ever, did not escape; and in the two nights of the 23rd
and 24th of July, the boats of the _Harrier_, Captain Storey, destroyed
in the harbour of Nystad forty-seven vessels, amounting to nearly 20,000
tons.

On the 6th July the first shot was fired at Cronstadt, from a gun slung
on board a timber barge, by Captain Boyd.

The Russians, in return, endeavoured to injure the vessels of the
Allies, and to protect their shores by the employment of infernal
machines, as they were then called. We call their much more certain and
more dangerous successors submarine mines, and regard them as a regular
means of defence. These were intended to explode under water, and some
were fired by voltaic batteries, but invariably failed of going off at
the proper time; others exploded on being struck; but though the
_Merlin_ ran on to one, which went off under her bottom, comparatively
slight damage was done her. The articles in her store-room, directly
over the spot where the machine struck her, were thrown about in every
direction, showing the force of the concussion. Admiral Dundas and
several officers with him had, however, a narrow escape, one of the
machines exploding while they stood around it examining its structure.

BOMBARDMENT OF SVEABORG.

Among the more important performances of the allied fleet in the Baltic
was the severe injury inflicted on the fortress of Sveaborg, one of the
strongest belonging to Russia to keep her neighbours in awe in that part
of the world.

The fortress of Sveaborg is built on a granite island about a mile in
advance of Helsingfors, the Russian capital of Finland. There are eight
island rocks connected by strong fortifications, and in the centre is
situated the fort in which the Russian flotilla was congregated. It was
looked upon as the Gibraltar of the North, and had been considerably
strengthened since the commencement of the war. The citadel of this
water-surrounded fortress is called Wargon. The allied fleet,
consisting of seventeen British men-of-war, fifteen gunboats, and
sixteen mortar-vessels, with two French men-of-war, six gunboats, and
five mortar-vessels, left Nargen on the 6th of August, and anchored the
same night among the islands about five miles from Sveaborg. During the
night and next day, some batteries were thrown up on the neighbouring
islands; and early on the morning of the 9th, the squadron having taken
up their positions,--several behind the islands, where the ene