vived in modern deeds of "derring, do " • and
that from the ranks of officers and soldiers alike spring forth high valour and sublime humanity. And they have called forth from the nation the noblest emotions in expression and act, from high and low, from rich and poor, from men and from women. They have made all acts and words converge into one expression of settled conviction that freedom is essential to progress, and that it is better to die to the last man than to suffer the incarnation of evil principles to prevail. All this have they done in the first six months of their operations, with troops new to war, learning a new business, and accustoming themselves to change of climate. All this have they done, with the especial things in which they excel the barbarians—the mechanism of war—comparatively neglected.
Painful is it that so many brave men should have perished in the process. But no permanent good has ever been achieved on this earth without sa- crifice; and shall we say that the alliance of France and England alone, saying nothing of the dawning opening of the East, is not worth a great sacrifice ? Have we calculated what will be the result to civilized humanity of impressing one will on the two nations, England and France, and prac- tically making of them one nation bent on the general progress of humanity ? The defence of Sebastopol has been protracted by the equality of the ar- tillery : the guns of the English ships landed to prosecute the siege have been encountered by the guns of the Russian fleet, most probably supplied from England also. The stores of all kinds that hare been gathered to- gether for more than a score of years, with a view to Constantinople, have been lavishly expended in waste in a fruitless attempt to save the chief fortress of Russia; and with the fall of that fortress the heavy stake of the war-gambling despot is lost. Very difficult would it be to replace those stores without the sea-transit which is denied to him.
And all that has been done has been accomplished with insufficient me- chanism, in arrear of our modern powers. In a former communication I re- marked that Cronstadt ought to be battered down without loss of life on the side of the Allies; and many attempts are now making, with more or less probability, to amend our weapons of offence. It would not be a difficult thing to point out wherein the defects consist; how effects are expected without causes, and how the causes might be supplied ; but a public journal is not the place for this. One of the improvements—the production of an efficient wrought-iron gun—has been taken in hand by James Nasmyth, and from him we may expect philosophical theory and practical result in a good manipulation of material. But there are many more points than this in the machinery of war, and it would be desirable that equal improvements should be made in all. If, for example, on comparing the alleged superiority of Russian to English field-pieces, they were compared in separate parts, struc- ture, materials, form, proportions, principles, harness, horses, and gunners, more useful results would be obtained. If, then, the instrument were con- sidered in every view—weight, durability, range, accuracy, power of pene- tration in the projectiles, facility of draught, facility of repair, handiness in use, safety to gunners, and other essential points—it would not be difficult to discern wherein the defects might consist. If we assume that what has been, must always be, without further examination, it is clear that we shall
get no further improvement. • We need yet to ascertain by experiment what class of gun will achieve the longest possible range, with the smallest expenditure of powder, and without injury to the men using the gun. If we can attain an accurate range of six miles while Russian guns are confined to three miles, it is clear that we may destroy both Sebastopol and Cronstadt without loss of life to ourselves; and if we discover that mere monster guns are not practically efficient, and that guns of less calibre are, we shall gain a valuable piece of knowledge. One thing is clear : a piece of ordnance is still, with the exception of increased size, what it was in the beginning, or nearly at the beginning—a mass of cast metal with a large bore and a small one, and that the increased size has in some particulars been accompanied by decreased efficiency. The in- strument called a Bramah's press is also a mass of cast metal with a large bore and a small one, and it has been found that under great pressures with large diameter of bore cast iron will not serve, and other means have been resorted to. What similar processes will do for artillery, Mr. Nam) th is about to demonstrate.
These and other things, changing from stagnation to progress, are growing out of this war. The railway is now becoming a part of war material, and the men who go out to lay. it down are doubtless but the pioneers of perma- nent railways to be made in Turkey and throughout the East,—pioneers also for turning the Crimea to account, perchance, converting it into an island, by severing the isthmus of Perekop with a channel to the Putrid Sea, that may improve its sanitary condition, and preclude all Russian advance to the South, aided by guns of greater range and destructive power than war has yet beheld ; guns such as England may produce and transport to the spot by sea, but wholly beyond the means of Russia and her land transport. With the Crimea and Bessarabia rent from Russia, free transit of the Danube might be attained and maintained, and the Czar, pent within his inland provinces, might be left to be dealt with by discontented tribes upon all his borders, while cut off from all foreign resources. And if the Sultan should ulti- mately turn Christian, and promote the immigration of Western Europe, the hemming in of barbarous Russia would be complete. If the next Baltic expedition, with its improved engineering, adds to the fall of Cronstadt the destruction of St. Petersburg by Russian hands through some new Rostop- chin, the Czar may resume the ancient sway in Moscow ; and the brave men who have reduced him to the condition of Peter ere he began ship- building, will not have shed their blood in vain.
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