Printed for the use of the Colonial Office. May 1878.
SECRET AND CONFIDENTIAL.
Report on Defences of the principal Canadian Atlantic Ports.
No. 1.
Admiral Sir A. Milne, Bart., G.C.B., to Colonial Office.
(Secret and Confidential.) Sir,
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of
Committee Room, Whitehall, May 18, 1878. I AM requested by the Colonial Defence Committee to acknowledge the receipt your letter of the 11th instant, transmitting the paraphrase of a telegram addressed by Sir Michael Hicks Beach to the Governor-General of Canada, respecting the defence of Esquimalt and Victoria, and requesting the Committee to take into consideration the question of the defence of the principal Canadian Atlantic ports.
I beg to submit, for the information of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, reports upon the places named in the margin,† which comprise the ports of greatest consequence commercially or strategically on the Atlantic seaboard of the Dominion.
The Committee have not deemed it necessary to consider the defence of St. Andrews, Yarmouth, Mirimachie, and Digby, or of the smaller ports in the Gulf and River St. Lawrence, being of opinion that they are not likely to invite attack, especially considering that they are a long distance from the open sea.
The Committee observe in the report of Lieutenant-General Selby Smyth of the 1st January, 1878, that the means exist within the Dominion for converting smooth-bored guns, according to Sir W. Palliser's system, into rifled guns at a moderate cost. If this can be done, the estimated cost of the armaments would be proportionately reduced.
I have, &c.
(Signed) ALEX. MILNE, President.
Inclosure in No. I.
Report.
St. John, New Brunswick.
The City and Port of St. John, situated at the mouth of the St. John river, New Brunswick, was formerly provided with defensive works consisting of Dorchester Battery on the point below the town, and two other batteries near it, in which were mounted a number of smooth-bored guns. On Partridge Island, which is in the bay about 3,000 yards in front of Dorchester Battery, there was a battery surrounding the lighthouse, also containing several smooth-bored guns.
On the western side of the entrance to the barbour, a battery had been commenced on Negro Point for ten guns, but it was not completed nor armed. In rear of this battery, at a distance of about 1,400 yards, stood a Martello tower, and near, it on the site of an old blockhouse, a small battery. On the eastern side of the entrance to the harbour, east of Courtenay Bay, a battery had been commenced on Red Head, which, however, had not been completed.
* See Miscellaneous, No. 351, p. 37. [709]
+ St. John, Sydney, Pictou, Charlottetown.
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