NAVAL ATTACK OF FORTIFICATIONS. 
183 
yard. The Toulon Dockyard was said to be burnt before we evacuated 
the place in the French Revolutionary War, but when Napoleon came 
into Toulon it was found that the dockyard, was very inefficiently 
burnt indeed. A very similar case occurred in the American War. 
The dockyard at New Norfolk, where the “ Merrimac ” was building, 
was supposed to be burnt, but it was not really very seriously injured. 
The fires were lighted, and the place was evacuated, and then the 
Southern force came in and put the fires out; and I think it is quite 
possible that you might go in and set fire to a place in a hurry, and go 
away, and no serious damage might be done. 
I will just read to you what Sir Howard Douglass, a great authority 
in his time on these matters, said ; and after all I do not think things 
change so much that we should disregard his authority. And I was 
rather flattered to find, what I did not know before, in picking up only 
a day or two ago a lecture delivered by Captain Bridge in 1873, that 
he had quoted this very same sentence of Sir Howard Douglass. 
u However successful a naval attack of a fortress or arsenal may be, 
the work of destruction can never be effectually accomplished by ships. 
The sea defences may be silenced, guns dismounted, parapets mined, 
magazines blown up, and habitations devastated by the cruel process 
of bombardment; but no substantial demolition of the defences or 
material destruction of public works and property can be effected 
unless the damages inflicted by the attacks of ships be followed up 
and completed by having actual possession of the captured place to 
ruin it entirely. No naval operation, however skilfully planned and 
gallantly executed, can alone reap the fruits of its victory.” I believe 
that this was true when Sir Howard Douglass wrote it, and it is true 
now, that even if all the fire from the shore was suppressed, directly 
you begin to land to really destroy the place, a very few riflemen, 
behind ruined buildings if you like, would make matters very uncom¬ 
fortable, and perhaps you would be glad to get off to your ships again. 
If we are going to attack and capture a sea fortress, in nine cases 
out of ten, and perhaps in 99 cases out of a 100, we must do what 
you always do on shore—we must assault. You cannot capture a place 
without assaulting it. Now a ship cannot assault a place, but you can 
assault it from the shore; and if a place has to surrender, it only sur¬ 
renders, I take it, because they are afraid of being assaulted. 
Of course, we have heaps of historical instances of this, and per¬ 
haps we might cite Gibraltar, which in one way was taken by ships, 
though in another way it was nothing of the kind. The ships brought 
a sufficient landing force to cope with the Gibraltar garrison. They 
surprised the place, and put those men on shore, and backed them up by 
firing as far as they could ; but it was the men on shore who assaulted 
the place, and really decided the business. Another instance occurred 
only the other day at Valparaiso. It was most necessary for the Par¬ 
liamentary Chilian party to take Valparaiso. They had a commanding 
force at sea, and the forts at Valparaiso, I may tell you, were not 
well armed. They had what we should call regular marine store guns, 
some of them smooth-bores, and all kinds of things. Did the fleet 
go in and attack Valparaiso ? No, nothing of the kind • and I think 
