a few minutes after
ten o'clock
Such was the still magnificent fleet that patrolled the waters of the narrow sea , -- a fleet as impotent for the time being as a flotilla of Thames steamboats would have been in face of the tactics employed against it by the League . Had the enemy 's fleet but come out into the open , as it would have been compelled to do under the old conditions of warfare , to fight its way across the narrow strip of water , there is little doubt but that the issue of the day would have been very different , and that what had been left of it would have been driven back , shattered and defeated , to the shelter of the French shore batteries . But , in accordance with the invariable tactics of the League , the first and most deadly assault was delivered from the air . The war-balloons stationed themselves above the fortifications on land , totally ignoring the presence of the fleet , and a few minutes after ten o'clock began to rain their deadly hail of explosives down upon them . Fifteen were placed over Dover Castle , and five over the fort on the Admiralty Pier , while the rest were distributed over the town and the forts on the hills above it . In an hour everything was in a state of the most horrible confusion . The town was on fire in a hundred places from the effects of the fire-shells .