hundred thousand combatants." A landing was made upon the island of
Walcheren, and siege laid to Flushing, which place was not reduced till
eighteen days after the landing; the attack upon the water was made by
seven or eight ships of the line, and a large flotilla of bomb vessels,
but produced no effect. The channel at the mouth of the river was too
broad to be defended by the works of Flushing, and the main portion of
the fleet passed out of reach of the guns, and ascended the Scheldt part
way up to Antwerp. But in the mean time, the fortifications of that
place had been repaired, and, after a fruitless operation of a whole
month in the river, the English were gradually forced to retreat to
Walcheren, and finally to evacuate their entire conquest.

The cost of the expedition was immense, both in treasure and in life. It
was certainly very poorly managed. But we cannot help noticing the
superior value of fortifications as a defence against such descents.
They did much to retard the operations of the enemy till a defensive
army could be raised. The works of Flushing were never intended to close
up the Scheldt, and of course could not intercept the passage of
shipping; but they were not reduced by the English naval force, as has
sometimes been alleged. Col. Mitchel, of the English service, says that
the fleet "kept up so tremendous a fire upon the batteries, that the
French officers who had been present at Austerlitz and Jena declared
that the cannonade in these battles had been a mere _jeu d'enfans_ in
comparison. Yet what was the effect produced on the defences of the
place by this fire, so formidable, to judge by the sound alone? The
writer can answer the question with some accuracy, for he went along the
entire sea-line the very day after the capitulation, and found no part
of the parapet injured so as to be of the slightest consequence, and
only one solitary gun dismounted, evidently by the bursting of a shell,
and which could not, of course, have been thrown from the line of
battle ships, but must have been thrown from the land batteries."[16]

[Footnote 16: The batteries constructed in the siege of this place were
armed with fifty-two heavy guns and mortars.]

But it may be said that although great naval descents on a hostile coast
are almost always unsuccessful, nevertheless a direct naval attack upon
a single fortified position will be attended with more favorable
results; and that our seaport towns, however fo