In 1801, the French, with three frigates and six thousand men, attacked the poorly-constructed works of Porto Ferrairo, whose defensive force was a motley garrison of fifteen hundred Corsicans, Tuscans, and English. Here the attacking force was _four_ times as great as that of the garrison; nevertheless they were unsuccessful after several bombardments and a siege of five months. In July of the same year, 1801, Admiral Saumarez, with an English fleet of six ships of the line and two smaller vessels, carrying in all five hundred and two guns, attacked the Spanish and French defences of Algesiras. Supposing the floating forces of the contending parties to be equal, gun for gun, (which is certainly a very fair estimate for the attacking force, considering the circumstances of the case,) we have a French land-battery of only twelve guns opposed by an English floating force of one hundred and ninety-six guns. Notwithstanding this inequality of nearly _seventeen_ to _one_, the little battery compelled the superior naval force to retreat with great loss. Shortly after this, the French and Spanish fleets attacked the same English squadron with a force of nearly _three_ to _one_, but met with a most signal defeat; whereas with a land-battery of only _one_ to _seventeen_, the same party had been victorious. What proof can be more decisive of the superiority of guns on shore over those afloat! In 1803 the English garrison of Diamond Rock, near Port Royal Bay, with only one hundred men and some fifteen guns, repelled a French squadron of two seventy-four-gun ships, a frigate, and a brig, assisted by a land attack of two hundred troops. There was not a single man killed or wounded in the redoubt, while the French lost fifty men! The place was afterwards reduced by famine. In 1806 a French battery on Cape Licosa, of only two guns and a garrison of twenty-five men, resisted the attacks of a British eighty-gun ship and two frigates. The carriage of one of the land-guns failed on the second shot, so that, in fact, only _one_ of them was available during the action. Here was _a single piece of ordnance_ and a garrison of _twenty-five men,_ opposed to a naval force of _over one hundred and fifty guns_ and about _thirteen hundred men._ And what effects were produced by this strange combat? The attacking force lost _thirty-seven_ men killed and wounded, the eighty-gun ship was much disabled, while the fort and garrison escaped entirely unharmed! What could not be effected by force was afterwards obtained by negotiation. In 1808 a French land-battery of only _three_ guns, near Fort Trinidad, drove off an English seventy-four-gun ship, and a bomb-vessel. In 1813 Leghorn, whose defences were of a very mediocre character, and whose garrison at that time was exceedingly weak, was attacked by an English squadron of six ships, carrying over three hundred guns, and a land force of one thousand troops. The whole attempt was a perfect failure.