402 THE CANNONADE OF CHAP. Jt' the zeal of the united navies were perforce to xiii^ be used against Sebastopol in such a way as to go to the verge of what might be possible, the best direction to give to that sort of hardy empir- icism would have been, perhaps, an attempt to break a way into the roadstead. At the worst, a venture of that kind, if made at a well-concerted moment, would have been an effective diversion in favour of the land forces. And, again, it is imaginable that the original plan of attack adopt- ed by the council of admirals might have won for them some semblance of successes more or less specious, or might even have enabled them — for their ships would have been moving incessantly — to feel and make good their way to some more or less signal achievement. Their original plan would at least have secured for them the advan- tage of a less solemn failure than the one which they actually incurred. As it was, the ships spent their strength upoji forts of stone and coast batteries, not only without reducing any one of them, but even without dismounting a single gun, except amongst those which were in open-air batteries and fired from over the parapet.* History is crowded with instances in which the forces of two allied states are reduced to impuis- sance by the sheer perverseness of one, or the clashing pretensions of both ; hut even amongst such examples this naval attack seems egregiijus ; for, so far as concerns the main division of our fleet, the English were coerced into a plan of
- Todlf'bpii, p. 33G.
