Letters on Steam Navigation. 335 



but if it were utterly destroyed, the ship is not disabled. She 

 can work with one wheel. You must therefore destroy both 

 wheels before she is disabled. 



How is it with a sailing ship ? Dismast her, and her power is 

 gone. She is a 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 sport and 

 playthings of the lively steamer. 



If a steamer man of war has occasion to board her enemy, she 

 manoeuvres 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 the 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 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 

 escape 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 

 relative naval force of nations can be measured by no other scale. 



