The Press. — London, England, 1853-11-12 00:00:00

650 THE LATE AND PRESENT BOARDS OF ADMIRALTY. NOTHING is more delightful than to witness members of the community living laborious days, and scorning nights of ease, from a spirit of pure patriotism uninspired by a In pe of reward ; n othing is more encouraging than to find that such sacrifices, however disinterested, are not always unprofitable, even in a worldly point of view. Thus those honourable and gal lant individuals who last sutnmer devoted we know not how n►nny days, end examined we know not how many witnesses, to make the important discovery that one blacksmith, whose testimonials were sufficient to justify Mr. STAFFORD in promoting him, was incom petent to fill the place to which he was lip pointed, have obtained a judicious recognition of their services. Commodore SEYMOUR, fur the eager baste and excellent taste with which he voluntarily and zealously produced his private eorrespon deuce with Admiral HYDE PARKER, has re ceived a good-service pensiun—to which his professional claims (as far as we are aware of them) are, that the only ship he ever com manded—the Chungihm—was lost oti' the coast of Chili, in a place where we never heard that a vessel was lost before. Commodore EDEN, Superintendent of Wool wich Dockyard, has been made naval aide-de camp to the Queen. Captain CHARLES EDEN (Sir HYDE PARKER'S brother-in-law) has been appointed to the London, 90-gun ship. Sir BALowts WALKER'S claims, of course, were too prominent to be overlooked. His threats of resignation had been so frequent as to be quite a byword at the Admiralty, although the grounds on which they were put were agree ably diversified. At one time he would resign unless his ()thee was removed from Somerset house to Whitehall; at another, unless his paltry salary of IMO/. a year was increased by the addition Of 3001. a year half-pay, against which there is a rule of the naval service. This last request Was that on which he was most. urgent. It was made once, if not twice, to Sir FRANCIS I:Louse—once or twice, if not thrice, to the Duke of NowrnemaLßLAND and it has ben made at length more opportunely to Sir JAMES GRAHAM. By Sir FRANCIS BARING and the Puke of NoarnustsEaLAND it was uniformly refused, as being against a regulation of the service. By Sir JAMES GRAHAM it has been • granted. What are the rules of the service cora pared with the claims of Sir BALDWIN WALKER ? I'o him it is a tribute peculiarly graceful. To violate the regulations of the service, to re ward one who has shown a zeal so disin terested for the purity of the naval adminis tration, only enhances the value of that reward by making it the more conspicuous and striking. Mr. KEATING, too, who attempted to play his part. in the House of Commons, has received a bare acknowledgment in a commissionership. A trio who acted in the drama yet remain to be provided for, and rumour says two of them will not have long to wait. To Admiral BERKELEY, who was the manager of the accusations made against Mr. STArsoßn—and whose son was, during the late administrations, private secre. tiny to Admiral HYPE PARKER—it assigns the chief command of the newly organised coast guard ; and it is norther asserted that Admiral HYDE PARKER. whose good faith and fidelity to his late colleagues were so conspicuous, is to succeed Admiral Prney in the command at the wore. If to make a man happy was thought of old a good day's work. Mr. STAVEORD'S time. when he was persecuted by these patriots, and ran the gauntlet of their cabal, was merito• riously spent. One additien only is now required to crown the whole process, and that is. that the Marylebone vestry should surrender its BENJAMIN to the graver elaims of a grateful Party, and that, in verification of our own jocose prophets, the Hruse of Lords Itottld be shortly adorned by the pre sence of a Lord Flamborough or a Baron Badger. THE PRESS. THE LAST "CANARD "—MR. HAMILTON AT NAPLES. THE leading organ of the ABERDEEN Ministry has gratified its sportive propensity for mis chief by representing that a Mr. H. B. Ham, TON, an English subject, has been wronged and injured by tho Neapolitan police, acting under the orders of their Government—that in his person the honour of England has been outraged—that a treaty between England and the King of the Two Sicilies has been violated— that the compensation awarded to Mr. HAMILTON has been wholly inadequate to the injury he has sustained—that for the violation of the treaty no redress has been offered or even demanded; and that for all this Lord MALMES BURY is, in some vague, mysterious way, re spousible ! First, what are the words of the treaty ? The Times, when stating the stipulations it contained, interpolates "as we are " informed" —" wo are writing without in " spection of the document "—but yet manages to convey the impression that the right of English subjects to open schools at Naples was established thereby. We, too, "are " writing without inspection " of this doer ment ; but we have before us another document—the same on which the statements made by our contemporaries were founded—a pamphlet detailing his wrongs and stating his ease, written by Mr. HAMILTON himuself. Of this we purpose to give sonic account, to enable our readers the better to judge what manner of man Mr•. HAMILTON is—what are those wrongs of which ho complains—what redress he may be entitled to—and on whom the responsibility of obtaining it devolved. First, then, as to the treaty, Mr. HAMILTON'S words are : In our international treaty with the Two Sicilies it is stipulated that all British subjects, and their habitations, shall he exempt from arbitrary proceedings on the part of the police authorities, mid that in no case can their dwell. ings be entered by these latter unless furnished with a warrant from a regularly constituted court of justice. The full liberty to establish ourselves in business in any part of the kingdom is also, upon mutual terms, stipu lated. " To establish ourselves in business" seems to us scarcely to warrant the assumption that by the treaty English subjects have a right to open schools at Naples. The calling of a schoolmaster is certainly in one sense a busi ness ; but the words" establish ourselves in busi " ness " seem to refer more to commercial transactions, to buying and selling, than any thing else—and this view is borne out by the date of the treaty, viz., immediately after that " little war " with Naples which arose out of disputes on the