THE FRENCH FLEET.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 758, 3 January 1871, Page 3

THE FRENCH FLEET.

I Some alarm was created on the 30th October by a telegram stating that a Trench fleet of twelve ships of war, each with eight hundred landing troops on board, had sailed from Dunkirk for the purpose of making a descent on the coast of the North soa, and the statement was subsequently confirmed by an official communication to the authorities at Hamburg. Steps were immediately taken and active preparations made to give the enemy a warm reception, should a landing be effected at the mouth of the Elbe. The garrison there consisting of eight battalions of Landwehr and the Ersatz battalions or reserve of the 75th and 76th Eegiments recruited in the city, received orders to hold themselves in readiness to march at an hour's notice, and one half of the force embarked at an early hour the next morning in several steamers chartered for the occasion, to convey them down to Cuxhaven to reinforce the garrison there, whilst the other haif was ready to follow as soon as the telegram arrives announcing the appearance of the fleet off" the coast.

As the pilot boats at the mouth of the Elbe have all been brougbt in, and the light vessels and buoys removed, there would be no great cause for alarm or fear of the enemy finding their way up to Cuxhaven, were it not for the conduct of the French fieet on the occasion of their last appearance in the North Sea, when hovering off the coast. Instead of making any hostile demonstration or giving indication of their intention to attempt a landing, they contented themselves with cruising off Heligoland and capturing halt-a-dozen galliots and other small craft sailing along the coast, taki'inr the skippers and crews on board their own ships of war, and either setting fire to their prizes or abandoning them to drift about, the sport of the winds and currents, till stranded on the coast. Thus it is inferred, and not without some good grounds, that it was more their object to obtain possession of some pilots, able —with a revolver at their head to prevent|treachery and wilfully running aground—to conduct the ships, even without beacons and buoys, up to Cuxhave.n or Wilhelmshaven; for it can scarcely be supposed that they would undertake such a costly expedition, and keep a number of large ships under steam for a week or ten days without intermission, for the paltry game of destroying a few fishiug-boais and coasters, and taking twenty or thirty prisoners of war.