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APPENDIX. 437
- treated to its supports, and was still very powerful, as
- subsequent events clearly proved,
' To assail such a position by a coup de main with an ' army little superior to the defenders, with nothing but ' field-pieces at its command, and with its flanks and retreat
- quite insecure, Avould have been a most desperate under-
' taking, with every probability of a failure or repulse, the
- consequences of which Avould have been most disastrous.
' A regular siege, on the contrary, required heavy guns
- and stores of all kinds, and therefore a harbour. Now
' the only place to the north of Sebastopol where the dis- ' embarkation of stores could be effected was the narrow,
- shallow beach at the mouth of the Katcha, open to every
' gust of wind, difficult to defend, and which, from its dis-
- tance in the rear, would have been much exposed, wliile
' its communications could have been intercepted at any
- moment by an enemy capable of such enterprises as he
- afterwards attempted at Balaclava and Inkerman.'
PRIXTEU tV WILLIAM BL.VLKWuuIj A.Si)
