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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Tranchemont made war against the city of Kala- cahabalaba, utterly discomfited the great King Bigstaff, and blew up his whole army by sneezing. Another imparted a sage idea, which seems to have occupied more heads than one; that is, that the best way of fortifying the harbour was to ruin it at once; choke the channel with rocks and blocks; strew it with chevaux de frises and torpedoes, and make it like a nursery-garden, full of man-traps and spring-guns. No vessel would then have the temerity to enter our harbour; we should not even dare to navigate it ourselves. Or, if no cheaper way could be devised, let Governor's Island be raised by levers and pulleys, floated with empty casks, etc., towed down to the Narrows, and dropped plump in the very mouth of the harbour But, said I, would not the prosecution of these whim-whams be rather expensive and dilatory Pshaw cried the other, what's a million of money to an experiment? The true spirit of our economy requires that we should spare no expense in discovering the cheapest mode of defending ourselves; and then, if all these modes should fail, why you know the worst we have to do is to return to the old-fashioned hum-drum mode of forts and batteries.? By which time, cried I, the arrival of the enemy may have rendered their erection superfluous. A shrewd old gentleman, who stood listeningby with a mischievously equivocal look, observed that the most effectual mode of repulsing a fleet from our ports would be to administer them a proclamation from time to time till it operated. Unwilling to leave the company without demonstrating my patriotism and ingenuity, I communicated a plan of defence; which. in truth, was suggested long since by that oracle Mus- tapha, who had as clear a head for cobweb weaving as ever d...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217985901 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217985904 |
| Weight | 0.43 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.30 In |
| List Price | $19.99 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 126 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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