The Press. — London, England, 1854-04-22 00:00:00

364 THE LAW OF PARTNERSHIP. MORE than a month ago we called attention to the important subject of the limitation of partnership lia bility. Since then the Liverpool Chamber of Commerec has, after full discussion, adopted a resolution in favour of the proposed change, viz., that it would be politic and expedient to limit the liability of each partner or shareholder in any copartnership or asso ciation to the amount which he has subscribed to its funds, so that credit may be given to the capital sub scribed, and not to the individual subscribing it. Mr. FIELD, a solicitor of great experience, states in a pamphlet to which we alluded on a former occasion that " there is much opposition of opinion on the subject in question among the members of our present Government. The usual, and in this case, I think, unworthy, resource of appointing a Government Commission has been resorted to. The members of the Cabinet have referred This one of their differences to an arbitrator. Of course the report will depend on who are appointed upon the Commission. A Government Commission to determine a mere dry scien tific truth is strange enough; still stranger, to determine one on which all our great political economists (J. b. Mill and others) are already agreed." To deliberate is doubtless wise, but even virtue may be carried to excess. Surely if, as Mr. FIELD states, " all our great political economists " and the Liver pool Chamber of Commerce have formed an opinion on the subject, the Government may, without the imputation of rashness or levity, express one also. Ample experience of the working of the system is visible in America, France, and other nations. At the present moment, and for many months pre viously, legislation on this subject was peculiarly de sirable. Yet, with every incentive to action and ex pedition, the only assurance lately furnished to us that the long-delayed report will be forthcoming is a statement Mr. CARDWELL made before the Easter recess that "he had hoped to have that evening " laid upon the table of the House the Report of " the Commissioners upon the Law of Partnership, " especially as to the limitation of liability; but he " had received a communication from the secretary, " informing him that the Commissioners would meet " on the following day (Wednesday), and therefore " this would be impossible. lie hoped, however, " that the report would be laid upon the table im " mediately after the Easter recess." So do we ; but, " after the long delay and the failure of past hopes, we fear the wished-for consummation is as uncertain and problematical as was the return of " Malbrook " from the wars : " When will he come back again ? Perhaps at Easter it may be, Or perhaps not till Trinity." COLLEGE FELLOWSHIPS. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—Will you kindly allow me a few lines for a suggestion respecting the tenure of College Fellow ships? It is this, that a Fellow of certain standing— say an M.A. of four years, and in Priest's orders— should be allowed to vacate his fellowship and yet remain on the list for the College Church preferment. The acquisition of landed property, or of a living, above a certain amount, should make his claim ipso facto void. Undoubtedly a quicker succession to Fellowships (an object which certain proposed enactments seem to have in view) would thus be secured. According to my idea, a Clerical Fellow who was not inclined, or nct fortunate enough, to be appointed upon the College staff, would hold his Fellowship some five or six years, then vacate it by marriage, and take a curacy. A man, I grant, might have to wait a little longer for a living, but I will answer for it that a married curate of five-and-forty years of age would be better fitted to work a parish than a man of five and-thirty, whose previous life had been spent in College.—Yours faithfully, B.A. DEAN NOWELL wag the accidental inventor of bottled ale. He was out fishing with a bottle of the freshly-drawn beverage at his side, when intelligence reached him touching the peril his life was in, under Mary, which made him fly, after flinging away his rod, and thrusting his bottle of ale under the grass. When he could again safely resort to the same spot, he looked for his bottle, which, on being disturbed, drove out the cork like a pellet from a gun, and contained so creamy a fluid, that the dean, noticing the fact, said rejoicing therein, took care to be well provided with the same thenceforward.—Table Traits, by Dr. Doran. THE PRESS. NOTES ON THE NAVY. No. I 11.