ont un
si prodigieux effet,' will prevent our blockading ships from approaching
the shores of France, and that thus their steam-vessels might escape
unobserved during night, even with sailing-vessels in tow. This is no
vague conjecture, but a consequence which assuredly will follow any
hesitation on our part to counteract the system extensively adopted, and
now under the consideration of the National Assembly, of arming all
batteries with projectiles, whereby to burn or blow up our ships of
war--a fate which even the precaution of keeping out of range could not
avert, by reason of the incendiary and explosive missiles whereby 'les
petits bailments a vapeur pouront attaquer les plus gros vaisseaux.' It
is impossible to retaliate by using similar weapons. Forts and batteries
are incombustible. Recourse must therefore be had to other means,
whereby to overcome fortifications protecting expeditionary forces and
piratical equipments."

The means recommended by Lord Dundonald, it need hardly be said, were
the secret war-plans which he had developed nearly forty years before,
and the efficacy of which had recently been again admitted by the
committee appointed to investigate them in 1846. It is not allowable, of
course, to quote the paragraphs in which Lord Dundonald once more
explained them and urged their adoption in case of need. The only
objection offered to them was that they were too terrible for use by a
civilized community. "These means," he replied, "all powerful, are
nevertheless humane when contrasted with the use of shells and carcases
by ships at sea, and most merciful, as competent to avert the bloodshed
that would