seven hundred. Undoubtedly this was the proper course, and unquestionably his estimate was not excessive for this double object; for we have seen that it required five guns afloat to equal one on shore, and here we have barely six hundred and fifty guns set against at least two hundred,—a proportion much below equality, so far as the guns afloat were concerned. And now let us see how, after the fall of San Juan de Ulloa and Vera Cruz, Commodore Conner's prior estimate of that fortress's strength was proved correct by the undeniable evidence of sight and touch-of fact-displayed to all. Upon its occupation by our forces, in the spring of 1847, it was found to be a true fortress,-that is, not a single fort, but a number of forts all either joined together by a chain of works or, if not, standing within supporting distance of each other. In this fortress were found over four hundred pieces of ordnance, including very heavy cannon,-Paixhans and mortars; a garrison of five thousand men, with a like number of stands of arms and a large quantity of ordnance stores. (General Scott's General Orders, No. 80, March 30, 1847, Executive Documents for 1847-48, vol. ii. p. 239; dispatch to Secretary of War, April 5, 1847, Executive Documents for A.D. 1847-48, vol. vii. p. 911.) I am aware and already have mentioned that Mexican writers, together with some of our own following them, assert that these figures exceed the actual numbers by fully a hundred in the matter of guns and a thousand in that of men ; but even supposing this to be true, there would still remain three hundred guns and four thousand men, and certainly, with that or even a less force, the place could not be called weak and poorly garrisoned. Passing on from these official reports of General Scott, let us turn to the evidence of the flag lieutenant, Mr. James S. Biddle. This officer states that he visited San Juan de Ulloa on the day of its surrender, and that he "found it a work of immense massiveness, exceeding by very much anything I had imagined. I have seen the famous fortifications at the Havana, but these are on a much grander scale." 12 Mr. Biddle further informed me, in conversation, that he -saw no sign of weakness in the castle. The guns were numerous, large, and well mounted. To this may be added the answer of the British navy officers to Commodore Perry's question, when within the castle, that, "If garrisoned with a thousand Americans or Englishmen, it could defy the fleets of the world," and also Commodore Perry's declaration to the Secretary of the Navy on April 11, 1847, that "The attack on the city from the land side was managed with great judgment and skill; indeed, I never entertained or expressed any other opinion than that it should be made from the rear by breaching and assault." (Executive Documents, No. 1, 30th Cong., 2d sess., p. 1191.) 12 Letter from Mr. Biddle to me of January 25, 1884, quoting from one written by him to Mrs. Biddle after visiting the castle upon its surrender, on March 29, 1847. And now, after all this, how are we to account for the assertion that Admiral Farragut said the castle could be taken by Commodore Conner's force? How, indeed, if it were true? But, indeed, there is no proof that Farragut ever said so. What he did say is, that the castle could hardly be taken at all by the ordinary ship-artillery of that day, but that it could be taken by horizontal shell-fire from Paixhan guns,13 an assertion in unison with Commodore Conner's expressed opinion, viz.,that the guns of the " Potomac" and "Mississippi" were of the proper kind to use against the castle; 13 these guns were solid-shot 32's and 8- and 10-inch Paixhan shell-guns.14 But there still remains Farragut's assertion that he could take the castle with the "Pennsylvania," of one hundred and twenty guns, and two sloops like the "Saratoga," each mounting twenty-four guns, one hundred and sixty-eight in all. How can we account for this assertion, after knowing the full truth in regard to the condition of San Juan and Vera Cruz, as, shown in this paper? How, I say, with such knowledge to us, can we conceive of Farragut entertaining such an idea? The reason is simple and easily explained. It was not necessarily, as the Navy Department came near thinking, because Farragut had become monomaniacal upon the subject,15 but simply because, being but a junior officer-commander-at that time and without weight of responsibility or full knowledge of the state of the castle as it then was, he based his calculations on conditions and actions which he had known and seen, but which had passed away in an interval of nine years. Hence it was that he took a narrow view of the whole matter and based his method on the supposition that the castle was not changed since 1838 and that the Mexicans were timid and inefficient. Farragut was not yet the great commander-in-chief, with his native courage and daring tempered and elevated into lofty military virtues, well balanced by experience and the weight of responsibility, but merely the junior captain, aflame with daring and eager for fame. And so, in conclusion, I will add that I think it has been shown that Conner, Perry, and Scott were not mistaken in their estimate of the strength and power of San Juan de Ulloa at the time of our war,-the result of the siege, although adverse to the Mexicans, proving them to be brave men, and justifying the basis on which Commodore Conner rested his estimates for attack,-namely, the belief that the place was strong from the sea and the supposition that it would certainly be creditably defended, making its capture by mere naval bombardment 13 Farragut's "Life of Farragut," pp. 130, 133, 134, 135. On the last two pages the admiral says that the castle could have been knocked to pieces by the horizontal shell-fire of the French, but that "they might have bombarded with the bombvessels for a month without success." 14 Commodore Conner to Secretary of the Navy Bancroft, September 3, 1845. 