Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 4.djvu/88

 58 SKBASTOPOL BEFOIiE TIIK r.ATTLE CHAP, ^vas a body of upwards of 4000 men* specially '. — charged with the duty of holding the land de- fences, and guarding the Admiralty and the hospital. The seamen of the Black Sea fleet lying in the roadstead or in the harbour numbered, as we have Piince seen, 18,500 men. Prince JMentschikoff, as High kors double Admiral, was iii command ot the iieet as well as oomniaud. i i • i • i i i i ■ the army ; and this, his double authority, may help to account for the exceeding ease and readi- ness with which, in the progress of the siege, the crews of the ships, one after another, were turned into good battalions ; but it is also evident that some of the arrangements peculiar to the Eussian navy were conducing in the same direction. The Russian seaman (whose home is partly on shore and in barracks) has always l)een subjected to a good deal of the disci[iline and instruction received by the land forces. The two The tleet was divided into two squadrons, of rai"uuder' which ouc was Commanded by Vice-Admiral Kor- niloff, and the other by Vice-Admiral Nachimoff, the officer whose squadron had destroyed the Turkish ships at Sinope. In the absence of the Prince, Vice-Admiral Korniloff, the chief of the staff of the Black Sea fleet, was the first in author- ity over the naval forces in the roadstead and the harbour of Sebastopol. Prom the time when Sebastopol was chosen as a military harbour, great works, such as docks and TuJleben, p. 143.
 * 4406 including llic gunners, or 4048 without them —