The Press. — London, England, 1858-01-09 00:00:00

Iwnelm ser THE PRESS, JANUAR! 9, 1858. having destroyed the city and driven out the rebels, and established his communications with Cawnpore, to have returned personally to Cawnpore, and, at the head of that garrison, then reinforced by arrival of successive detachments from Calcutta, to have secured his base of operations by the defeat of the Gwalior rebels. Able in design, the plan only wanted the one element—sufficient force—to insure its brilliant and successful execution. But mark the result of that bane of all our opera tions since the revolt broke out—insufficient force. Sir Court, barely able to achieve the relief of Lucknow, is wholly unable to maintain his position there. His men, overworked, require at least a week or ten days' rest The city of Lucknow, cleared of rebels for one day, swarms with them the next. The position of Sir Cow( threatens to become critical. He cannot leave his army to carry out his plans and effect a surprise of the Gwalior rebels, who in these fatally inactive days advance upon Cawnpore, encounter 2,000 British troops, and defeat them. Upon this Sir Court, in just fear for his base, is com pelled not to return to Cawnpore, but to retreat hither with his whole, army, and evacuate a position won at the cost of so much life and so much blood. What effect this will have upon the native mind it is not difficult to conceive ; and though it is easy to attribute it to " the for tune of war," we apprehend the good sense of the country, when it thus perceives the hard-bought victories of our soldiers so cruelly neutral ised, and their bravest efforts of no avail, will demand by whose igno rance and incapacity such inadequate forces are only at the disposal of our generals. In another part of our impression of to-day will be found remarks on the abuse of the public patronage. In connection with the nomi nation of the Marquis of CLaNarcaanz to the Cabinet there is a special point that demands notice. Before it was known that the 'late JOHN SADLEIR was engaged in forgery, a trial in the Court of Exchequer in Ireland disclosed the fact that SADLEIR had been mixed up in an elec tioneering scandal relative to the arrest of a voter at Carlow, in order to prevent the exercise of his suffrage at a closely-contested election. Lord ABERDEEN insisted that SADLEIR should at once resign his con nection with the Ministry on account of the circumstance to which wo have alluded. But nothing was said on that occasion against SADLEIR which at all approached the gravity of the charges made by the Times against Lord CLANRICARDE, as well as the damaging insinuations against the Noble Marquis which came from the lips of the then Soli citor-General for Ireland (now Mr. Justice KEOGH), while pleading in the Handcock case before the Lord-Chancellor of Ireland. Mr. KEOGH'S invective against the Noble Lord was received with vehement cheers from a crowded court, some of the applause being given to the rhetorical powers of the speaker, and the rest being an effusion of anti-Clanricarde feeling. Let the charges made against SADLEIR in Dowurr's case, with respect to the collusive arrest, be compared with those of Lord I_,LANRICARDE in the Handcock case, and it will be seen that the accusation against the Peer far exceeded that against the ex-Lord of the Treasury. It may be said that Lord CLAN* RIOARDE has denied the truth of the charges in the Times, but SADLEIR also positively denied that he had been privy to the intentional arrest in the Carlow case. And if Lord CLANRIOARDE has denied these charges, we are entitled to ask where, when, and how did the Noble Marquis vindicate his honour? Was it in the public press? We saw no refu tation of the statements made against him. Was it in the courts of law? It was before legal tribunals that the Noble Lord was most gravely compromised. Was it in the House of Lords ? We never heard of the Noble Marquis having, as is the custom in such cases, made any explanation to the Peers of the realm. Considerations like these we have now suggested will make it absolutely impossible that Parliament could ever consent to give confidence and support to a Cabinet which has so violated all proper routine, and has so outraged public feeling, by making an appointment which if persevered in will I be a positive calamity to the public service. The inauguration of Church Services for the Working Classes took place on Sunday last. We cannot but hail with peculiar satisfac tion so promising a symptom of Church revival. We accept it as a token that the views so steadily put forward by this Journal for the last eighteen months have fallen upon minds predisposed to their reception, and that the great body of sound Churchmen in this country are willing to make an effort at that unity of action we have so greatly desiderated. We are unfeignedly glad to perceive the association of opposite parties in this good work. As soon as High Churchmen and Low Churchmen shall make up their minds that the good of the Church herself is to be preferred to the apotheosis of their own pecu liar tenets, we may look with less anxiety on the designs of her ene mies both within