OPERATIONS OF THE ALLIES IN THE BALTIC.
While war was raging on the eastern side of the Russian and Turkish empires, the western waters and shores of Russia were also the scenes of sanguinary contests. The vast fleet which, under the command of Admiral Dundas, proceeded rather too late in the spring to the Baltic, accomplished some important enterprises. The troops and stations of the Russians on the shores of Finland were shelled. Landing-parties ascended the creeks and rivers, and burned great quantities of naval stores, and destroyed or captured numerous small vessels, military or commercial. Sweaborg was bombarded, and a large portion of the fortifications destroyed, and many of their defenders slain. Cronstadt was approached as in the previous year; but was pronounced to be impregnable to the means at the disposal of the allies, vast as they were. The want of gun-boats and vessels of light draught was the chief ingredient in the elements of discomfiture which affected the allies. Throughout the year the allies hemmed in the Russian ships in their unassailable harbours of refuge, or as at Sweaborg, destroyed them by the fire of their gun-boats.