Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/434

 404 THE CANNONADE OF CHAP. Therefore, nature herself had ordained the respec- _i^^!!l_ tive positions of the French and the English Heet, so that those who desired close quarters might go where close quarters could be had — that is, to the south ; and those who preferred to act at a range of 1600 yards would be content with the north of the roadstead, where the approaches, though shut against close fighters by the extent of the shoal, were everywhere open to those who liked ranges of 1600 yards or upwards. The reverse of this, as we know, is what happened. For no other reason, it seems, than that they were already on the right, that is, on the south of our fleet, the French took a place where, with the opportunity of closing the forts to within extremely short ranges, they chose to stand off at a distance of nearly a mile, thus excluding their allies from the deep water most nearly approaching the forts without making ase of it themselves ; and mean- while, the English, who entertained the belief that ships should engage forts at close quarters if they engaged them at all, had to crowd round a shoal which barely suffered more than one of their ships to come within 800 yards of the principal fort they attacked, condemning all the rest to longer ranges upon pain of running aground. Ptegarded as an attempt to effect a diversion in favour of the land forces, the naval attack, as we saw, lost all the little worth it had had when Ad- miral Hamelin thought fit to change the time for beginning it. The gunners on duty at the sea- forts were a distinct force long ago organised for