—" THE COUNTRY'S EXPECTATIONS." THERE was something very significant in the part ing speech of Sir Charles Napier at Portsmouth. It will be recollected that he referred to the novelty of the experiment of a steam-fleet, to the suddenness with which the crews were enrolled, and also to the great expectations of the country. The confident tone of the people in relation to all connected with the "Blue Jackets" was well echoed by Lord Pal merston when he said in one of his speeches last autumn that " We had a navy which could go any where, and do anything," a form of expression once used by the Duke of Wellington before a parliamen Lary committee in characterising the Peninsular army of 1814, after it had undergone its glorious campaigns. If maritime success, if the storming of towns and the destruction of fleets, depended solely upon enterprise and experience in the officers, and dare devil heroism in the men, the events pending in the Baltic might be waited for with apathy. But in war of every kind, by land and sea, there is proverbial uncertainty. Madame de Stael once said that the world was ruled by " ce grand mat de circonstance," and it might bo well for us to recollect that the history of England in the last war records unlooked for reverses as well as unexpected victories. The same Cabinet presided over our destinies when Tala vera was won, and the Walcheren expedition was planned. Nay, more, it was the same Minister (Castlereagh) who organised the unfortunate expe dition, and who had the merit of forcing the Cabinet to name Sir Arthur Wellesley to the command in Portugal. Who could have anticipated that in &period of seven short years events so dissimilar as those that occurred at Walcheren and Waterloo could ever be narrated by a historian ? But even the annals of our glorious navy, and the biography of our immortal Nelson, might teach us not too blindly to expect marvellous achievements all at once. For example, in all Nelson's soul-stirring exploits there is nothing which Englishmen read with more delight than his combination of audacious enterprise, skilful measures, and personal heroism, displayed by him almost to perfection at Copenhagen. Yet in the very summer of the year in which he so much dis tinguished himself he met with a decided repulse. The failure of his attempt on the flotilla at Boulogne is well worth recording. Mark what the naval histo rian (James) says:— " The port of Boulogne was to be the central rendezvous of the grand flotilla ; and on the 12th of July Buonaparto issued an order for the assemblage there of nine divisions of grin-vessels, and of the same number of battalions of troops, besides several detachments of artillery to serve the guns on board the flotilla. Of which flotilla Rear- Admiral Rene-Madeleine La Touche- Treville was appointed the commander-in-chief, with directions to exercise the troops in ship-working, in firing the guns, in boarding, and in getting in and out of the vessels. "These preparations, exaggerated as they were by the French journals, spread no slight degree of alarm on the shores of England, and caused corresponding preparations, in the defensive way, to be made by the British Govern ment. Among other measures taken to calm the public mind was the appointment of Vice _Admiral Lord Nelson to the chief command of the defence constructing and collecting along the coast from Orfordness to Beachy Head." Nelson, after taking his measures, gave the order for the attack on the 15th of August. What became of the first division / " The first division, under Captain Somerville. ork getting near to the shore, was carried by the current con siderably to the eastward of Boulogne Bay. Finding it impracticable to reach the French flotilla in the order pre. scribed, Captain Somerville ordered the boats to cast each other off and make the best of their way. By this means, at a little before the dawn of day on the lfith, some of the leading boats got up to and attacked a brig. lying ()lose to the pier-head ; and, after a sharp contest, carried the vessel, but were prevented from carrying her off, owing to her being secured with a chain, and owing to a heavy fire of musketry and grape-shot, opened as well from the shore as from three loggers and a second brig, lying within half pistol-shot of the first. Thus compelled to abandon their prize, and the daylight putting a stop to further operations, the boats of the first division pushed out of the bay. The persevering efforts of the officers and men of this division had cost them dearly." And how fared the second division ? " The second division, under Captain Parker, was more successful than the first in meeting less obstacles from the current, and at about half an honr past midnight got to the scene of action. One subdivision of the boats, led by the captain, immediately ran alongside of a large brig, the Biota, moored off the Mole head, wearing the broad pendant of Commodore Etienne Pevrieux. Nothing could exceed the impetuosity of the attack ; but a very strong netting, traced up to the brig's lower yards, baffled all the endeavours of the British to board, and an instan• taneona discharge of her great guns and small•arms, the latter from about 200 soldiers stationed on the gunwale SATURDAY, knocked backed into their boats nearly the whole of the assailants. The second subdivision, under Lieutenant Williams, carried a lugger, but, in attacking a brig, the Volean, met with a repulse, and was obliged to retire with the other subdivision. The loss sustained by the British, in the two subdivisions, proved with what obstinacy the contest had been maintained." Had the third any better success?