Overlooking the numerous and well-authenticated examples, where forts of small dimensions and of small armament have repelled large fleets, they would draw their conclusions from the four or five instances where fleets have gained (as was at first supposed) a somewhat doubtful victory over forts.

But a careful and critical examination of the facts in these cases, will show that even these are no exceptions to the general rule of the superiority of guns ashore over guns afloat.
The only instances where it has ever been pretended by writers of any note, that ships have gained advantage, are those of the attack on Copenhagen in 1801; the passage of the Dardanelles, in 1807; the attack on Algiers, in 1816; the attack on San Juan d'Ulloa, in 1838; and the attack on St.Jean d'Acre, in 1840.
Let us examine these examples a little in detail:-- _Copenhagen_ .-- The British fleet sent to attack Copenhagen, in 1801, consisted of fifty-two sail, eighteen of them being line-of-battle ships, four frigates, &c.

They sailed from Yarmouth roads on the 12th of March, passed the Sound on the 30th, and attacked and defeated the Danish line on the 2d of April.
The Sound between Cronenberg and the Swedish coast is about two and a half miles wide, (vide Fig.

34.) The batteries of Cronenberg and Elsinore were lined with one hundred pieces of cannon and mortars; but the Swedish battery had been much neglected, and then mounted only six guns.

Nevertheless, the British admiral, to avoid the damage his squadron would have to sustain in the passage of this wide channel, defended by a force scarcely superior to a single one of his ships, preferred to attempt the difficult passage of the Belt; but after a few of his light vessels, acting as scouts, had run on rocks, he returned to the Sound.
He then tried to negotiate a peaceful passage, threatening, however, a declaration of war if his vessels should be fired upon.