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ST. HELENA. 
port for fresh provisions, &c., they called at St. Helena, finding it 
safer and more accessible than the Cape of Good Hope, and a thou- 
sand ships a year was the average number that cast anchor in the 
roadstead. But they now make swifter passages, they are better 
manned, better provisioned, and can easily make a voyage from the 
East to Europe without the delay of an intermediate stoppage. 
It is these causes, more than the opening of the Suez Canal route, 
that lessen the number of ships calling at St. Helena and reduced it 
in the year 1870 to 677. This, of course, chiefly tends to lessen 
the prosperity of the place, but the disbanding of the St. Helena 
Regiment, and, after it had been replaced for several years by 
detachments of Line regiments from the Cape of Good Hope, 
the entire withdrawal of that portion of the garrison, aided very 
considerably in reducing the local revenue from 21,000/. to about 
14,000/. per annum. 
The view taken of St. Helena by the Home Government has, I 
think, altogether been a mistake. It has been looked upon as a colony, 
and, under the management of the Colonial Office, made self-supporting. 
It has, however, no claim to the former, and endeavours to make it 
the latter must end in failure. The place is really a fortification, 
and, as the key to the whole South Atlantic, is one of England s 
greatest fortresses, and as such ought to be under the control of 
either the Admiralty or the War Department. 
The Government maintains there now only a small garrison, 
consisting of a battery of Artillery and a company of Royal 
Engineers, and it spends annually about 1000/. upon military works, 
so that the fortifications are in ruins and neglected, and what new 
batteries have been undertaken remain in an unfinished state, while 
the modern guns sent out from England lie here and there 
unmounted and half buried in rock and debris. '' 
An artillery officer told me a few years ago, that if he was 
required to man the batteries in the Island he would be able to 
place but one man to each gun ; and the defences altogether wear 
such a dilapidated appearance that foreign naval and military 
* It must not be understood that the officers stationed at St. Helena are responsible for 
this state of things. Governors, as well as able engineer officers, including, ol late years. 
Colonel Stace.E.E., and General Freeth, E.E., have repeatedly urged upon the Home Govern- 
ment the importance of maintaining the Island in an efficiently fortified state. 