— "The third division, under Captain Cotgrave, displayed the same gallantry, and experienced nearly the same oppo sition as the two others had done ; and was equally com pelled to retire without effecting the object." And the historian closes a lengthened account of the failure of our gallant officers and men by frankly stating, " Of course the French boasted—most cer tainly not without reason—of the successful oppo sition they had made to the persevering assaults of the British." Our naval records are so refulgent with glory that we can read of such results without the least sense of humiliation. At the same time, re collecting that such failure (in which there was nothing dishonourable) took place at a time when a St. Vincent was First Lord of the Admiralty, and when the hero of the Nile and Copenhagen was the chief of the expedition, one is disposed to subdue that vaunting sense of looking for prodigies, and to recollect that there are circumstances when the flight of a foe prevents any contest for glory, and where a singular assemblage of purely physical obstacles may interpose barriers to the action of large ships-of-war. The three-decker Neptune against a battery may be in nocuous in shoal waters. Accidents like that which happened to the huge L'Orient at Aboukir are inci dental to ships of all nations. The winds themselves at more than one eventful crisis have been the unsubsi dised allies of nations in peril. Fleets that would not have flinched from the most dreadful cannonade have been divided and defeated by a tempest. " Fortune favours the brave," but with her peculiar fickleness she often refutes ;he maxim ; when she does not put to flight she can poison by disease. When she can • not spread dismay she can sow the seeds of disap pointment. It is a sense of the difficulty of getting close to the foe in the Baltic that makes nautical men turn their thoughts so anxiously to the course of the brave " Old Charley" and his gallant followers. It is very curious to observe that, though naval opinions are not unanimous as to the exact course likely to be followed by Napier in the North, there is little difference as to what might, could, should, and ought to have been done in the Black Sea. Between the difficulties that meet a Napier and a Dundas there is the same degree of difference as between riding a steeplechase in Cornwall and West Surrey, or in driving a four-in-hand in a dark night through the Highlands, and whipping a curricle round the ring at Hyde-park in an afternoon. The English, though capable of great enthusiasm, are not prone to ex travagance of expectations. They can see how eases differ, and how, on a change of circumstances, what was deemed impossible might turn out to be prac ticable. They are ready to take account of difficul ties placed before them without exaggeration—to exonerate a Keppel, to condemn a Byng, or to call for explanations in the case (it may be) of a Dundas. Innocence accused excites their sympathies ; in competence uncensured, and inactivity unaided, provoke their indignation. Yet even in their anger an English people would seek to be thoroughly assured where the real cause of failure was to be found. They would be too great—too magnani mous—to accuse a dilatory admiral without finding out the secret instructions which, in bewildering the council of his officers, might have paralysed his pur poses, and helped the enemy better than a hurri cane. They would not waste their volleys of dis approbation against the quarter-deck while they could rake the Cabinet Council. An electioneering admiral might excite a sneer. An effete Minister, an intriguing Premier with cold heart and muddy understanding, a distracted Cabinet, a Foreign Secretary that gives " forked counsel," an impotent policy, no results, beyond that of Europe wondering at our delay—these are things that would raise a national cry that England expects every man will support a Napier, but scout an Aberdeen. PILOT. [To be continuedl THE increase and diminution which had taken place last year in the public departments are shown in a re turn just printed. The chief item of increase is set down to the Post-office, in which department 1,220 more persons have been engaged, at salaries amount ing to 20,858/. ; the convict establishment also had 109 more servants than in 1852 ; the Customs, 07 ; Stamps and Taxes, 59. On the other hand, the Ex cise has 207 less, and the consequent saving is 24,7341.; but there is an increase in the same depart ment, under the head of " expenses," to the extent of 15,7481. The general result is an increase of 1,478 in the number of persons employed in some of the public offices, and a diminution of 230 in others ; in money, an increase of expense in the one set of offices to the extent of 105,072/., and a decrease in others of 48,0131. --