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Sir,
161
No. 55.
Captain Bowden Smith to Rear-Admiral Sir A. Milne.
4, Grenville Place, Cornwall Gardens, December 3, 1879. OBSERVING that you are a member of the Royal Commission on the Defence of British Possessions and Commerce Abroad, I venture to offer the following remarks for your consideration on the East Indian portion of the British Empire.
Knowing the wide experience you yourself possess, and observing the distinguished names of the Commissioners, many of whom have themselves travelled, I should not have presumed to address you on the subject had I not lately returned from two years' service in the East as Flag Captain to Admiral Corbett, and thus personally observed the great necessity for some systematic plan of defence for our possessions abroad.
I shall, however, only speak of that portion which regards the Naval Service, and would urge the great necessity of having fortified Imperial coaling-stations not more than 2,000 miles apart, where our ships could always obtain coal but where the enemy could not, and where our merchant-vessels, if chased or in distress, could always find protection.
I am aware that this is no new idea for Mr. Brassey. Captain Colomb and others have already written on the subject, but it was brought very forcibly to my notice during the late war when we were for some time daily expecting a rupture with Russia, and when the Naval Commander-in-chief on the East India station would have had to be responsible for the protection of our commerce on that very extended station, and would have had to protect many exposed places from an attack of a fast cruizer, with (at that time) a small and very slow squadron.
Truly there were then no Russian ships in Indian waters, but there were some in China, two of which we saw afterwards on their way home, and from their appearance and size of their machinery, I should say they were much faster than anything we possessed on the station. On their way back one put into Trincomalee for coal, and the other, after visiting Galle and Colombo, came to Bombay for repairs, having (they said) carried away their foreyard after leaving Colombo.
Now if the Admiral had known that a few places on the station were secure against any ordinary attack from a cruizer or hostile squadron, he could have devoted his attention with more chance of success to the protection of the general commerce.
Such places would be Aden on the extreme west of the Indian Seas, Singapore on the extreme east and belonging to the China station, and one point on the southern coast of Ceylon, which is about 2,000 miles from Aden.
As you are doubtless aware Galle is now the place where all the mail steamers and others for China, Calcutta, and Australia take in their coal, but although in the most convenient situation the harbour is bad, and when the breakwater at Colombo is completed, which is to make it a safe port at all seasons for vessels drawing 26 feet water, I think that would be the place for the coaling-station for that part of the world, it being almost as convenient as Galle. Trincomalee, on the north-east coast of Ceylon, the present naval station, is doubtless a good harbour (the only harbour in Ceylon worth the name), but it is too much out of the way for a coaling-station. No steamers ever call there except an occasional vessel with stores for the naval yard, and although our ships coal there, the coal is bad from being sometimes long in store.
To illustrate the inconvenient position of Trincomalee, I will give two instances which occurred when I was on the station. In 1878, the "Diamond" was ordered by telegraph from Aden to Singapore with all dispatch to strengthen the China squadron.
She left Aden for Trincomalee full of coal, but meeting with calms and light winds, was only able to reach Colombo, where she coaled, and started again for Trincomalee, and thence to Singapore.
I need not point out what time would have been saved if she could have filled up with coal and stores at Colombo, and proceeded direct to Singapore. Naval stores could be kept at Colombo instead of Trincomalee, and could more easily be sent from there by steamers to our vessels unable to leave their stations than from Trincomalee. Thus, if the "Ruby" and "Wild Swan," at present at Rangoon, required stores, they could be sent direct from Colombo, whereas at present the store-keeper at Trin- comalee has first to send the articles required to Colombo by a small colonial steamer which professes
round the island twice a-month, and then reship them through an agent to Rangoon.
to go
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Again, the "Shannon on her way home from China in September 1878, took in coal at Trin- comalee, but finding it very bad, and fearing she might not be able to reach Aden, put into Galle to complete, having thus gone over 200 miles out of her way to obtain a cargo of bad coal.
Now, if Colombo was established as our main coaling point and refuge in that part of the world, I conclude the colonists, that being their capital, would contribute very materially towards its defence. With Trincomalee they have no concern whatever, and the battery of artillery stationed there are com→ pletely cut off from the rest of the forces in Ceylon. If Galle and Colombo only were armed, our small force in Ceylon (one European regiment and two batteries of artillery) might be concentrated at those two places, which are only 70 miles apart, connected by a good road, and a railway already running a third of the distance between them.
Although Trincomalee is a good harbour for the use of the East India squadron in time of peace, I look upon having to defend such a place in time of war as an absolute source of weakness to the Empire, for if there were no coal or stores there would be nothing to induce an enemy to visit it.
There is no dock there, nor any plant of any consequence for repairing ships or machinery, so that if an enemy's cruizer did visit it in time of war, she could, with the exception of the Admiralty House, and a few store-houses, only burn the jungle and a native village. I believe from what I saw in May last, they have already commenced to fortify Trincomalee, and guns and torpedo-stores have been sent there, but before much money is expended on the place, may I ask if it would not be better to concen-
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Appendix No. 4.
CEYLON.
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