45. What, therefore, remains to be done at once, is to purchase, say, five plots of ground of fifty acres each, and six plots of thirty acres each, in all, 430 acres of land: this, considering that some of the sites are waste land, may possibly be put down at 200_l._ per acre = 86,000_l._ The main works may, perhaps, be estimated at 80,000_l._ each, or 400,000_l._; so that the entire cost would not exceed half a million sterling, excluding Woolwich, which must be fortified in any case: an amount far less than that which the nation is spending ungrudgingly in constructing iron plated vessels, which, at best, are only experimental, and may prove failures. 46. A sum of half a million spent on the construction of six large Forts, would, in the next twelve months, establish a firm and adequate basis for all future defence. The field-works between the forts might be executed by the garrisons in them, whilst the smaller earth-works need not be thrown up until there was an absolute threat, or an imminent danger of invasion. Surely, the spirit which has evoked the Volunteers, will provide the funds to make London impregnable, and invasion, therefore, hopeless. FOOTNOTES [1] Such an omission seems hardly credible; but the Commission published in the _London Gazette_ of 26th August, 1859, recites only that inquiries are to be made “into the present state, condition, and sufficiency of the fortifications existing for the defence of our United Kingdom, and of examining into all works at present in progress for the improvement thereof, and for considering the most effectual means of rendering the same complete, especially all such works of defence as are intended for the protection of our royal arsenals and dockyards in case of any hostile attack being made by foreign enemies both by sea and land.” Not a word about the metropolis. [2] “Mais si soixante mille Français prenaient terre entre Hastings et Douvres, et qu’une bataille heureuse leur permit de s’avancer jusque sur les borde de la Medway et de la Tamise, ils pourraient, en vingt-quatre heures, détruire plusieurs milliards de matériels et de marchandise, et porter à la fortune de l’Angleterre un coup dont elle aurait peine à se relever.”—_Extract of Lieut.-Col. Ardent’s (of the Corps du Génie) paper on “The Defence of the Country south of London,” from papers on subjects connected with the duties of the corps of Royal Engineers._ 1849.