oe | 
Letiers on Steam Navigation. 335. 
but if it were utterly destroyed, the ship is not disabled. She 
ean work with one wheel. You must therefore destroy both 
wheels before she is disabled. 
How is it witha sailing ship > Disenei her, end her ee = 
gone. She isa lost ship. The argument therefore regarding the 
danger of being disabled is vastly in favor of the steamer. She 
has no masts. And you must imagine her rash enough to expose 
herself unnecessarily to the enemy, and that too in such a man- 
ner as to give him an opportunity of carrying away both paddle- 
wheels, whilst his own masts are unscathed and entire, before she 
is disabled ;—not a very likely thing, when we consider that the 
steam ship, by virtue of her locomotive. power can always ap- 
proach the enemy or claw off, when a sailing ship cannot do ei- 
ther. The power of sails is perfectly useless, and the sailing 
ships go into battle like so many dismasted ships, the y ae me 
playthings of the lively steamer. ° 
If a steamer man of war has occasion to board her enemy, she 
manceuvres not, waits not the favor of a wind, but darts upon her 
prey at any point she pleases, and her combatants march over the 
bridge of her own deck into the camp of the enemy. 
‘The boilers‘of a steam ship of war ought to be below the 
loaded water line, and therefore perfectly secure from the effects 
of shot. .The resistance of the water would effectually prevent 
the shot from penetrating, whilst the even keel of - steamer 
would give her a point blank ‘shot at her enemy. 
Think for a moment of a sailing ship of war, no matter how 
many guns, chasing a‘steamer, no’ matter how few, the longer 
she chases the further she is off, until, if it were possible to sail 
on an uninterrupted circle, the steamer in the very act of running 
away would overtake her pursuer. Reverse this picture, and 
fancy you see the steamer bearing-down ‘upon the seventy four 
under full sail. Can the latter quicken her speed? Can she fly i in 
the eye of the wind? Can she escape before it? Has she the slight- 
est chance of evading the combat? Can there be a doubt as to the 
result? When we consider steam power in time of war carried 
out into all its multiform ramifications, what merchantman can 
€scape capture ?. What harbor afford shelter? What village resist 
plunder? What city destruction? ‘What country invasion? 
Steam power alone can cope with steam power, and therefore the 
- telative naval force of nations can be measured by no other scale. 
