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Inclosure 13 in No. 224.

Sir,

Singapore, April 28, 1878. WITH reference to our conversation on the recommendation of the Temporary Defence Committee, I have the honour to bring the following points to your Excellency's notice:

Mount Palmer is beyond effective range of the north-east entrance to the harbour, which I believe is also the easier entrance, and is quite inadequate to protect the shipping. It is unsupported by effective fire from any other point. It does not command the new harbour at all. Its expense magazine is only calculated to hold about 4,000 lbs. of gun- power in barrels; or in cartridges, in metal-lined cases, about seventy rounds per gun for the three 68-pounders to be mounted there.

Magazine A in Fort Canning, where the reserve gunpowder is stored, is about a mile and a-half off.

Fort Faber is in a very dilapidated condition, as far as can be seen through the brush- wood and jungle that obscure the battery. It can only bring one gun to bear in the entrance of the new harbour, the working of which gun would be too slow to cause much * damage to a steamer entering. Wherever the second gun is placed in this fort its value can only be slight. It must be remembered that the embrasures at Palmer and Faber restrict the guns in their lateral range, and that even were they cut down, and the guns made to fire en barbette, the racers would only allow the same lateral range as before. The magazine at Fort Faber, like that at Palmer, is out of repair, if in existence, and I have no record of its capacity. The emplacements for the guns at Tanjong Kutong are not yet made. The position is isolated; there is no magazine; the approaches are difficult; it is a long way from its source of supply at Fort Canning. The detachment defending it could be easily cut off by a boat attack.

I have, &c.

(Signed)

His Excellency the Governor, Straits Settlements.

L. F. HALL, Lieutenant-Colonel, R.A., Commanding Royal Artillery, China and Straits Settlements.

Inclosure 14 in No. 224.

Further Report of Defence Committee.

THE Defence Committee, having read and considered a letter to his Excellency the Governor from the Officer commanding Royal Artillery in China and the Straits Settle- ments, dated the 28th ultimo, in which the inefficiency of the batteries at Mounts Palmer and Faber is brought into notice, and the site at Tanjong Kutong for a temporary sand-bag battery condemned, but in which no suggestions are offered of more favourable sites for the placing of the available 68-pounder guns in position, are still of opinion that the course recommended by them in their former Reports for the hurried defence of the Settlement is the best that can be devised; and the Committee are further strengthened in this belief from a perusal of the able Report of Sir William Jervois on the defences of the place, in which the sites of Mounts Palmer and Tanjong Kutong are selected for the more perma- nent batteries.

Though Mount Faber, it is true, has not been so selected, it has the advantage of providing for immediate use substantial brick-and-mortar platforms for two Henry guns, which will more or less command the entrance to New Harbour, a point which, in the view of the Committee, is of no small importance.

(Signed)

C. A. S. DICKINS, Colonel Commanding, Straits Settle-

ments.

CHAS. F. HOTHAM, Captain, R.N.

J. F. A. McNAIR, Colonial Engineer, Straits Settlements.

Singapore, May 1, 1878.

Inclosure 15 in No. 224.

Further Report from Defence Committee.

ON a perusal of the Circular (Secret) from the Right Honourable the Secretary of State, dated the 20th March, 1878, and forwarded by his Excellency the Governor for the consideration and remarks of the Defence Committee of the 30th ultimo,

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