Page:The battle of the channel tunnel and Dover Castle and forts.djvu/7

 March 11th 1882

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I beg leave with great respect to address you upon a subject which has long been a source of the greatest anxiety to me, and to which I am most thankful to see that you have given your recent attention in the appointing of a Scientific Committee; and then, I learn, of a Committee on the question of the Expediency or Non-expediency of the proposed Channel Tunnel; "that the Government might give it their immediate and complete attention," and "communicate their opinion to the House before any proceedings" be "taken upon the two private Bills before the House."

I have recently read for the first time, in the Evening Standard of February 6th, the reported "Conversation" upon the subject with Sir Garnet Wolseley: and although the gallant General does not enter into that question, I think I may gather from it, that it would require a permanent Force of 20,000 men to guard the approaches on this side of this tête de pont of a submarine Railway Bridge: the loss of whose services would be a very great hindrance to his Royal Highness Field Marshal the Duke of Cambridge Commanding in Chief, on a certainly simultaneous attack upon our shores, upon one or more points, by a Force from Cherbourg.

I saw also the strictures, upon the General's remarks, as quoted from the Republique Française in "referring to the hypothesis, that the French might seize on the Tunnel before a declaration of war," suggesting that he must take them for "Ashantees." I also saw that some upholder of the Channel Tunnel Scheme asked, as if in answer to the gallant General, "What would Dover Castle and Fort be doing?"

Let me mention, in answer to that theory, that Mr. Charles Alanson Knight, brother of Mr. Knight, M.P., Colonel of the First Worcestershire Volunteer Rifles, was in Rome during all the seige of that fortified City by the French: and that he said, that the embrasures of the walls of it were completely under the command of French Riflemen; each of whom was ensconsed [sic] behind his gabion, with his rifle laid so as to command