[Footnote E: As each boat with a Torpedo, and armed complete, costs four hundred and eighty-six dollars, this economy would pay for seven hundred and eighty-nine boats; hence, eight hundred and thirty-nine Torpedo boats, with Torpedoes and arms, could be fitted out for the sum which one 80 gun ship would cost.] [Footnote F: A deduction may be made from this time; after harpooning, if the ship were anchored in a current which ran one mile and a half an hour, that would be two feet three lines a second; hence, if the distance from the harpoon to the Torpedo were sixty feet, thirty seconds would be sufficient for the tide to push it under the keel; its clockwork might be set to explode in one minute from the time the Torpedo fell out of the boat. If a vessel were under sail, running more than two miles an hour, one minute would be sufficient time for the clockwork to act before explosion. After explosion there would, of course, be no resistance, and the probability is, that all hands would be too much occupied in attempting to save themselves, to keep them under any discipline. Thus each Torpedo boat would not be more than three minutes within the line of the enemy's fire.] [Footnote G: It is very easy to make the boats so that they cannot be sunk.] I now beg of my reader to meditate on this kind of attack, and make up his mind on which are in the greatest danger, the six hundred men in the ship or the six hundred men in the boats? Are not the chances fifty to one against the ship, that she would be blown up before she could kill two hundred men in the boats? Should this appear evident, or be proved by future practice, no commander would be rash enough to expose his ship to such an attack. To give a fair comparative view of the two modes of fighting, I have, in these calculations, made the number of men on each side equal; by the same rule, if twenty ships of 80 guns were to come into one of our ports, we should be necessitated to have one thousand boats and twelve thousand men; but such a preparation would not be necessary. It can never be necessary for us to have more boats than are sufficient to meet the boats which the enemy could put out to oppose us; an 80 gun ship, which is to work her guns, cannot be encumbered with many boats; they usually have: 1 launch, which is a bad rowing boat, 1 long-boat, which may row well, 1 the captain's barge, a good row-boat, 1 yawl or galley, a good row-boat.