The most significant confession, indeed, of the crushing character of the blow which at the very commencement of the war the Japanese had succeeded in dealing to their powerful adversary was contained in a subsequent dispatch from the Viceroy to the Czar. Telegraphing on February 11th, Admiral Alexeieff reported "the _Czarevitch_ and the _Pallada_ were brought on the 9th inst. into the inner harbor. The leak in the _Retvisan_ is being temporarily stopped. _The repairing of an ironclad is a complicated business, the period for the completion of which it is hard to indicate._" This guarded language must be read in the light of the fact that the Russians had only one repairing dock capable of holding a large ship at Port Arthur, and the terrible character of the disaster which within forty-eight hours had befallen the naval power of the haughty Muscovite in the Far East will be realized. The losses in men were not very serious, amounting in all to 10 men killed and 2 officers and 41 men wounded, but the injury to the fleet was practically irreparable. Seven out of Russia's best vessels had been placed _hors de combat_, her battleships' strength being reduced to 4, namely, the _Petropavlovsk_, _Peresviet_, _Pobieda_ and _Sevastopol_ (the last two being themselves under repair when the war broke out), and her already small cruiser force being reduced to two, namely, the _Bayan_ and the _Boyarin_. The following is the list of the damaged ships:-- _Czarevitch_, battleship, torpedoed. _Retvisan_, battleship, torpedoed. _Poltava_, battleship, shelled on the water-line. _Novik_, cruiser, shelled on the water-line. _Askold_, cruiser, shelled on the water-line. _Diana_, cruiser, shelled on the water-line. _Pallada_, cruiser, torpedoed. It should be added that the repairs to the _Askold_ were quickly executed, and that she was able to take part in the subsequent operations a few days later. [Sidenote: Alexeieff's Reason for Casualties] Admiral Alexeieff's dispatch to the Czar stated that the majority of the wounded belonged to the _Pallada_. The reason for this was that they were "poisoned by gases produced by the explosion of the torpedo charged with melinite." The Japanese fleet, naturally, did not emerge from such an action unscathed. Its losses in men were officially reported as 4 killed and 54 wounded; and although the fighting efficiency of the fleet was not seriously impaired, two armored cruisers, the _Iwote_ and the _Yakumo_, were injured, and, as the casualties show, several other vessels were struck. But the most remarkable circumstance was that the torpedo-boats by which the night attack had been delivered escaped scot-free. [Sidenote: The Fight at Chemulpo]