The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-26 00:00:00

AUGUST 26, 1854. potisms," such as fill the brain of Mr. LowE, and abandon the theory of Lord DALHOUSIE, that a system of organised confiscation can be conducive in any country to the public wealth. Above all, they must surrender the notion that a country covered like India with the remains of ruined palaces, broken aqueducts, and other traces of former riches and civilisation, must necessarily be doomed in our hands to hopeless barrenness and poverty because the means of its restoration happens to be matters beyond the compre hension of the India-house or of Sir CHARLES WOOD. THE EXPLOITS AT BOMARSUND. AT length public expectation has been gratified by the performance of exploits which sustain the character of our maritime arm for efficiency and nautical skill. The capture of Bomarsund is the first event of the war, and before long two thousand Russian prisoners will be off the Downs. Such a fact realises the actuality of the struggle more vividly than any previous incident of our campaigning operations either in Northern or South-eastern Europe. In the first place, it is satisfactory to know that the enemy have at last been grappled with; and, secondly, it is impossible to examine the difficulties of the navigation about Bomarsund without perceiving that the recent operations were most dangerous and difficult. All honour, therefore, to our officers and sailors, who have shown themselves worthy of our flag ! The whole incidents of the attack on Bomar sund are extremely interesting, and its details only wanka little skilful combination to make a brilliant picture. The glowing sunset of the Bth instant, under whose beaming light the troops disembarked, in presence of the two allied veterans, General BARAOUAY D'HILLIERS and Admiral NAPIER—the dead silence while the steamers crept along the rock-girt coast, with their boats stealthily sounding ahead— the firing in the chill morning dawn from the French and English steamers—the rapid dis embarkation of eleven thousand troops in three hours into the Russian forests—all these might have been witnessed with breath less anxiety by a spectator. Then, as the day wore on, " Old Charley's " flag was shifted alternately between the Lightning and Bulldog, whose names symbolise the brilliant celerity and pugnacity for which even his severest critics give credit to NAPIER. As the Bulldog grounded within range of the Russian guns, a looker•on might have felt uneasy for the fate of our British admiral, but the Russians refrained from firing at him, whether through design or want of perception is not stated, though it seems to have been thought " incomprehensible " by those present at that rather momentous incident. These were only the preliminary scenes of the stirring drama. On the next day, in all its pomp and portentous consequences, war was visible in the glittering array of the three regiments of our gallant allies, marshalled under General BARAGOAY D'HILLIERS. There is something singularly touching in the sight of a veteran of seventy-four years of age, with his person marked by honourable wounds, still leading on troops to victory, and display ing the soldierly prowess which challenged admiration in more youthful years. The camp, and all its indispensable wants, seem to have been admirably provided for. The troops were put into immediate action, and measures promptly taken to keep their spirits and bodies thoroughly up to the work before them. But the enemy on his part was not idle, and, even at the very outset of the assault, we find that the Russian spies were at full work. One day a spy was caught in female attire; and on the next the dress of a priest, and the companionship of a lady, were as sumed as passports for calmly observing the inside of our expeditionary camp. Who can say, in presence of such highly characteristic facts, that the sons of LOYOLA have a monopoly of the art of training up agents with subtle brains and audacious spirit? After much skilful reconnoitring and vigi lant preparations, on the 13th inst. the born- THE PRESS. bardment really began, and then, for the first ' time, " an intelligent foreigner" might have doubted whether Lord ABERDEEN was still at the head of a British Cabinet. The French plied their guns with a happy combination of military enthusiasm and engineering science. Their chasseurs used their deadly weapons with terrible precision of aim, and the beleaguered Russians felt that neither the excessive intricacies of the navigation, nor the natural strength of their position, could save them from inevitable defeat. Surrender was a mere question of time. Within nine days narrow channels had been carefully buoyed and sounded, an expedition landed, a camp formed, heavy artillery dragged up from the ships-of-war (an operation in which NAPIER has more experience than any living man), and, after a strategic survey, the final assault triumphantly made at an extremely small loss to the attacking party. But it may be said that Bomarsund is not Cronstadt, and that the ease of taking the first is no argument against the invincibility of the last. Without here discussing the practicability of carrying Cronstadt, we desire to fix attention on the fact of the success gained by landing an armed force at Bomar sund. If at au earlier period our present Cabinet had resolved on the combination of a military with a naval force in the Baltic, events would have advanced more rapidly, and the public would have been saved from many doubts and much heartburning. But, in the meanwhile, let us all join in awarding the meed of merit to the French and English combatants engaged in this triumphant ex ploit. Long may such brilliant feats continue to distinguish their exertions, worthy of the ancestral glories of the two great nations under whose combined standards they have signalised at once their personal valour and matchless military skill I MR. GLADSTONE'S FINANCE. THE session is now over, and for six months the casuistry and misrepresentations of Mr. GLADSTONE will not be called forth to gloss over his