The Numancia, a 5,000-ton ironclad, has got out of Carthagena
with a scratch crew of some sort, and will, it is reported, extort money and provisions from the cities on the coast, Alicante being the first. If its demands are not complied with, the towns will be bombarded. Admiral Lobo, with his wooden ships, will be as powerless against the Numancia as a mouse against a hedgehog, and for aught that appears, she may batter Cadiz or Malaga at will. We only wish she would try Lisbon, and so give Mr. Goschen and the Devastation one fair chance ; but, we presume, her commander will only kill and plunder Spaniards in a proper insurrectionary way, and will go on unmolested. It is all very right, we suppose, but we confess to a profound dislike and dread of this new element in insurgent warfare, which may be follow Id some fine day by the seizure of a place like Cherbourg, and a wild raid, say upon Liverpool. Will Mr. Goschen pardon the hint that if the Devastation hovers about the mouth of the Thames, she may not be necessarily in the wrong place?
