THE 
JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 
MAY, 1880, 
I. OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE TORPEDO 
WAR. 
By Capt. S. P. Oliver, (late) R.A. 
Part II. 
t N the last paragraph of my former paper I had only just 
time, before the MS. went to press, to allude to the 
tragical event which occurred at the Winter Palace on 
the 17th of February. In connection with this affair it 
may be as well to remind ourselves that it is not always 
Imperial and dynastic representatives who are the destined 
victims of assassination by means of infernal machinery, as 
we are too apt to think, as such means have been used by 
the Royalist party when in a minority against a Republican 
chief; witness the attempt against Buonaparte by the 
Chouanists, which in many respeCts is a parallel case to the 
recent incident at St. Petersburg. We may mention briefly 
the circumstances as stated by Napoleon himself subse- 
quently at St. Helena, to the Count de Las Cases, on the 
28th October, 1815, and which is thus recorded in the 
journal of the latter :* — “ In the course of the conversation 
this day the Emperor adverted to the numerous conspiracies 
which had been formed against him. The infernal machine 
was mentioned in its turn. This diabolical invention, which 
gave rise to so many conjectures, and caused the death of 
so many victims, was the work of the Royalists, who ob- 
tained the first idea of it from the Jacobins. The Emperor 
* Memoirs of the Life, Exile, and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon 
By the Count De Las Cas. Vol. i., p. 238. (Colburn, 1836.) 
VOL. II. (THIRD SERIES). V 
