of water off the port did not permit the larger vessels to approach near enough to cover the landing of armed parties, to destroy the immense stores of corn effectually; nevertheless a. good deal of harm was done to the Russians, and public and private property largely injured. It was on the occasion of the demonstration against this important town, apparently, that the germ of the great idea of the Monitor, which has revolutionized the navies of the world, was developed by Lt. Cowper Coles, R.N. He mounted a gun on a raft and defended it with gabions, and he was enabled to bring this floating battery, which he called the Lady Nancy, into action with great effect against Taganrog. In the development of that idea called the Captain he lost his life in 1870. These operations along the coasts of the Sea of Azoff certainly caused losses to the enemy, and may have done something to create temporary inconvenience; they were effected in a legitimate if rather barbarous exercise of the rights of war, but when a few months subsequently the British Army before Sebastopol was in such need of corn that contractors were sent out to buy it in the United States, it must have occurred to the authorities that they had countenanced senseless waste, and authorized wanton destruction, to their great eventual detriment. As the naval forces were obliged to retire after each bombardment, and the landing of armed parties was only temporary, the enemy generally claimed the credit of having repulsed them, and Russia was inundated with accounts of the disasters caused by the bravery of priests and peasants, and divine interposition, to the audacious invaders who had ventured to pollute her holy soil. Cheap prints of the defence of Taganrog, &c, were published and sold by the thousand, and the people were excited by accounts of the death of innocent people, of the sacking of undefended cities, and of arson and pillage and wreck. Kertch and Yenikale were placed in a state of defence and garrisoned, and eventually the Turkish Contingent was stationed on the coast and in the town, and a small force of infantry and cavalry was detached from the British to aid them. The Contingent, composed of Turks under British officers, became a highly disciplined body, fit for any duty, but its value and conduct were not exhibited in the field, and it was employed as a corps of defence and observation on the Bay of Kertch till the war was over, when it and the other corps raised abroad under British officers, such as the Swiss Legion, the German Legion, &c, were disbanded. The Russians soon sent a corps to observe the movements of the force stationed at Kertch and Yenikale, and hemmed them in with Cossacks, and some slight affairs of outposts and reconnoitring parties occurred during the autumn and winter, in one of which a party of the 10th Hussars had difficulty in extricating itself, and suffered some loss from a larger body of the enemy. The work of the expedition to Kertch having been accomplished by the occupation of the town and straits, and by obtaining complete command of the entrance of the Sea of Azoff, the Allied fleets returned to Kamiesh and to the anchorage off Sebastopol, to participate as far as they could in the task of the siege.
BOOK YI.
COMBINED ATTACKS ON THE ENEMY'S COUNTER APPROACHES — CAPTURE OF THE QUARRIES AND MAMELON — THE ASSAULT OF THE 18'IH OF JUNE — LORD RAGLAN'S DEATH.
Preparations for the Attack — The Quarries and the Mamelon — A Desperate Attempt — Plan of another Attack — Assault of the Malakoffand the Great Redan — Inside the Mamelon — Sad Scenes.