, 1865-03-17
from the Weekly Dispatch, FEBRUARY 12.)

storming Of Fort Fisher. American con-
querors do not, in the description of their
feats, in the least degree seek to lessen
the effect upon the public mind. You
may read WelIington'S dispatch narrating
the battle of Waterloo, and remain quite
ignorant of the magnifcence Of the VIC
tory. Indeed, when that dispatch was
6rst received by the English Ministers,
they had to question the aide-de-camp
who bore it, half dead as he was with fa~
tigue, and incapable Of resisting sleep in
his chair, in order to convince themselves
that it was decisive. His answer GAIL"
to the query, "How many oftheir cannon
were taken 2" was the first satisfactory
measure they could get gifts completeness.
There is nothing Of this modesty in Adj
miral Porter's report. With him the sue
cess is a marvel to himself. can engineer
might be excusable for saying the works
could not be captured except by regular
siege. I wonder ever now how it was
done. The work, as [ said before, is
really stronger than the Malakhoff Tower,
which defed so long the combined power
of England and France, and yet it is cap
tured by a handful of men, under the fire
of the guns Of the fleet, and in seven hours
after the attack commenced in earnest"
We published last week the boast Of this
commander as to what his best turret ship,
the Monadnock, can do upon occasion
destroy any vessel in the French or En-
glish navy, lay our towns under contribu-
ton, and pass away unscathed, II 1t could
get coal enough. We have the challenge
now in its official shape in a report TO the
American Secretary Of the Navy, which,
in accordance with Yankee prudence and
taste, he takes care 10 publish. 1t is not
wonderful, then, that we should look a
little into the grounds for the pretensions
made by this giant ofthe American navy,
and endeavour to ascertain what power
he possesses of setting the fleets of Eu-
rope at utter defiance and infllctlng what
injury he pleases upon our coasts.
In the first place the "handful of men,
landed to take a sand fort, from $500 at
the utmost, were a force of 5000. In the
next place, his squadron consisted of 46
armed vessels, some of them the largest
frigates in the American navy; one, at
least, the Ironsides, their best lron-clad,
and four or five powerful Monitors. We
have told our readers what a storm of
shot and she'll these vessels poured from
their guns upon the fort-a rain of fire
so terrible hat no report could be dlstln-
guiShed from another, but all were con-
founded in one continuous handicapped.
These vessels kept Smelling the traverses
to which the Federal army had not yet
advanced, so that the $500 ConfederateS
were really fighting in fire their 5000 as
~sailants, to say nothing of the 1900 sea-
men and mariners who, though beaten off
from the other side of the defences, had
served to make the garrison believe that
they were making the real assault, and
had thus drawn away their numbers from
repelling the Federal soldiery. All this
shows a difference between the force of
assailants and defenders which certainly
was never realised at the Malakhoff.
The number of guns taken in Fort Fisher,
all told, amounts to 75-not quite the
reckoning Of the Russian artillery at Sc
bastopol; while the improvements made
in gunnery since the Crimean war, cannon
being now used of a calibre which no
English or French artillerist ever hoped
e. So 80 oO%;nr uooda the ho I'M hordron%