HARBOURS OF REFUGE.

THE report of the gentlemen appointed, pursuant to the recom- mendation of the Huse of Commons Committee on Shipwrecks, to inquire into the most eligible situations for a harbour or har- bours of refuge in the Channel, is an important document. The system of harbours recommended by the Commissioners is the fruit of judicious examination, conducted with comprehensive views, and at the same time minute attention to practical detail. If any fault is to be found with the suggestions of the Commis- sioners, it relates to some details which betray the natural and unconscious bias of a Commission in which there was such a pre- ponderance of naval and military officers. In the instructions of the Lords of the Treasury the grounds of eligibility in consider- ing the sites of harbours of refuge were enumerated in this order,—easiness of access at all times of tide for vessels exposed to stress of weather ; adaptation to purposes of offence and defence in the event of war. The gallant Commissioners have in their report inverted the order ; viewing. stations for armed vessels as the primary, and harbours of refuge for mercantile shipping as the secondary object.

The Commissioners recommend the improvement of the har- bour at Harwich, the improvement and extension of the harbour at Dover, and the construction of harbours at Seaford, (immedi- ately East of Beachy Head,) and Portland. In a military point of view, this plan of operations may be unexceptionable. On the wide part of the Channel we have the natural harbours of Falmouth, Plymouth, and Dartmouth ; on the narrow part, Portsmouth and Dungeness ; and to the North of the narrow termination of the Channel, Harwich, alike important as flanking the defensible positions along the Channel coast and supplying a station to command the North Sea. None of these natural harbours require at present any artificial improvements, except Dungeness and Harwich. Between Portsmouth and Plymouth on the one hand and Portsmouth and Harwich on the other, there are dangerous gaps in the chain of accessible, secure, and defensible harbours : the construction of a harbour of refuge at Portland would fill up the one, and of harbours of refuge at Seaford and Dungeness or Dover the other. The order in which the Commissioners re- commend that these works should be executed, if only one shall be undertaken at a time, is—Dover, Portland, and Seaford. It is here that the too exclusive regard of the Commissioners to warlike considerations may be detected. Every winter brings its fearful catalogues of Channel ship- wrecks; and by far the greater part of these are owing to the want of deep-water harbours, and harbours of easy access, in the narrow part of the Channel. Between Portland and the Downs, the extreme limits of this part of the Channel—a distance of about 250 miles—Portsmouth is the only deep-water close harbour. The Reliance and the Conqueror were cast away on the French coast solely from anxiety to keep at a safe dis- tance from the harbourless English shore of the narrow Chan- nel. War is a contingency not to be despised, but certainly the diminution of the appalling number of our annual shipwrecks is an object of at once more urgent and more permanent interest. The construction of a harbour of refuge at Dover, in such close proximity to the Downs, and not very remote from Dungeness, cannot, in this point of view, be considered so pressing as the construction of a harbour midway on the inhospitable and un- broken coast which stretches its long length from Portsmouth to Dungeness. The works required at Portland are not so much for the purpose of rendering it a harbour of refuge as a naval station. The expense of the works at Dover is estimated at 2,500,000/. ; those required at Seaford, at only half that sum. And, as we now proceed to show, there are reasons for pausing before the expenditure at Dover is determined on. Dover is recommended by the Commissioners on the ground that " its value in a military, point of view is undoubted " ; and

that " the construction of a harbour of refuge there is indispen- sable to give Dover that efficiency as a naval station which is ne- cessary in order to provide for the security of this part of the coast and the protection of trade." To this recommendation two important objections have been offered,—that the holding-ground is not good ; and that the harbour will have a tendency to silt up. To meet the former objection, Captain Washington, us the steam- ship Blazer of 500 tons and with 120 horse-power, was ordered to try the tenacity of the bolding-ground at Dover to the utmost. The result of his experiments is described in the report as " satis- factory " ; but the recorded dissent of Sir William Symonds suggests a suspicion of their not being quite conclusive. For the settlement of the second objection, the Commissioners admit that "more extensive experiments" than they have been able to in- stitute are required ; and they recommend "their being con- tinued for a year under all circumstances of weather." Dungeness,

