terms of peace which I conveyed to you yesterday in my sovereign's name: without the acceptance of these terms you can have no peace with England. "If you receive this offer as you ought, you will fire three guns, and I shall consider your not making this signal as a refusal, and shall renew my operations at my own convenience. "I offer you the above terms, provided neither the British consul, nor the officers and men so wickedly seized by you from the boats of a British ship of war, have met with any cruel treatment, or any of the Christian slaves in your power; and I repeat my demand, that the consul, and officers, and men, may be sent off to me, conformably to ancient treaties. To his Highness the Dey of Algiers. "I have, &c., GENERAL MEMORANDUM. "EXMOUTH. QUEEN CHARLOTTE, ALGIERS BAY, "The Commander-in-chief is happy to inform the fleet of the final termination of their strenuous exertions, by the signature of peace, confirmed under a salute of twenty-one guns, on the following conditions, dictated by his Royal Highness the Prince Regent of England: I. The abolition, for ever, of Christian slavery. II. The delivery, to my flag, of all slaves in the dominions of the Dey, to whatever nation they may belong, at noon to-morrow. III. To deliver, also, to my flag, all money received by him for the redemption of slaves since the commencement of this year, at noon, also to morrow. IV. Reparation has been made to the British consul for all losses he may have sustained in consequence of his confinement. V. The Dey has made a public apology, in presence of his ministers and officers, and begged pardon of the consul, in terms dictated by the captain of the Queen Charlotte. "The Commander-in-chief takes this opportunity of again returning his public thanks to the admirals, captains, officers, seamen, marines, royal marine artillery, royal sappers and miners, and the royal rocket corps, for the noble support he has received from them throughout the whole of this arduous service, and he is pleased to direct, that on Sunday next a public thanksgiving be offered up to Almighty God for the signal interposition of His divine providence, during the conflict which took place on the 27th, between his Majesty's fleet and the ferocious enemies of mankind. "It is requested that this memorandum may be read to the ships' companies. "To the Admirals, Captains, Officers, Seamen, In a letter to his brother, written on his way home, Lord Exmouth describes some of the details of this eventful day in a more vivid manner than in his official despatches : "It has pleased God to give me again the opportunity of writing you, and it has also pleased Him to give success to our efforts against these hordes of barbarians. I never, however, saw any set of men more obstinate at their guns, and it was superior fire only that could keep them back. To be sure, nothing could stand before the Queen Charlotte's broadside. Everything fell before it; and the Swedish consul assures me we killed above five hundred at the very first fire, from the crowded way in which troops were drawn up, four deep above the gun boats, which were also full of men. I had myself beckoned to many around the guns close to us to move away, previous to giving the order to fire; and I believe they are within bounds, when they state their loss at seven thousand men. Our old friend John Gaze was as steady as a rock; and it was a glorious sight to see the Charlotte take her anchorage, and to see her flag towering on high, when she appeared to be in the flames of the mole itself; and never was a ship nearer burnt; it almost scorched me off the poop; we were obliged to haul in the ensign, or it would have caught fire. Everybody behaved uncommonly well. Admiral Milne came on board at two o'clock in the morning, and kissed my hands fifty times before the people, as did the Dutch Admiral, Von Capellan. I was but slightly touched in the thigh, face, and fingers-my glass cut in my hand, and the skirts of my coat torn off by alarge shot; but as I bled a good deal, it looked as if I was badly hurt, and it was gratifying to see and hear how it was received even in the cockpit, which was then pretty full. My thigh is not quite skinned over, but I am perfectly well, and hope to reach Portsmouth by the 10th of October. Ferdinand has sent me a diamond star. Wise behaved most nobly, and took up a line-of-battle ship's station; but all behaved nobly. I never saw such enthusiasm in all my service. Not a wretch shrunk anywhere; and I assure you it was a very arduous task, but I had formed a very correct judgment of all I saw, and was confident, if supported, I should succeed. I could not wait for an off-shore wind to attack; the season was too far advanced, and the land-winds became light