Some Views Connected with the Question of Coast Defence. 79 



It is poor policy to say (without knowledge) that the European 

 iron-clads cannot cross the ocean ; that they are so weighted down, 

 clumsy and cumbersome, that they would sink in the billows of the 

 first great storm. Suppose no great storm should occur ? Suppose 

 them within the harbor of our great metropolis, and what is there 

 that would long hinder their entrance ? Dynamite ? The first shell 

 from a hundred-ton gun that should enter an old-fashioned magazine 

 would send dynamite, fort and all up to the heavens. Once anchored 

 within the port of New York, the commanders of European iron- 

 clads need limit their demands for ransom only to the means of 

 transportation afforded by the captured shipping in the port. These 

 are not the days of chivalry. Even the code duello is no more ; 

 and, though we hear much of international law, the grim procession 

 of the iron-clad fleet of the enemy entering a harbor is often the 

 first announcement of hostilities. It is not safe to assume that 

 neutrality would protect should the complications of war entangle us. 

 The mistress of the seas has, more than once, assumed that those 

 who were not with her were against her. 



Self-defence is the cry and fear the inspiration that too often lead 

 to the most dreadful exercises of arbitrary power. Copenhagen, the 

 peaceful capital of Denmark, told this story plainly to the world in 

 1807. Denmark was at peace. With England, especially, govern- 

 ment and people were closely allied in friendship. The Danish army, 

 hostile even to Napoleon, watched the frontiers of the kingdom. 

 Suddenly fear seized the British government. Someone dreamed that 

 the Danish navy might be captured by the French and used in a 

 descent upon England. War was not declared ; but, secretly, twenty- 

 five great ships of the line and forty frigates, with three hundred and 

 seventy-seven transports, conveying thirty thousand troops, appeared 

 within the harbor of Copenhagen. The immediate surrender of the 

 Danish fleet was demanded, and, when it was refused, shot and shell, 

 fire and flames swept the defenceless city. Half the city was in flames, 

 its beautiful ciiurches were in ruins, thousands of citizens, men, 

 women and helpless children, were murderously destroyed in the 

 indiscriminate massacre. Blood, smoke, fire, ruin, murder were the 

 amenities of civilization that Arthur Wellesley and Lord Gambier 

 meted out at the command of a British ministry to a friendly capital 

 without declaration of war. Was this an act of friendship ? Oh ! no. 

 It was spoliation pure and simple. Piracy upon the high seas ; rob- 

 bery upon the land — for from that ruined, blood-stained city the 

 victors drew in prize-money nearly five million dollars. They stripped 



