The complete annihilation of a force of whose power of aggression Sinope gave too forcible an illustration, and the compression of which within reasonable bounds was one of the propositions at the abortive Vienna Conferences most contemptuously rejected by the Eussians, has been in
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THE ADMIRALTY, SEBASTOPOL. 203
a measure lost sight of in the crowd of melodramatic incidents which marked the catastrophe of Sebastopol; but of all the advantages gained by that memorable event it was perhaps at once the most unparalleled and the most important.
Had the Eussian fleet perished to the last ship in an engagement on the open sea with the allied navies, its fate would have been attended with a grandeur which would have imposed respect even on the foe, and have left an ineffaceable tradition of glory, which might not have been without fruit in time to come: but to disappear piecemeal under the waters of the harbour which, by a grand but vain inspiration, half its effective force had been sacrificed to close — to find its grave amidst the crumbling ruins of fortifications which had seemed to compensate the shame of forced inaction by the proffer of an at least inviolate asylum — this was to fall by a blow at once so crushing and so humiliating, that no lapse of years will suffice to wipe away its stain, or restore a prestige for ever destroyed. True it is that the Eussian fleet, the exotic offspring of a system of unnatural forcing, manned by soldiers, and destitute of all nautical exjjerience but such as might be acquired from a summer's cruise within the narrow limits of an inland sea, could not have contended with a possibility of success against the i^roud armadas of France and England, to which indeed it was as inferior in numbers as it was in training, disciiDline, enterprise, and national spirit: but no reverse at sea, however complete, could have brought home this fact to the conviction of those nations who have long been taught to regard the naval power of Eussia as no less formidable than her military resources, with the overwhelming force possessed by the simple narrative of the manner in which that naval power was extinguished, published as it has been from one end of Europe to the other.
Well may the Eussians sue for peace in the prudent hope of saving their Baltic fleet from a similar fate, no less clearly foretold in the unconquerable will and limitless resources of the Western Powers, if the strife be only prolonged: half the sybilline leaves are irrevocably lost; it remains for those who would read the future by the light of the past to rescue, while it is time, those which yet remain.
The church visible in this drawing is thus referred to by Mr. Simpson: —
" The large church seems not to have been quite finished: its great distance from our batteries saved it from the effects of the bombardments. Still a few shot-marks are visible, and the Eussians themselves, in spite of their devotion, have made a number of holes in it by their fire from the North Side."
Beyond the church is seen the rear of Fort Nicholas.
Subjoined is a list of the ships of the Bussian Black Sea fleet before the opening of the War, derived from a trustworthy French source:
SHIPS
THE LINE.
Names. Guns. Station Grand Duke Constantine,
thrco-dccker 120 Scbastop
Twelve Apostles Three Saints
Paris
Varsovie
Empress Maria Chrabroi...
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
Sviatoslaf...
Rostislaf...
Yagudil...
Varna
Solafael...
Uriel nkuown |
• names u
Total 1,524 guns, besides a largo number of dismasted vessels serving as floating batteries, etc.
ONE SCREW
LINE-OF-BATTLE SHIP
Name. Bosphorus
Guns. Station. 120 Nicolaieff
Namea. Mcssembria Sizopoli... Kulefchi...
FRIGATES.
Guns. station.
54 Scbastopol
Medea
Kagul Flora
Kovarna...
Total 348 guns.
CORVETTES AND BRIGS.
Names.
Guns.
Station.
Andromache 20
Scbastopol
Calypso..
Py lades..
Ptolemy..
Ncarchus..
Theseus..
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
Ariadne..
Mercury..
Total 180 guns. Twenty-five schooners, yachts, and transports; and a flotilla of gunboats manned by Cossacks, of which 30 were for the Sea of Azoff, and 15 for the Danube.
PADDLE-WHEEL
STEAMERS.
Names. Vladimir
Gans.
Horse-power
Gromonosety
Bessarabia
[fragment illegible in the scan of the first edition]
Crimea...
Odessa
Chersonese