17 MARCH 1877, Page 3

The Times' Paris correspondent of Tuesday reports a very re-

markable exploit achieved off Cherbourg, on the part of a little torpedo-craft called the Thorneyeroft.' Of the Thorneyeroft' very little is visible above water ; on the surface you just see a little greyish body, easily confused with the sea, but there are rooms below for the officers and men who steam and manage her, while she is armed with a torpedo, projecting from her bow. Two great disabled vessels were tugged out to sea in succession, the Thorneycroft,' with lieutenant and two men on board of her, pursuing each in turn. The Thorneycroft ' with her engine and sails, made nineteen knots an hour, overtook each disabled vessel, drove the torpedo right against it, recoiled herself, spun round and round for a few seconds, and then steered off to the fleet, leaving no trace of the vessel attacked, which was in each CRS6 rent by the great shock, and immediately went down. The Thorneycroft ' only costs the fiftieth-part of a man-of-war, so that fifty Thornerrofts ' might be made, to attack an enemy's fleet on all sides, for the expense of one man-of-war. Clearly, unless the larger ships can protect themselves in dusk or dark by some wire fence against such onsets, a great navy might be blown into the air by the pettiest Naval Power on earth.