financial failures. It is true they have been exposed in the House of Commons from time to time, and the exposure, under any other circumstances, would have necessi tated the retirement of the Minister; but Par liament was too full of the war to care even for financial failures. In the City, and among those whose practical business is finance, the character of the Right Honourable Gentleman as Chancellor of the Exchequer is rightly ap preciated. By no one was it more truly described than by a gentleman whose autho rity cannot be questioned, whose practical ex perience in the operations of finance exceeds that of any other person of the present day, and whose political opinions place him among the moderate Conservatives. It cannot, there fore, be asserted that we select an incompe tent or a hostile judge. Mr. THOMAS BARING, on the 22nd of May last, after describing the transactions of Mr. GLADSTONE, thus expressed• himself : Financial mistakes were national misfortunes ; financial failures were national calamities, and a series of failures were fraught with danger to the credit of this country. Under the guidance of a careful, a judicious, a prudent, an experienced hand, national credit could defy, uncrushed and uninjured, the heaviest assaults that could be made against it. But, if beneath the touch of a meddling, fidgetting, irritating pressure, it might sink into impo tence, and close itself against its employment for purposes of national utility. These are the terms in which Mr. THOMAS BARING characterises Mr. GLADSTONE and his transactions as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the force and truth of the description are acknowledged by those who, like Mr. BARING, are conversant with the principles and opera tions of finance. Under no other circum stances than those of the last session would the country have tolerated such repeated and egregious blunders ; but the novelty of the position in which the present generation in this great empire are now placed, the the grounds of its necessity and justice, 795 the excitement which it has occasioned, the apprehension that its inchoate operations might be disturbed by a change of Ministry, induced the public and Parliament to prefer, at the moment, any alternative to such a change. No one was more alive to this than Mr. GIADSTONK himself. He knew full well that the Cabinet could not do without him. Forming, as he does, the connecting link be tween the Conservative and Liberal sections, he was virtually its most influential member. He knew, also, that, on general public grounds, however open his measures were to attack, it would not be thought expedient to overthrow the Government by a condemnatory vote, and therefore he had recourse to effrontery and mistatement. He challenged the Opposition to bring his measures to the test of a vote, and his financial mistakes were only excelled by the audaeity with which he denied them. It shall be our business, during the recess, from time to time to review his operations; and, as we proceed, we shall ask our readers to put it to themselves, as a portion of the public, aro the finances of this empire in safe hands? %, e shall consider his South-Sea Stock transac tions, his Exchequer-Bill transactions, his savings-banks transactions, his dealings with the balances in the Exchequer, the principles of his several budgets, and the representations under which he induced Parliament to assent to them, and, lastly, his transactions and legislation as regards charges on the Consoli dated Fund. THE GREYTOWN IMBROGLIO. THZ startling affair at Greytown is painfully symptomatic of the troubled future that, in the opinion of many deep observers, lowers over the Southern States of the American de mocracy. It was always anticipated by JEF FERSON that slavery would prove a source of excessive trouble to the statesmen of the Re• public, and its progress only confirms that eminent stateman's sagacious apprehension. It is easy enough to say that " untoward events," like that of the destruction of Grey town, may be modified by diplomacy ; but, with our experience of the disastrous consequences resulting from the indecisive and disinge nuous foreign policy of our present Cabinet, we have little confidence that our Foreign office can extinguish the fierce and irregular passions that are generated by the anomalous construction of society in several parts of the American Union. Can diplomacy accom plish, forsooth, what American statesmanship at Washington finds itself unequal to de termine ? The relations subsisting between Spain and the United States are certainly of a most dan gerous character. " Provisional measures" are all that aro at present discussed by the American Senate, and the settlement of the whole Cuban question seems left to the provi dence of events. That the future is a gloomy one, is visible in the words of the President of the United States, who affirmed not long since that the proximity of Cuba, "its relation to " commercial and other interests" of the States, and the " series of unfriendly acts infringing " commercial rights," cannot long peacefully exist. To an uninitiated eye such language might read like the conventional cant of the American President's prolix messages ; but when we know the subtlety of chose allusions to the " peculiar institution " of slavery, And when we remember that one of the un friendly acts" adverted to. is the Gove:norof Cuba having enrolled negroes in hi , militia, we can discern serious grounds fir a cams belli of no ordinary character. Aimstance that It is a most extraordinary cir democrats of the a Spanish governor of t Indian island We. should be assailed by th. United States for his kberahtY to the coloured populal very democrats were the parti, the present Emperor of A. let towards Hungary, a fact remembered in con nectio) If Prince SCHWARTZEN BERG, between the educa tional dais aid the American laws •Tes. We have never i elation ! Yet these I parties who lectared LUSTRIA in his eowlit 4 A which will Ion( be ;ion with the re rt of 3, on the di rence Austi a ,g teaching 11 iani ist sitliuti sof slay •