The Express.
London, England, 1863-04-27 00:00:00

THE RESULT.

The resat of the day's operations may be summed up
thus :—Tha injury to the rebel fortifications is not such as
will work any great kos to them, as we cannot renew the
attack immediately. On oar side we low the Kooks
which wok this morning, and which is to he blown up to-
day, to prevent her tallies into the hands of did rebels.
She was struck by 90 shots. Of these 19 were on the water
bus, 13 in the after knot, 12 in the forward Wm* and
25 ow the sides. The Passim is disabled by bevies her
lanit--se injured OW it orbit revolve, and dr Itais to be
sent to Pert Boyal for repairs ; she was streak 09 times.
I The Patapsco was injured by having her 200 Th. Parrott gm
disabled ; she wasstruck from 40 to 50 times. The Nahant
was struck 80 times, and bad her pilot-house completely shat-
tered. The Irowides was hit from sixty to seventy times, re-
ceiving no material damage beyond the knocking off of her
port abutters, thus exposing her gun-deck. The Wee-
hawken was struck 59 times, and her funnel deeply in-
dented, or that she worked with difficulty. The Montauk
was hit 90 times. The Nantucket and Oalakill were seek
hit about 50 times, having their decks considerably torn.

The correspondent of the New York Times by no
means agree; with the above writer as to the rela-
tive power of the ironclada and the land batte-
ries. He says :

_
Dirk-swing though it be to write tidings which will carry
pain and humiliation to the heart of the nation to read, it
only remains to tell you that this Beet of irooclods bas
measured it• strength against Fort Sumter and the works
that flank the eatmoos to Charleston harbour, sad that it
has withdrawn from the contest discomfited.
Estimated in the terms of time, the trial wa• bra : but
it was decisive. An ordeal of two hour, served to prove that
the defensive powers of the iron Beet were insufficient
to withstand the terrible force of the offensive eaginery
of the works it bad to assail, while the limitations
in the offensive powers of the ironclads took
away all the advarriags which might hare been de-
rived from flair superior powers of reeistanoeover the forts.
The enemy, by his obstructive appliances, was able to
detain the fleet—whose total armameet is thirty-two guns—
in the focus of fire of • circle of works mounting, at least,
three hundred gems ; in half an hour five out of the nine
ships were wholly or partially disabled. Such is the ghastly
' feet in its naked proportions.
It would be folly for me to mooed from you that
the moult of this roconnoiasance produces but one
.

conviction on the mind of unprejudiced observers--
the conviction of the utter insufficiency of our iron-
clad fleet to take Charleston alone. Remember that
this tremendous effect—the disabling of one-half the en-
tire fleet—was accomplished in lest than half an hour. Its
member spin, that this took plane simply at the entrance
of the Inferno of fire through which the fleet
must have had to paw to reach Charlatan, and that
there was before it • double line of batteries stretching
up for four miles before the city is pined at each
Point of which the ships must have been exposed to a
fire equal in intensity to that it felt under the wall' of
Sumter. But, finally, remember that rebel artillery
was not the most formidable foe our ships had to withstand ;
that, commencing at the point our fleet reached, directly
across from Sumter, and extending all the distance up to
the city, are successive lines of piles, effectually barring
the progress of the vassals, and detaining them
at known ranges within the focus et firs ; that there
are other Haim of nets and ropes, for the par.
pose of fouling the propellers, and that the whole
channel is studded with submarine batteries, of proportions
never before drouned of in naval warfare. That the entire
fleet was not destroyed and left in thehands of the enemy is
due to the skill of the gallant sailor commanding the expo.
dition and to the tact and pluck of the captains of the re-
spective ships. That skill, tact, and pluck, rendered what,
in the hands of any men lees able, must have been •
most crushing and terrible disaster, • simple repulse—my
distressing and mortifying, 'tis true, but one which leaves
no blot on the fame of those eagaged.and one which, rightly
viewed, need abate not • jot of the heart or hope with
which the nation holds to the awfully sacred work which
God has given it to do. Our fleet got but to the entrance
of the harbour. It never got within it. Had the ironclad, ena-
meled in passing the obstrectioes, they would still have found
those miles of batteries to run. They would have entered
an Inferno which, like the portals of Dante'. hell,
might well bear the flaming legend, " Who enters here
leaves hope behind." Not a point at which they would not
have found themeless

"Mid upper, nether, and surrounding firm."
They pan out of the focus of fire of Forte Sum-
ter, Moultrie, Beanregard, and Bee, and they find
themselves arrested under the ranges of Sumter, the
Medan, Johnston, and Ripley. They get beyond this, and
a ooncentric fire from Ripley, Pinckney, the Wappoo battery
and the guns of the city falls upon them ! Merely to run
by batteries, as was done at the forte below New Orleans,
is not a very difficult thing, even for vessels not ironclad;
but to be lumbered as it ware under each fires as these, is
what no ships were ever called upon to suffer.
SEMI-OFFICIAL WASHINGTON OPINIONS