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    lessoil was , not lost on the Allies . They had assaulted from a great distance ; beside the fire of the place , the guns of the fleet had inflicted severe losses on the stormers ; and jit was determined that no more risks of that kind should be run . After a long interval , during which heavy losses were incurred by r the Allies in sapping onward to the fortifications , the time for a final storming opera-Hsion approached . In vain the enemy tried to frustrate the purpose of the Allies .

    Severely pressed-by the constant fire of the rfoesiegers ; straitened in his means of sup--plyirig the garrison and the external army -with , food ; discouraged by previotis defeats and with no hope of ultimate success , Prince GtoBTSOHAKOEi' reported in July that he could not much longer hold the city . It was then that the authorities in St . Petersburg , in spite of the objections of Paskiewitch , ordered that a last desperate assault should be "made on the line of the Tchernava , in the hope that the Russian columns might once

    more bivouack before Balaklava , and by gigantic efforts on all sides compel the Allies to raise the siege . The attack on the Tchernaya failed , as it could not but fail , for the enemy were powerless to break through a position so strong in itself and so stoutly defended . The battle of the Tchernaya Was , therefore , the beginning of the end . Nothing now remained for the enemy to do but to resist to the utmost when the assault should be made , and retreat with rapidity when the Malakhoff was won . The MalakhbfF was

    carried on the 8 th of September ; on the 9 th the Russian garrison was on the north side of the bay ; and on the 12 th everything that had floated in the harbour of Sebastopol had been destroyed . The Allied flags floated over the ruins , abounding with the deserted material of war . " - " The first half of the campaign in the Crimea has , therefore , run its course , and ended with that triumph in which we have constantly : believed . Its ' military results are too great for present comprehension . If the

    two most powerful nations of Europe have been kept at bay for nearly twelve months , Russia , the giant military power , whose main business for forty years has been to perfect her military institutions , has offered ^ up army after army in its defence , has drawn profusely -upon all her resources- —men , money , materiel —has risked everything and spared nothing , and has yet been defeated . The Russian army has been beaten in every encounter , and , brave as it is , cowers beaten behind the

    ridges of Inlterman , and the waters of the bay of Sebastopol . The expedition to the Crimea , profoundly conceived , but in its earlier stages imperfectly executed , has been proved to be wise by the result . "We have supplied our troops with ease ; the enemy with difficulty . ~ W e could transport our regiments to Balaklava and Kamiesch almost , without the loss of a man ; the divisions of the enemy marched across desert steppes , destitute of . water , from one

    extremity of an empire to another . While the length of time that has elapsed since the siege was begun has ouly caused the enemy to suffer additional losses , the prestige of the Allies , tarnished by the events of 1854 , has been amply vindicated in 1855 . By the campaign in the Crimea we have more than defended Turkey , we have inflicted wounds on the enemy which half a century will not heal ; and the crowning result of our policy , ' is , * that we have shaken to its foundations the preponderance of Russia , npfc only in the Blftck Sea , but throughout the East .

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    Wi . . . tiOv . ' !* ' ¦ ' THE SUEZ CANAL . "'fC ^ nrftt ^ i'id a strong fascination in the idea of a ' ship canal uniting two seas . It supposes

