he distance of the _Agamemnon_ and _Sanspareil_ from Fort
Constantine (17th October, 1854), was assumed to be about 800 yards;
Lord Raglan states it to have been rather less. These two ships could
bring to bear about 87 guns, and the firing from them probably lasted
some four hours. There can be no doubt that it inflicted much damage,
for the Russian Commander-in-chief-admits it in his official report; but
not sufficient to impair the strength of the masonry, and far short of
effecting a breach in it."

"At Bomarsund, the results were rather different:--Three 32-pounders of
42 cwt. (guns of inferior weight), were landed from a ship's spar deck,
and placed in battery at 950 yards from the North Tower--the masonry of
good quality and 6-1/2 feet thick. In eight hours, the wall between two
embrasures was cut through from top to bottom, offering a practicable
breach, to effect which 487 shot and 45 shells were fired, being at the
rate of one round from the battery in rather less than a minute; or,
from each gun, one in 2-3/4 minutes. The Tower surrendered."

"It seems almost incredible that three pieces should be able to
accomplish fully that which eighty-seven pieces utterly failed to do,
the distances from the object being alike--particularly when it is
considered that many of the latter were of greater calibre, and most of
them employed much heavier charges where the calibres were similar. The
guns of the ship, if fired at the same rate as those of the battery,
which was not unusually rapid (one round in two and three-fourth
minutes), would have discharged some seven thousand seven hundred shot
and shells in the course of the four hours, supposing no interruption; a
number which, if properly applied, would appear, from the results of
three guns, to have been sufficient to breach the wall of the fort in
fourteen places; whereas they did not effect a single breach, which is
abundant proof of the lack of accuracy. They must either have been
dispersed over the surface of the fort, or else missed it altogether,
and this could have been due only to a want of the precision which was
attained by the battery. The constantly preferred complaint of motion in
the ships was not to be urged, because on the day of cannonading
Sebastopol, there was scarcely a breath of wind, and the ships were too
large to be easily moved by the swell, unless very considerable. That
the fort did no greater damage to the ships than it received from them,