4 
334 Letters on Steam Navigation. 
line of battle ships were engaged? but, how many steam ships? 
be felt at once that the power of the fleet depends upon 
l L remember that notwithstanding every effort was made 
and enormous incurred by the transport board to meet 
the urgent demands of the army, yet such were the delays arising 
from head winds, tempestuous weather, detentions in port, and 
long passages, that the sufferings of the army were aoa: 
appalling and its operations crippled. - 
_ In war, the facility of transportation is tantamount to victory. 
If a fleet of twenty steam ships can transport an army of twenty 
five thousand men to the American coast in fifteen days, and to 
the continental ports in-a time less in proportion to the distance, 
the army can land when and where it pleases. 'There is no de- 
tention in port, no delay in the passage, no hovering upon the 
coast, with light and baffling winds, and thus affording time for 
the.enemy to collect the means of defence; but the steamers 
push at once into port, and are in possession of their ia ue before 
the enemy can be aware of his danger. - 
_'The transportation of the munitions of war and the victualling 
stores is scarcely less important than that of the army itself. The 
great magazines will always be at home, whence daily supplies 
will be drawn with the same ease and regularity as if they were 
in the vicinity of the camp... The celerity of communication and 
its absolute certainty supersede the necessity of eens 
stores in a foreign country before they are wanted. 
But the greatest triumph of steam power will be seen in those 
tremendous naval engagements which hereafter will settle and 
establish the sovereignty of the seas. Such is the locomotive — 
power of a steam ship, that she can place herself in any position 
in reference to the enemy, can run down from the leeward or wind- 
ward upon the bows or stern of a sailing man of war, and with 
broadside after broadside, riddle- her fore and aft, annihilate the 
erew, and leave in her scattered wrecks an undeniable evidence 
of the irresistible power of a steam ship. 
I know it will be said that the paddle-wheels of a steam ship 
are liable to be shot away, and thus disabled, she may become 
herself a prey to the enemy. But is she as liable to be-disabled — 
as a sailing ship?- Suppose a shot were to pass through a paddle- 
wheel, it is not destroyed, and may not’ be materially —_— 
Those. who were spectators of the last continental 
ee 
pans eae 
a a 
ORR Bir < aetna “acest * 