on the contrary, "has ever been remarkable for its good holding- ground" : there are two bays there, one on the West and one on the East side of the point, affording "excellent and extensive anchor- age according to the state of the wind"; upwards of 300 sail have been sheltered in the East bay at one time and more than 100

vessels were at anchor in the West a few days before the Corn-' mission arrived there ; and there is deep water close to the beach. Under these circumstances, Sir William Symonds appears to have reason on his side when he says in his dissent, " I consider the mass of evidence to be in favour of Dungeness"; and "I cannot recommend a large close harbour at Dover, where the pilots con- sider the holding-ground generally indifferent, and the engineers say it will silt up." The adaptation of Dungeness for the con- struction of a harbour of refuge is unquestioned ; that of Dover is doubtful. That Dungeness is about 25 miles West

of the Downs, while Dover is only 41, seems rather in favour of the former as a harbour of refuge—it is a better division of the

distance between the Downs and Seaford. And even with a view to a naval station, the difference in the relative positions of Dun- geness and Dover to the French coast, the Downs, and the mouth of the Thames, does not appear to give the latter any very marked advantage over the former.

The same view of our relations with France which is said to have set the Duke of Wellington to devise defences for London,

probably had an influence in determining the Commissioners to recommend the immediate commencement of the works of Dover. It is felt that the death of the present King, or the chances of

political intrigue, may at any time—in the course of a day or a

week—play the administration of French affairs into the hands of the inveterate War faction. In the event of war, London ap- pears to lie temptingly open to a dash by means of a steam flo- tilla,—an enterprise which, even if successful, could not give France a permanent footing in England, but which might occa- sion the destruction of an immense amount of property. To

guard against such a possibility, the Commissioners have pro- ably viewed the stationing of strong squadrons at Dover and Harwich as indispensable. The importance assigned to Dover as a

naval station appears to be more the result of habit than of reflec- tion. In the feudal ages, when land-battles decided everything and ships were mainly useful as transports, the possession of Dover and Calais—the termini of the shortest passage across the Channel—was a great object to the Monarchs who were at once Kings of England and Dukes of Normandy : hence Dover came to be called the key to England. And this traditional estimate of its value has survived the period when the passage from Dover to Calais was a ferry within the territory of one monarch, and ships were only used to cross the sea, Instead of being, as in our day, floating fortresses and almost permanent abodes. To defeat any attempt at landing West of Dover, Dungeness is obviously as advantageous a station as Dover; perhaps more so, if the hostile preparations are supposed to be made at Boulogne and along the coast West of Cape Gris Nez. For any attempt to effect a landing- between Dover and the mouth of the Thames by an armament fitted out at_ Dunkirk or Ostend, a fleet cruising off Dungeness is quite as favourably placed to watch and obstruct it as one stationed off Dover. Any attack attempted

from the more Northern Continental ports would fall into the province of the Harwich fleet. As to an effort on the part of a

steam flotilla to penetrate into the interior by the Thames, Sheer- ness, and Chatham, a squadron at the Long Reach would be enough to render that impracticable.

The estimated expense of the proposed works at Dover (as already noticed) is 2,500,000/. The estimated expense of the

proposed works at Seaford, Portland, and Harwich, is 1,800,000/. That the works at the three last-mentioned places will be per- manently useful, no doubt appears to be entertained : that the works at Dover have a chance of being permanently useful, the Commissioners admit can only be ascertained by a long course of experiments. Surely it is better to purchase a certain advantage

for the smaller sum than a doubtful advantage for the lamer. Add to this consideration' that while the Downs afford a certain shelter 44 miles East of Dover, and Dungeness a shelter on most occasions 20 miles West of it, there is no safe and accessi- ble harbour from the tempest along the whole coast from Ports- mouth to Dtmgeness. On these grounds, the most eligible order of construction would appear to be—Seaford, Portland, Harwich, and Dungeness or Dover, whichever shall be ultimately selected.