27th June.
'THe news which we circulated yesterday of the reappearance in the open of the Port Arthur fleet at least proved that Admiral Witgert was not exaggerating when he telegraphed to St. Petersburg that all the damaged men-of-war in the harbour had been repaired, and were ready for sea again, Mr. Faller, the correspondent of the " Indianapolis News," the report of whose recent venturesome voyage to Port Arthur and back we printed on Saturday, said that he saw from his prison window the whole fleet repaired and in good order, and he enumerated them, as follows:—Battleships: Peresviet, Pobieda, Poltava, Retvizan, and Sevastopol. Cruisers: Askold, Bayan, Diana, Novik, and Pallada. As Admiral Togo reports that six battleships and five cruisers came out, the sixth battleship being the Cesarevitch, whose repairs have been completed since Mr. Fuller left, the whole fleet was represented, The constant explosions, that have been heard of late at Port Arthur have no doubt been caused by the Russians Ulasting 1 passage through the cement-laden vessels sunk by the Jupanese at the entrance to the Het has been able to emerge after ort, The fact that the Russian
all does not show that Admiral Pogo's blocking operations were a failure. They succeeded in keeping the Russian fleet inactive while tie landing of troops was going on in the Gulf of Liaotung, and prevented a possible raid which might have had even more disastrous consequences to the Japanese than the recent raid of the Vladivostock It is usual to give steamers a trial trip afier they have undergone repairs, and it was with this object no doubt, and to pick up som of the Japanese mines, that Admiral Witgert made his little trip wit such unpleasant consequences on Thursday. It could not have been with any hope of finding another port of refuge, for that would have been a hopeless design; the Admiral evidently did not chine out with the intention of engaging the Japanese fleet and expiring in the open after doing as much damage as he could; fur all he seems to have done was to go a little way southward, and then turn back and anchor under the guns of the forts of Port Arthur, ready for the inevitable Japanese torpedo attack when night came on, The Japanese destroyers and torpedo-boats—none of the big Japanese ships seem to have come into action on this occasion—were ready as usual, and. during the night they succeeded in sinking one Russian ironclad—rumour says that it was again the Russian flagship—and damaging another battleship and a cruiser so seriously that they had to be towed into the harbour the next morning. The extraordinary thing is the very little damage that was done to the Japanese mosquito fleet, which shows that even with the aid of searchlights, it is almost impossible to hit these small craft, steaming fast, at night. persuaded to challenge the Japanese Perhaps Admiral Witgert was
leet in the open by a belief in the statements in our French and German contemporaries that Admiral Togo has now only two available ironclads, the Asahi and Mikasa, three having been lost, and the Fuji being so seriously damaged that she is out of service. There is no foundation, however, for this story, as Admira! Witgert will doubtless discover if he makes another trial trip. It has been evident for some time that, in consequence of the danger from Russia's indiscriminate mine-laying, Admiral Togo has withdrawn his big ships from the immediate vicinity of Port Arthur, and entrusted the duty of watching the Russians to his small craft. The story of last Thursday night's action shows that his confidence in his mosquito fleet was well justified.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.