water a very pleasing effect, but at low water differing little from its neighbour of Langston, except that its intersecting channels are deeper. Outside the harbour mouth, the continual drainage of the harbour through the sluice of its mouth has piled up a long shoal, which runs for nearly two miles in a south-easterly direction, parallel with the eastern coast of the bay, and narrowing the navigable channel to about a quarter of a mile from the shore, whilst beyond the head of this shoal, which is called the Spit Sand, is the world-famous anchorage of Spithead, effectually sheltered from every wind that can blow, except that from S.E., and which, until the other day, was generally considered a tolerably innocuous quarter on the British coast. To the south and west of Portsmouth Harbour lies the huge natural earthwork of the Isle of Wight, the whole southern side of which, with some exceptions, presents an inaccessible rampart of cliff and rock, and the narrow channel between the western extremity of which and the mainland is still further defended by the natural difficulties of an extremely intricate navigation, and a tremendous current. To the south-east the anchorage is open—but of this more presently.
This extremely snug position of Portsmouth Harbour must have struck our ancestors very forcibly. There is not the slightest occasion to drag the reader through a tedious historical disquisition on the rise and progress of the place. It is merely the recognition of its importance as a military and commercial harbour, as well as a place of embarkation for the continent, that need be impressed. When that impression first began to prevail is not material. County historians are of course fond of carrying its date back to the remotest antiquity that local pride can conceive, and without venturing into the mythical regions of Lud and “Brute,” will allow no later date to the commencement of its importance than the era of the Roman rule. A modern French historian of Algeria disposes of a grave chronological difficulty in a very pleasant and summary manner by assigning to the event in question “une époque absolument inconnue,” and it is far more convenient for our present purpose to dispose of the earliest rise of the harbour to the post of an important sea-port in a similar manner. Whenever this event really did take place, the local tradition seems reasonable enough, namely, that the remains of Porchester Castle, with its fine old massy towers and keep of evident Norman construction, mark the site of the ancient sea-port, in days when there was more water and less mud in the upper part of the harbour; but that, the one diminishing and the other increasing, the old port was gradually abandoned for one nearer the sea—in short, on the site of the present Portsmouth.
The convenience of this port with its roadstead as a place of debarkation and embarkation has been recognised by all sorts of people, by Saxon Porta and Norman Robert, by the Empress Maud and Henry III., by other Henrys, and Edwards, and Richards, by Charles’s Duke of Buckingham, who here met Felton’s knife as the Rochelle expedition was assembling; and from those days, by all our statesmen and naval commanders, down to the rendezvous days of the late war, to the days of our own Baltic and Channel fleets; and last, though not least, at any rate in his own opinion, to the days of the lately arrived Persian ambassador in our finest transport ship. A corresponding recognition of the necessity for fortifications kept pace with the growing consciousness of the importance of the position. The French were not idle in evincing a similar appreciation, but in a very disagreeable manner, and a raid they made on the place in King Edward III.’s time, and in which they burned the town and shipping, though visited by a mettlesome retaliation on the part of the townspeople themselves, who a short time after played a return match in the mouth of the Seine, and brought off “a great booty of wine,” seems, nevertheless, to have set subsequent monarchs thinking of the wisdom of some regular system of fortifications. What Edward IV. began in this way was carried on by subsequent sovereigns, though for a very long time little seems to have been thought of but the merest obvious protection of the narrow gut which forms the entrance to the harbour. In old John Leland’s time, there was, “at this point of the Haven,” (still called “the Point,” by the way), “a great round tourre,” which, with the view of enabling us accurately to estimate its dimensions, he adds is “almost doble in quantitie and strenkith to that that is on the west side of the haven right agayn,” (now Block House Fort), “and here is a mighty chayne of yren to draw from toure to toure.” Queen Bess showed her wisdom in thinking the fortifications worth very considerable outlay, so did the advisers of the Merrie Monarch, as well as his contrast, phlegmatic, calculating William of Orange.
In short, one may say that from Henry VIII.’s time down to our own days, scarce any government has failed to contribute something to the strengthening of the national stronghold.
After all these years of care and pains bestowed on “the defence of Portsmouth dockyard and harbour, as also the fine roadstead at Spithead, against attack or occupation by an enemy,” an object which “has ever been considered of primary importance,” it is rather mortifying to find that as regards an attack from seaward, “it is evident that the existing defences would not suffice to protect either the dockyard or the anchorage against attack by an enemy’s fleet in the present day,” and that as far as a land attack is concerned, “the lines have long been considered a most inefficient protection;” mortifying in truth, but the secret is easily discovered. It is the same as has been hinted at in the first paper on this subject in connection with the fortifications at Sheerness and Chatham. Steam and rifled cannon, and iron-cased ships, have revolutionised warfare in many of its leading principles. In old days, no one dreamt of opening fire on a fortress at a greater distance than 1000 yards; the new works recommended in 1825, and in part completed, were considered to have provided amply for the improvements in modern artillery, by extending the works of defence to a distance of 4000 yards; and these works are not nearly finished when, as has been