and calmy. I was forced to attack at once with a lee-shore, or perhaps wait a week for a precarious wind along shore; and I was quite sure I should have a breeze off the land about one or two in the morning, and equally sure we could hold out to that time. Blessed be God! it came, and a dreadful night with it, of thunder, lightning, and rain, as heavy as I ever saw. Several ships had expended all their powder, and been supplied from the brigs. I had latterly husbanded, and only fired when they fired on us and we expended 350 barrels, and 5,420 shot, weighing above 65 tons of iron. Such a state of ruin of fortifications and houses was never seen, and it is the opinion of all the consuls, that two hours more fire would have levelled the town; the walls are all so cracked. Even the aqueducts were broken up, and the people famishing for water. The sea-defences, to be made effective, must be rebuilt from the foundation. The fire all round the Mole looked like Pandemonium. I never saw anything so grand and so terrific, for I was not on velvet, for fear they would drive on board us. copper-bottoms floated full of fiery hot charcoal, and were red hot above the surface, so that we could not hook on our firegrapnels to put the boats on, and could do nothing but push fire-booms, and spring the ship off by our warps, as occasion required." The The number of killed and wounded on the part of the enemy is stated at between 6,000 and 7,000. The loss of the combined fleet was, British, killed, 128, wounded, 690; Dutch, killed, 13, wounded, 52. The number of Christian slaves liberated at Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, was 3,003, of which upwards of two-thirds were Neapolitans and Sicilians; and of the rest were 226 Spaniards, 28 Dutch, 18 English, and 2 French. Apart from all other considerations the bombardment of Algiers is important in military annals, as an illustration of the power of ships against land batteries. "That the comparative effect of fire from ships afloat or from batteries ashore," observes Sir John Jones, "is altogether dependent on distance, has recently been most decidedly proved by Lord Exmouth-in his cannonade on Algiers; for the Queen Charlotte, bearing his lordship's flag, being brought within fifty yards of the mole, poured such an irresistible fire on the works around her, as to silence every gun, and ultimately was enabled to withdraw with the loss of H only 8 seamen killed and 131 wounded; whereas the Impregnable, of 74 guns, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Milne, being anchored at a distance of 1,500 yards from the town, was so severely handled that she lost 1 officer and 49 men killed, and 2 officers and 158 men wounded, without producing any effect on the batteries; and the Rear-admiral was even obliged to request a frigate might be sent to divert some of the fire he was under. The other ships of the squadron also suffered very much in comparative proportion to their distance from the batteries which they engaged, and none of them, except the Queen Charlotte, silenced the ordnance opposed to them, although they fired, for the whole period of the cannonade, as fast as precision and accuracy would admit." WELLINGTON'S SIEGES IN THE PENINSULAR WAR— Ir will have been remarked of the sieges described in the foregoing pages, with the exception of those of Lisle and Maestricht, that the attacks were carried on upon principles very different from those set forth in the introductory observations on Fortification and Siege Operations; and that they afford, therefore, no illustration of the engineering science, based upon the modern system of fortification. It happens that the same remark is more generally applicable than might have been expected upon a simple consideration of the superiority of that science in the abstract. The examples of sieges commenced and carried out upon the principles of Vauban, have been, since his time, extremely rare; and with the British especially, whose practice in such enterprises has been of a diametrically opposite character. Our favourite system has been that of making a breach from distant batteries, and then rushing to the assault, undaunted by the fire of the besieged; trusting for the result to the valour, determination, and power of endurance of the troops engaged. The successes which have crowned these dashing exploits adorn many a page of history; but whilst neither those successes, nor the honour due to them, are disputed, it is proper to bear in mind the peculiar circumstances under which they occurred, before accepting them as precedents. Sir John Jones devotes a note of a dozen pages to this point, besides casually referring to it in other places. He insists that "the extreme hazard and little eligibility of |