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sea-fights must henceforth be more brief and decisive. Lord Nelson's plan of breaking the enemy's line, placing his ships alongside theirs, and boarding as soon as possible, was both brave and merciful. The celebrated naval engagement between the American frigate, Chesapeake, and the British frigate, the Shannon, commanded by Captain Broke, which was inferior to the American ship in the number of its crew and weight of metal, was decided off the harbour of Boston in fifteen minutes, by the British boarding the Chesapeake, hauling down the American flag, and carrying off their prize to Halifax, to the great astonishment of the people of Boston, who had assembled in crowds on the shore, expecting to see their American frigate gain the day. Lord Nelson disapproved of placing marksmen on the rigging of his ships, because it was deadly, without being decisive. But by that device of the enemy, the hero received his mortal wound.

The effect of batteries at sea or on shore may be calculated; and when they are brought to bear with unerring effect, a flag of truce or a retreat often terminates the contest. Future

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discoveries may supply tremendous explosive and destructive engines, which probably will promote peace, by rendering resistance hopeless; for nobody but a Don Quixote would select a windmill for his antagonist, or contend with mortal arm against forces resembling an earthquake or a volcano.

Sieges are now comparatively few and short. The successful resistance of Comorn and Peterwardein, in the late war in Hungary, are rare exceptions to the general rule, that fortresses are scarcely ever impregnable to a regular army well provided with artillery. But their surrender of course followed the defeat of the Hungarian armies. What miseries are now avoided by the speedy surrender of fortified places! The inhabitants of beleaguered towns used to be pent up within their walls for years, till disease, and famine, and slaughter, left only the wreck of a garrison and a city, to be destroyed by the ruthless invaders. The siege of Veii lasted for ten years, as long as that of Troy. After a seven months' siege Alexander the Great massacred all the inhabitants of Tyre, and is said to have crucified many of them on the shore. The city

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ANCIENT SIEGES.

was burned. Hannibal is stated to have plundered four hundred towns; and the history of his countrymen was a series of the most savage contests with the Sicilians, Greeks, and other nations, and afterwards with the Romans, in which the Carthagenians slaughtered hundreds of thousands of their fellow creatures. They suffered at last terrible retribution. Carthage, containing more than half a million of inhabitants, was plundered, and then burned by the Romans. The flames raged for seventeen days, till nothing remained of the proud city of those remorseless warriors but a mass of ruins. The predicted dreadful doom of Jerusalem was literally fulfilled. In that most horrible of all sieges, about one million one hundred thousand persons perished by mutual slaughter, by famine, and the sword of the enemy. The fortresses taken by the British and their allies during the Peninsular war, were defended by the brave and alert French, commanded by skilful and gallant officers. Napoleon had forbidden that any fortress should be surrendered, until it had resisted at least one assault. That assault generally cost the lives of many valiant men, and often led to

MODERN SIEGES.

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a more protracted defence, in which serious obstacles, and a most destructive warfare, opposed the indomitable energy of our troops.

Most of the very worst features of a modern siege were exemplified at San Sebastian, a third rate fortress, and not in good condition when our army appeared before it with an immense battering train of artillery. The British admiralty were culpably negligent in not sending supplies and ammunition to Lord Wellington, and a fleet to prevent the reinforcements and supplies which the enemy received during the siege. The plan of attack which Wellington had approved was departed from; the enemy's batteries were not silenced, the breaches were insufficient, a lodgment was not made on the horn work, the assault which he had ordered to be made in the day-time, took place in the night, and at a wrong state of the tide, so that our soldiers had to advance a long way from their trenches to the breach, over rocks, slippery with sea-weed; exposed, not only to the cannon, musketry, and shells of the enemy, but, in the darkness, struck down by the fire of their own batteries. The storming party were repulsed with

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SIEGE OF SAN SEBASTIAN.

great slaughter, and the supplies from England having been delayed, the siege was converted into a blockade, until renewed by Sir Thomas Graham, under the more immediate direction of Lord Wellington.

In the final assault, similar errors were committed by underrating the defensive powers of the besieged, who, encouraged by their former success, employed every art and the most strenuous efforts to repel the assailants. And but for the explosion of some powder barrels, shells, and other defensive materials, behind the traverses, which enabled the stormers to effect an entrance, they would have failed again.

The battle had raged for five hours at the walls, and for half an hour a heavy cannonade from fifty guns had been directed against the ramparts, over the heads of the storming party. A violent thunder storm burst on the devoted place, and amid the foulest atrocities of war the town was consumed by fire. This dreadful achievement was accomplished with a loss on our side of two thousand five hundred officers and men. The governor and his reduced gar