the guns. The result is a prodigious smoke, and a prodigious throwing
away of balls, and very little damage done. This has been, however,
by no means a peculiarity of coast defences. The same system of random
firing has hitherto prevailed, both in the use of small arms in land
and of heavy ordnance in sea battles; nor has it occurred apparently to
even the greatest masters of the art of war, to ask why, for one man
wounded, or for one effective shot in a vessel's hull, so many thousands
of shot should be thrown uselessly into the air."
"But this question is now asked, both in the use of the soldier's
rifled musket, and in the management of ships' guns, as well as of