The Express.
London, England, 1862-05-29 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURSDAY, MAY 29.

Tut Report of the Defence Commission was
yesterday published, and it will surprise no one to
find that its gallant authors have learnt nothing
and forgotten nothing since the date of their first
Report. The professional mind is peculiarly
obstinate in defence, and peculiarly resolute in
refusing to capitulate before any raw force of new
facts or arguments. We impeach, therefore,
neither the ability nor the candour of those
officers who, having already arrived at and an-
nounced the conclusion that Spithead could not be
defended otherwise than by fixed forts, now inform
us that nothing which has taken place in Hampton
Roads or in the New Orleans channel has in any
degree modified their opinion. We must indeed
acknowledge the frankness with which they admit
that, after the action between the Merrimac and
the Monitor, "it appeared to them that, under
" all the circumstances, the doubt, which took
" possession of the public mind as to the expos-
" diency of constructing the forts at Spithead were
" not unreasonable." But the experiments with Sir
_ _

W. AB.MBTILONG'S 12-ton gun, when at 200 yardsl
he broke some damaged plates of the Warrior, and
lodged his shot in some sound ones, have reassured
them that all such doubts of the power of for Cs to
annihilate ships are illusory. To the suggestion
that what has been done at 200 yards is no indi-
cation of what can be done at 2,000, the actual

range which the forts will have, they reply with
cheering confidence, that Sir W. ARMSTRONG is
now engaged in making • 22-ton gun, which, at
1,300 yards, will prove as effective as the 12-ton
was at 200 yards, and that "he believes that if
" he succeeds in rifling it, an amount of damage
" equal to that lately obtained upon the Warrior's
" target may be effected at • distance of 3,000
" yards." They abstain, however, from telling us
that such an amount of damage would be destructive
to an enemy's ship, and they are honest enough to
add in a note that the Chairman of the Iron-plate
Committee has informed them that armour-plates
of 'a inches thick would resist the Armstrong
gun, even at 200 yards. But even if we grant
the assumption that Sir W. ARMSTRONG can WO-
ceed in making a gun which he has not yet made,
and that no ships shall hereafter be built with
armour-plates of 'a inches thick, we shall still
have advanced but a very little way along the
path which we must take to reach the conclusions
of the Defence Commission. For they tell us that,
avowedly and of set purpose, they have
disregarded all the circumstances of actual warfare
in which guns and ships " have lately been tried,
" and have thought it safer to draw their conclu-
" minis from experiments made in this country."
That is to say, that they have taken as the basis of
their judgment experiments made in cool blood,
in broad daylight, against fired targets, at a dis-
tance of a couple of hundred yards, when the
question really involved is the value of such ord-
nance in the heat of battle, under the darkness of
night, the blinding effect of smoke, against moving
objects at a mile distance. Obviously, nothing
but a foregone conclusion could have so warped
the minds of educated men as to lead ,
them to suppose that arguments drawn
from the one set of circumstances could
be applied to the other. By all the rules of expe-
riments, a wooden fleet passing, at half musket
range, forts mounting a hundred guns, ought to
have been sent to the bottom: yet at New Orleans,
in defiance of theory, such a fleet passed such forts
unharmed. So, by every principle of gunnery it
may be demonstrated that our Spithead forts can
hit, and damage passing vessels, and yet if we
only suppose the enemy to choose his own time, he
may in practice run a whole fleet past them without
receiving a shot. Yet such are the data on which
this Report is founded. It adopts for its axioms
the propositions that Sir W. ArtmsrzoNG will sno-
oeed in what be has not dared to promise; that the
Warrior represents the ultimate strength of which
iron-plated ship. are capable ; that an enemy will
never make an attack except in broad daylight
and in clear weather ; and that artillery in action,
at 2,000 yards range, will be precisely as effective
against a moving object as against a fixed target,
at one-tenth the distance, at Sboeburyness. If
one of these propositions fails the case of the De-
fence Commission is ruined. But if we are to be
called upon to grant them all, may we not add
the moderate further suggestion, that by the
time they all come true mortars will have been
invented which will destroy Portsmouth without
passing the forts at all ?
From the wild flights of the imagination into
which the Defence Commissioners lead us, it is a
positive relief to drop down into a sober anticipa-
tion of the actual conditions in which we should
be placed by the outbreak of • state of war. That
the adoption of steam power, and of all the other
advantages offered by modern science, will redound
solely to the advantage of assailants, is a theory
which few persons except the Passiza are hardy
enough to avow. That the end of all disco-
very will be to reduce us to the positron in which
the ancient Britons were when they sought
safety from invaders in walls and forts,
is a conclusion at which the nation, with all
respect for the Defence Commission, finds it
difficult to arrive. Rather we turn to the
more recent inatancesof warfare, and trust, not un-
hopefully, that civilization, which has till now
only augmented England's relative greatness and
security, will not betray her in her future hour of
need. Our fathers believed that their true secu-
rity was in the sea, and we are not degenerate on
that element. If iron is to displace wood in the
hulls of our vessels, if rifled guns are to super-
sede long carronades, we still maintain more than
our relative superiority in material and manufac-
ture. Our policy has ever been to maintain the
command of the Channel, and to that policy we
must still adhere. Bolding that command, we