sulphur duties—for apparently this is the treaty which terminated that war. Therefore, unless schoolmasters are eo nomine permitted to" establish themselves in business" at Naples, we do not think that under the treaty, as Mr. HAMILTON states it, they can claim it as a right, but must remain in all re spects under the general law of Naples, which at present seems to be the King's despotic will. NIE. HAMILTON'S school was closed by the police of Naples, acting under the orders of " the highest authority ;" and when Lord MALMESBURY heard of it he pronounced the act to be "contrary to the spirit of the existing " international treaty." Just so—contrary to the spirit but not contrary to the letter. An impression wrongly prevails that this was an exclusively English Protestant school, for Mr. HAMILTON says, " It was officially reported to " the Neapolitan people that it was an act of " retaliation for Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S Durham " letter." But that this impression was erro neous Mr. HAMILTON clearly shows. He says each pupil attended "the rev. gentleman * * " pointed out to me "by his parents. The pupils on behalf of whom this choice was to be exercised apparently consisted of " many " Turks, Jews, Arabs, Cophts, Greeks, Ro " man Catholics, and Protestants ;" and this diversity of nationality, whilst it afforded a varied selection of " teverend Gentlemen," strips the act of any special spite against Pro testants as such, and perhaps accounts for the great proficiency in languages which Mr. HAMILTON'S pupils are said to have attained : "each could speak four at the least"—indeed, SATURDAY, this must have been to them a leading ne. cessity, for Turks, Jews, Arabs, Cophts, Greeks, Roman Catholics, and Protestants would almost equal in Babel diversity of tongues the College of the Propaganda at Roiue. The parents of the pupils, we are vaguely told, were warned in anonymous letters to remove their children from the school : While att.he Villa Volpieelli itself, it would happen that, just as well.* in the heat and the pleasure of study, a iiolent knocking and ringing at the door would be heard, and the next moment a pale and breathless servant would rush into the schoobroom, exclaiming, " Eccellchza, lu Puliziu !" Phis illegal interruption always occasioned great terror, and consequent coftfusion. The professors jumped out of their chairs ; the teachers put on their hats, to try to ap. pear to be only visitors ; the till ushers knelt down to make themselves look like little boys; and the pupils either leapt from the windows into the garden below, or else secreted themselves under the desks and tables. We will suggest a meaning to this exhibition presently, but here is the pathetic scene in Ivhich this happy family was dispersed. First, the pollee order them to quit the premises and never more return, under the penalty of being sent to prison : As may be supposed, the poor boys did not wait to hear the threat repeated, but forthwith rushed out of the behoel iu the utmost dismay and confusion, equally neglecting to take their caps, and to make their bows, before leaving the room. Some of them, to secrete themselvea, climbed up trees in the public promenade called Villa Reale ; others took boats and sailed out to sea, or ran into the back par lours of shops where they were known—fur in their alarm and inexperience they imagined that every wan they saw was a police-agent seeking to incarcerate them. Finally, they were all collected and forwarded home to their respective parents, in the several commies where they re sided, by the very kind orders of his Excellency the British Minister. And now it is duo to Mr. HAMILTON to give some idea of the peculiarities that distin guished his school from schools in general. Religious instruction was a blank, but here is one of the branches of study pursued : WHISTLINO.—It may, perhaps, bo a matter of surprise that irhiptling should be seriously professed and taught in an educational establishment. _ But when it is considered that whatever talents a young person may show should, as regards his success in life, be fostered and developed; when we reflect how many gentle natures there are that instinctively tit an appropriate air of harmony to every occurrence of life, whether joyilil or sorrowful ; when we are reminded that whistling encou• rages thought, and agreeably occupies many of those other wise lost momenta of will be found that practising good whistling was not only a pardonable but even a philu• sophical amusement. Here, then, it strikes us we may have found the clue to the closing of Mr. HAMILTON's school at Naples. Anywhere, even here, in this free but inharmonious England, these philo sophical young bullfinches would have been a nuisance that might have been suppressed by law ; but there, at Naples, the throbbing heart of the despotic land of sons must have almost burst to hear these juvenile " Turks, " Jews, Arabs, Cophts, Greeks. Roman Catho " lies, and Protestants," "just as they were in the heat and pleasure of study," whistling, perhaps, for all we are informed by Mr HAMILTON, in their philosophical mood, the " Marseillaise," or the " Ca ira." Need we after this pursue the subject—the private letter of the Sicilian Ambassador, which Mr. HAMILTON repeats, although he only heard it read once—Lord MALMESBURY's dignified suggestion that there must be a mis take in the name, &c. &c.? But, even if injiii tice has been done to Mr. HAMILTON—even if a treaty has been violated, and inadequate com pensation awarded for the one, and no apology made for the other—on Lord MALMESSUSI at all events the responsibility cannot fall. Mr. HAMILTON'S alleged persecution , , commenced in IKSO, when Lord PALMERSToN was Foreign Secretary. Lord MALMESISCRY. indeed, when he was in office, procured for him a present of 100/. But, as to the conclu sion, Mr. HAMILTON shall speak for himself now sent a humble petition to the new Foreign Sem tary, the Earl of Clarendon, imploring his lordship to iii lestigate the matter; but was informed by return of post that, as i had taken the King of 'Naples' present, his lord ship was resolved not to have the case reconsidered at the Foreign-office. _ - - Thus the Foreign Minister who has slighted —if slighted they were—the claims of a Bri tish subject. and, rightly or wrongly, has left him to '• whistle " for comrensation, is not Lord MAINIESBURY, whom the Tines studiously attacked, but Lord CLARENDON, whom it did not even name.