An Englishman's Travels In America: His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States - 1857 - By J. Benwell.
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The Guns-Bristled From This Fortress
With Menacing Aspect, And The Sentinels, In Light Blue Uniforms And
Kosciusko Caps, Silently
Paced the ramparts with automatic regularity.
This fortification, though formidable in appearance, and certainly in a
commanding position, I was
Subsequently informed is little more than a
mimic fort; this arises from the want of attention paid to defences of
the kind in America, the little existing chance of invasion, perhaps,
causing the indifference to the subject. If, however, the spirit of
aggressive conquest shown by the federal government, of late years, of
which the invasion of Mexico is a fair specimen, should continue to
develop itself, it is not difficult to foresee that it will be necessary
policy to pay greater attention to the subject, and to keep in a more
effective state the seaboard defences of the country, as well as their
army, which is at present miserably deficient. This has heretofore been
so far neglected, as regards the marine, that not long before I arrived
the commander of a French ship of war was much chagrined, on firing a
salute as he passed the battery at New York, to find that his courtesy
was not returned in the customary way. He complained of the omission as
either a mark of disrespect to himself, or an insult to his nation, when
it came out in explanation that the garrison was in such a defective
state that there were not the appliances at hand to observe this
national etiquette.
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