Although the British New Mediterranean Fleet had been ambushed, its fighting strength was still overwhelmingly superior.
The few small boats that had been blown apart had barely affected the combat power of this vast fleet.
But in the confusion, old Edward Hobart Seymour issued the order he considered safest and most prudent.
If they had only been dealing with those few batteries, there would have been no need to retreat. But the mines introduced far too many uncertainties.
Although mines were uncommon in naval warfare at the time, they had achieved astonishing results whenever they were used.
Mines had played an important role in the American War of Independence, the Greek War of Independence, and the Russo-Turkish War.
The mines of the day were mainly drifting mines. As the name suggested, they relied chiefly on the waves. They exploded when they collided with ships, bridges, reefs, or similar obstacles.
These mines usually had a very short effective lifespan, lasting only a few days or even a few hours, but they packed a powerful punch.
A single mine could sink a light escort ship weighing over a hundred tons. Even a large battleship could not withstand repeated mine explosions.
Their drawbacks, however, were glaring. Without modern automatic targeting systems, drifting mines sank ships mostly through luck and sheer numbers.
Of course, in open water, even a few thousand drifting mines might not hit a single enemy ship.
An experienced captain could easily evade these drifting mines, which had neither automatic navigation nor auxiliary propulsion.
But now the little bay was packed with ships. It would have been hard for the drifting mines not to hit something.
More terrifying was the uncertainty they created. Warships sunk by drifting mines in a narrow bay like this were just like reefs.
At any moment,