15 Farragut's "Life of Farragut," p 157. no light matter, while if well and skillfully defended, as it might be, considering the presence of trained European engineer and artillery officers within its walls, as well as native commanders of repute, it could not be taken by wooden ships, being thus impregnable; and hence, since no effort was made in time to put into effect Commodore Conner's suggestion that the squadron should be furnished with a landing brigade sufficiently strong to surround the city on its landward side, while the fleet did the same to it and the castle seaward, thus compelling a quick surrender of both by complete, encircling blockade (for supplies were short and no relieving force at hand), thus giving to the navy a triumph which justly should have been its alone; hence I say that since the above plan was not acted on, the one that was carried out-viz., the combined action of the army and the navy-was the best one possible; indeed, the only one left practicable. How well, harmoniously, and successfully both services acted in that movement is known to all. PHILADELPHIA. P. S. P. CONNER. THE SWORD.1 THE march of democracy is not limited to mankind alone; the uprising of nouvelles couches is not confined to the peoples of the earth; the undermining of the upper classes is not restricted to humanity. The dismantling of aristocracies is no longer a merely moral operation; it has sapped away the bases of other privileges than those of princes; it has exterminated other prerogatives than those of blood; it has suppressed other rights than those of birth. The revolutionary spirit is swelling beyond politics and parliaments; its action is stretching outside societies, and is reaching above nations; it is pervading nature herself, and is even permeating matter. The subversiveness of our times extends to metals as well as to men; under its dissolving action-alas that we should have to say it!-steel has ceased to be a gentleman. Until this nineteenth century, steel had retained its exalted place. It had been assailed by gunpowder, and it had been debilitated by the gradual diminution of duels, but it had held its own; its superb traditions had not yet faded; the knightly sword was still its accepted expression, still its representative idea. It is true that steel-though used in Asia from all time,-though seen, perhaps, in imperial Rome, and though introduced into Spain by the Arabs in the ninth centuryhad only been seriously known to Europeans since the First Crusade; it is true that the swords of Greece, of Spain, of Germany, of Gaul, contained no sign of it: but for the last eight centuries the world had learnt to associate the sword and steel together, and to instinctively regard them as implying the same conception. To-day that stately unity has disappeared. The sword has been dethroned; and steel, meanly forsaking its former self, repudiating its lineage, its alliances, and its traditions, has gone in for demagogy. And we are the sad spectators of its fall. What a superb. career it has renounced! It had shaped the world; it had carved out history; it had formed the nations; it had fixed the limits of languages and the geography of character and thought; it had vanquished the strong; it had rebuked the proud; it had succored the weak; it had been the arbiter of honor, and the accomplisher of justice. The sword was, as the ancient chronicler said, "the oldest, the 1 most universal, the most varied of arms; the only one which has lived through time. All people knew it; it was every where regarded as the support of courage, as the enemy of perfidy, of perfidy, as the mark of commandment, as the companion of authority,-as the emblem of sovereignty, of power, of force, of conquest, of fidelity, and of punishment." And all this has steel abandoned-to become rails! Look at what it was and at what it is. Its aspect was brilliant; its habits were punctilious; its manners were courtly; its connections were patrician; its functions were solemn; its contact was ennobling; even its very vices were glittering, for most of them were simply the defects of its superb qualities. It is true that it was sometimes cruel, and that its processes of action were distinctly sanguinary; but those reproaches apply to all other weapons too. Throughout the ages it grandly held up its head, and haughtily bore its name. It lost no cast when it allied itself with lance and dagger, with battle-axe and helm, for they were of its natural kindred; and even when, in later times it stooped to generate such lowly offspring as razors, lancets, knives, and needles, the world saw no real abasement in the act, for the chivalrous blade was still the image which represented steel to man. But now its whole character has changed; now it has thrown aside its gallantry, its grace, its glory; now it has forsworn its pride for profit, its pomp for popularity. Steel is now bursting coarsely on the earth at the rate of thousands of tons a month. It is positively being made into steam-engines and cannon and ships, and all sorts of vulgar, heavy, uncomely, useful objects. Worse than all, it is becoming cheap! Steel cheap! The steel of old, the steel of legend and of story, the steel of the paladin and the chevalier, the steel of the noble and the brave, the steel of honor and of might, the steel that was above price, that knew not money and cared naught for profit, -that steel is no more. It has been driven contemptuously out of sight by metallurgic persons called Bessemer and Krupp and Siemens, and these destructive creators have put into its place a nineteenth century substance, exactly fitted to a mercantile period, but possessing no tie whatever with time or fame. No more will steel append its personal signature, its glaringly recognizable autograph, to the great events of history. The dagger that slew Cæsar, the glaive that Brennus hurled into the scale to weigh against the liberty of Rome, the axe that gashed off Mary Stuart's head, the knife that armed the hand of Charlotte Corday (of course they were not all steel, but they admirably represent the notion of it), are mere faded antiquities. Steel has other functions to discharge now; it has given up marking dates in the world's life, and has gone in for trade; it has ceased to be history, and has become actuality; it is in a state of new departure; it no longer incarnates a sentiment; it is nothing but a fact. It has turned its back on the blades of Damascus, on the armor of Milan, on the shields of Augsburg, on the rapiers of Ferrara, on the |