"_Extracts from the correspondence of the_ Times, _described as from 'an Officer of Experience in our own Service._'--(See _Times, September 10, 1850_.) "'CHERBOURG, Saturday night. "'The spectacle of to-day was perhaps one of the most splendid of its kind that has been ever witnessed. Nothing short of the terrible glories of actual warfare could have exceeded it; and, without being an alarmist, I may safely say that the effect made on the mind of an Englishman by such a display of force and power on the part of an ally who has been our bitterest foe in times gone by, in a port almost impregnable, and within a few hours' sail of the shores of Great Britain, was not calculated to put him at ease.' "'CHERBOURG, Monday, _Sept. 10_. "'There are not many Englishmen who know that, within less than sixty-six miles of Portsmouth, there is a French port in which the most extensive works have been for years carried on, till nature has given way to the resources of skill and infinite art, and the sea and land, alike overcome, have yielded to our ancient foe one great naval entrepot,--placed in a direct line with our greatest dockyards, fortified at an enormous cost, till it is impregnable to everything but desperate daring and lucky hardihood, increasing day after day in force and power, accessible from every point of the compass and at all states of the tide to a friendly fleet, capable of crushing beneath an almost irresistible fire the most formidable of hostile armaments--in a word, "the eye to watch and the arm to strike the ancient enemy." There is no geographical necessity for such a port opposite to our coast. The commerce of France does not need it. Our neighbours may well remark that they are justified in protecting a place which has already felt the force of our arms, and that they are bound to protect Cherbourg from such a contingency as that which occurred in the last century, when Admiral Bligh laid it in ruins. But Admiral Bligh would not have attacked Cherbourg had it not been a menacing warlike station; and, talk as they may, there can be no doubt that the whole of these immense works are prepared _for a war with England, and with England alone_. When I say this, of course I do not mean to say that France will take any unjust advantage of her position; but we ought not to shut our eyes to the fact that such a place is within seven or eight hours' sail of England; and that a French fleet leaving it in the evening with a leading wind could be off Portsmouth next morning, and could bombard any of our towns on the southern coast. "On the above graphic description, the editor of the _Times_ offered to the country the following just remarks:--