In an attempt to complete the blockade, Naval Constructor R. P. Hobson and a volunteer crew of seven men took the collier Merrimac to the harbor entrance, and, amid a rain of shot and shell, sank her in the channel (June 3).

SIR: The naval action which took place on the 10th instant between the Monitor and Merrimac at Hampton Roads, when your vessel, with two guns, engaged a powerful armored steamer of at least eight guns, and after a few hours' conflict repelled her formidable antagonist, has excited general admiration and received the applause of the whole country.

" "What is to prevent the Merrimac from destroying our whole fleet and then destroying our coast?

Lieutenant Hobson became famous in a night in his most hazardous effort to use the Merrimac as a cork for the bottle, but fortunately left a gap through which the Spaniards made haste to their doom.

Lieutenant Hobson was ordered to take the collier Merrimac into the narrow entrance and sink her across the channel at the narrowest part.

Her shot glanced from the sides of the Merrimac like so many peas, while the new monster, coming on under steam, rammed her in the side and made a great hole through which the water poured.

I handled a gun on the Merrimac in Hampton Roads when that cheese-box of a Monitor rattled her solid shot on our slippery sides.