    a change , effected by artificial means , in the configuration of the earth . It ignores the limits of nature , and proposes to create—not to discover—new highways of war and commerce . The engineers of our day design to shorten the East-Indiaman ' s voyage by a process more direct , if less romantic , than that by which Ma . geh . ah- startled the Portuguese in the Phillipines , and by which so many intrepid explorers have sought to penetrate the accumulated winters of the Arctic Pole . In all ages such projects have engaged the attention of thoughtful and enthusiastic men . In all ages , also , they have been delayed by doubts and objections . The Nicaragua Canal still remains a theory ; that of Suez has not advanced beyond a partial survey and the approbation of a vice-regal government . M . be Lessbps , the " minister plenipotentiary" undertakes to persuade English opinion into the approval of his scheme . His method certainly renders him liable to no suspicion : the case is zealously , if not conclusively , argued . M . de Lesseps appeals with candour to the public opiuion of England , and anticipates , though he appears to undervalue , the obstacles to his plan , which may , upon various grounds , be suggested . He cannot conceal that the views of France , in strenuously advocating a ship canal through the Isthmus of Suez , must be more than commercial . Her trade with India and the further East is not of sufficient importance to warrant of itself any special interest , on her part , in the accomplishment of so vast an undertaking . Her objects , in fact , are not those of a trader . It has been felt , for , a long period , by the French , and by other European nations , that the possession of the Cape by England , and the predominance on every ocean of her mercantile marine , constitute the Asiatic seas and shores her peculiar realm . America alone rivals our commercial navy , or participates , to any serious extent , in the Indian trade . The opening , indeed , of a water communication through the Nicaragua Isthmus will enhance the facilities enjoyed by the United States for competition with our own flag along the teeming coasts of Hindostan , in the ports of Eastern India , of the Malayan Peninsula , of Siam , Cochin China , Tonquin , and the Chinese Empire itself ; of Japan , of the Indian Archipelago , of the scattered groups around it , and even of Australia and New Zealand . Therefore , the French are doubly anxious that one race * and one language , though separated in polity , should not divide the sway of Asia , except along those frontiers which the Russians already command . The first Napoleon snatched at this scheme of emulation with England . To speak plainly ,, he saw , and the French nation has approved his instinct , that to destroy the geographical line of demarcation between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea would be to throw the Indian Ocean open to all comers , and to compel the establishment , by Great Britain , of an Oriental Malta , similar to that which gives her , if not supremacy , at least equality in the Mediterranean . The material difficulties wo do not propose to consider . M . de Lesseps appears to depreciate them , while Captain Allen , in his recent work on the Dead Sea , exaggerates their importance . That which to the one writer ia an insignificant objection , > to the other is insuperable . Each , it must be remembered , rides a hobby of his own , though M . de Lesseps appeals to a concourse of authorities , while Captain Allen has only put " his mark" on the map , to indicate a proposed canal from the Mediterranean to tire Gulf of Akabah , through the Dead Sea , submerging the plain of Esdraelon , 'drowning the holy city of Tiberias , swamping the spot at which the Jews expect their Messiah to

    rise , overwhelming a .. number ,. , of villages , driving out a small population , and obliterating two thousand square miles of Ottoman territory-. ' ¦ According to him , there is no perceptible difference between thev levels # f the Mediterranean and the Red . , so that there would be no current to keep : , channel free . Thus the principal facility on whic h M . Linant once calculated would be ;_ lo » fc . Moreover , there would be no powerful rush of water to carry away the earth and rocks loosened by blasting ; the canal would haye to be dug , and the sand and stone removed by machinery , or by manual labour . Agaib , the seas at either end being shallow , enormous jetties would be required . But these engineering necessities , fatal as Captain Allen holds them to be , are included in M . j > e Lesseps' calculations , as well as in those which have influenced Abbas Pacha aiad are expected to influence the Sultan of Turkey . The question is not , then , " Between two projects , which is the more feasible ? " it is rather , "Is it the interest of Great Britain to favour M . i > e Lesseps ' scheme , and to connive at the formation , . new sea-passage to India ? " , For ourselves , we have no sympathy with the general alarms felt in connexion with this subject . The South-African colonies have no more right to prosper upon the difficulties of the Indian route , than the West Indies had to prosper upon the labour of slaves . The monopoly of an ocean is not a privilege on which any nation can justly found its claims to supremacy . Such a principle belonged to the age in which Venice held the first rank among , commercial powers , in which . Spain and Portugal disputed beyond the line the interpretation of a Papal Bull , in which Holland sought by fraud and violence to close the ports of insular Asia against Sir Fbanqis Dbake and his successors . The East India Company long maintained this policy of exclusion ; but , on general grounds , it is not an objection that can be-put forward by one liberal state against the plans of another- , - It is a totally different thing to sanction the construction of a ship canal , under French influence , with the prospect of leaving it under French control . The future has its chances , its clangers , as well as its hopes . The combination of the French and British Governments for a special purpose may not be developed into a lasting alliance of the two nations . At all events , it is an undoubted truth that when the interests of two nations actually or appai'ently diverge , no formal or diplomatic bonds can hold them together . No great act of European importance , therefore , ought to bo carried out without a recognition of the contingency which may arise—of a war between England and France . In that case , who is to guard the canal ? M . de Lesseps says it must be placed under a guarantee of neutrality . But who is to seoiire the securities ? In a conflict such as that which ended in 1815 , what convention would have shut Napoleon out of Egypt P If a British fleet were firing westwards round the Cape to fight another Aboukir , what but an overwhelming naval force would close the Canal of Suez , and . prevent French squadrons from passing it 'and ravaging tho undefended coast-towns ol India ? It is idle to rely on the Turk * to fortify its approaches ; the fortress of Tineh must be a Sebastopol in strength . At Aden , indeed , the English might construct their guard-house , but whatever landworks they erected , a powerful maritime armament , lodged in its harbour could never be mndo superfluous . We have said that M , db Lesseps' * ollfn ^| bogeta no suspicion , bub without ignoring a' *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 15, 1855, page 888, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2106/page/12/