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officers and others connected with the Department of Science and Art, and of such gentle- Kensington men of the neighbourhood as might desire to corps. join. Before the meeting broke up seventy-five volunteers signed their names.

The Invasion literature included 'Our Naval Position and Policy,' by a Naval Peer, reviewed on the 11th of June, in which Lord Palmerston is quoted: “The Channel is no longer a barrier; steam navigation has rendered that which was before impassable by a military force nothing more than a river passable by a steam-bridge." The Naval Peer goes on to state :

"1. In efficient ships, France nearly equals us, our force being (of the line) forty-two to their forty. 2. In the power of manning those ships for any sudden emergency, France greatly surpasses us. 3. And for equipping her ships, France possesses, in Sir C. Wood's words, infinitely greater facilities.”

Invasion

literature.

Lord Palmerston.

the Duke of

This was followed by 'The Military Opinions Sir John Fox of General Sir John Fox Burgoyne' (reviewed on Burgoyne and July 9th), in which appear the following words, Wellington. which much impressed the Duke of Wellington and had hitherto been kept secret :—

""Suppose that the French have fleets of any given numbers of sail of the line at Toulon, at Brest, and at Cherbourg, and we have an equal force off each port to watch them; the largest fleet being, say at Toulon, take a favourable opportunity to steal out and sail direct for Brest, our squadron in the Mediterranean not being so sure of its movements as to hurry direct after them.

When at Brest, it will at once drive off our very inferior force there, and be joined by its own squadron, and so on to join that at Cherbourg; endeavouring to manœuvre to gain with such superiority of force some great advantage, or at least to prevent a junction between our Channel and Mediterranean squadrons, and at all events obtain a short temporary command in the Channel to forward the invasion, for which probably one week might be sufficient.'......

"Three years later, Sir John Burgoyne wrote, 'the military condition of Great Britain, as regards its very existence as a nation, is absolutely awful.' And he added:

"If our military condition continues as at present, and still more, if the system of continued reduction is pursued, I consider that it can be shown to demonstration, that it is perfectly possible,—that is, that it is within the reach of the combination of many not improbable circumstances, that within a few years, or on the occasion of the first war, an overwhelming French Army may be in possession of London!'"

'Observations on Modern Systems of FortificaSir Howard tion,' by General Sir Howard Douglas, is reviewed Douglas. on the 26th of November: "England took the lead in establishing a steam-navy. She worked out the problem during many years, at a prodigious cost, while France bided her time. She first adopted the screw, which the French, immediately afterwards, made use of in their navy. France has been employed, during a decade past, in point of fact, in endeavouring to assume

a position of maritime equality with Great Britain :

Parlementaire.'

"The steam fleet of France has, during the whole of that period, been in a state of progressive augmentation: the Government of that country having steadily acted upon the recommendations propounded in the Enquête Parlementaire' (1849), and it is now equal, if The 'Enquête not superior, to that of Great Britain. The author having procured a copy of that document in 1853, deemed it his duty to submit to Her Majesty's Government copious notes and extracts from the proceedings of that commission, showing the vast sums voted and proposed to be employed during the ten years which were to follow. The author, also, pointed out the spirit of rivalry, if not of hostility, both implied and expressed in that official document. These 'Notes' were printed confidentially, in 1853, at the private press of the Foreign Office; and he must observe that we ought to have begun as unostentatiously as the French began, to take countervailing measures, in order to maintain the numerical superiority of the British steam fleet, instead of deferring the step, as it was deferred, during several years. By this postponement, the progress made by the French becoming generally known to the public, the country is thrown into consternation by the announcement that there must be made immediate and extensive additions to the British navy, in order to make up for the time which has been lost.""

The following gives the opinion of the Duke The Duke of of Wellington :

"When the late Duke of Wellington visited the coast defences-on the alarm of an invasion soon after the accession of Louis Napoleon, the present Emperor of

Wellington and the coast defences.

Message of peace from France.

France, to the Presidency-His Grace being at Seabrook, between Sandgate and Hythe, conversing with his staff and the other officers, the principles of permanent camps and other fixed defences became the subject of discussion when the Duke used the following expressions: Look at those splendid heights all along this coast :-give me communications which admit of rapid flank movement along those heights, and I might set anything at defiance.”

The year closes with a message of peace from France. On December 17th it is announced: "Communications have been received from Paris of a most gratifying and conciliatory kind. An opinion is expressed in favour of a prompt and immediate engagement of England and France in that great work of peace, the Universal Exhibition of 1862, as the surest means of dissipating the present local and transient alarm on both sides of the Channel. This is a proposition to excite our best feelings and our best wishes.” The literature of the Indian Mutiny included Mutiny. 'The Story of Cawnpore,' by Capt. Mow'The Story of Cawnpore.' bray Thomson, of the Bengal Army, reviewed on

The Indian

the 11th of June: "If there has hitherto been any doubt on the matter, this sober and evidently most truthful record decides the fact, that history, so rich in tales of suffering and horror, can produce few parallels to the siege and massacre of Cawnpore......The Cawnpore sufferers entered the inclosure, which was to be their charnel

house, on the 21st of May, 1857. From that time till the 30th of June every kind of suffering that the most horrible forebodings, to be only too truly justified by the events,-that famine, hunger, nakedness, exposure to the tremendous heat of the flaming Indian sun,-that wounds and the agonizing spectacle of wounded, tortured, butchered relatives,-could inflict, was undergone by each and every one of the hapless Cawnpore garrison......The hospitals of the wounded were burnt over their heads, some of the mangled victims perishing in the flames. Two hundred women and children, many of Sufferings them the wives and daughters of officers, and children. unused to the slightest privation, passed their days and nights in the trenches on the bare ground......

of the women

"The murderous volleys of the enemy and the roar of their guns, the piteous wailing of the children, groans, sobs and yells, never ceased. Sleep came to none, unless the momentary snatches of forgetfulness which utter exhaustion occasioned, to be immediately dispelled by a renewal of horrors, could be called sleep. At last, the end came. The infamous Náná, The Náná through his still more infamous agent, 'Azim- 'Azim'ullah. 'ullah, a wretch whom, three years before, the ladies of the English aristocracy had welcomed to their saloons, induced the feeble and famish

and

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