and without her pale. Thus much of the clergy them selves. To their congregations we can do no more than repeat what has already been !pointed out by the daily press. It is clear that if these services are to achieve the end proposed, it must be by making them available to that class for whose sake they were instituted. It is no good to have an evening service in West minster Abbey nominally for the poor, who can benefit by the excellence of our Liturgy at no other time, but really for their wealthier fellow•creatures, whose morbid piety delights in abnormal devotion. If ,the attempt is to succeed, we must at once enforce a recognition of the fact that these services are no more for the rich than ragged schools are for the children of the rich. We must assuredly get rid of anything approaching to an histrionic element in their celebration. The crowding, fighting, and swearing outside the doors are but a sorry preparation for the spiritual instruction within; and as the coarser will overcome the finer tendency, so we may be THE WEEK. Tss death of Ilmtoox is a profound grief. It has taken the nation by surprise, and excited the bitterest regret that our glory should be so dearly bought. Few men have held a firmer place in the heart of the nation. Sprung from an ancient race, his mild and un ulemished manners, and his sincere- religious convictions, had for years endeared him to his friends ; but when the opportunity arrived for him to:display greater qualities, he exhibited the rare union of high courage with great prudence and profound experience in the art of war. At the head of a force less formidable by its numbers than by Its discipline and valour, like a hero, careless of his fate, conscious of his danger, but deriving confidence from the resources of his mind, and from the courage of his men, he advanced upon that memorable march from Allahabad, took the first step to rescue the Indian empire from the perils surrounding it, and sprung at once to a foremost position before Europe Although his career has been brief, every moment has been filled with some memorable achievement which endeared him to his countrymen, and excited the envy and admiration of the world. We need not here record those deeds in detail. But rarely has a general achieved so much with means so small. In every battle terribly outnumbered by a desperate enemy, he baffled those superior numbers by superior skill, and defeated them by an in domitable daring which tore victory from their ranks at the point of the bayonet, and under circumstances which peculiarly marked his genius and elevated his character as a general. The rules of war are strict ; but HAVELOCK, without breaking them, bent them to his purpose. Without transport or tents, with little food and less stores, he plunged into the heart of an enemy's country, and directing all his operations to one important end, marched upon and captured Cawnpore ; and if in the first instance he failed to reach Lucknow, he gloriously redeemed his promise to carry relief to the beleaguered gar rison. After a career so brilliant, that it should be so brief excites but one feeling. But he sank at last under the weight of an enemy more formidable than the rebels. Overwork and over-anxiety have stricken him down ; and the name of another, and a greater hero, is graven on that melancholy tablet of our dead which excite the sym pathy and sorrow of every true heart throughout the country. In general we are not disposed to place much reliance upon the official telegrams received from India. They are notoriously inaccu rate ; they mistake dates and details, and give to figures an inordinate disproportion ; but unhappily for the credit of the authorities these errors, without exception, hive ever been in favour of the Government. When, therefore, we receive bad news, we may rely upon what is stated as being tolerably correct. There are other circumstances:connected with the telegram this week which induce us to put some degree of faith in its statements. It was received in London on Wednesday afternoon. It was not given to the evening papers, but kept compara tively secret for many hours, and at the last moment sent round in time for Thursday's daily journals. On the whole, therefore, we arc disposed to accept the statements it contains. They are of a chequered nature. The death of that hero HAVELOCK, the defeat of WirmitAia, the retreat of Sir COLIN CAMPBELL from Lucknow, and the surprise and defeat by him of the Gwalior rebels. The two most important items, the death of HAvsLoos and the defeat of WINDHAM, can scarcely be inclnded in that capacious category called " the fortune of war." Dysentery and death, and the defeat of British troops, are rather the misfortunes of war. True the one may be retrieved—but it takes many victories to wipe out a defeat—yet the other is irredeemable. The defeat of General WINDHAM, temporary as it was, and in all probability owing to too free an exercise in the presence of an active and numerous enemy of that daring conrage for which ho is pre-eminent, yet appears to have been attended with a loss which must inflict a very serious in convenience upon the army now assembling at Cawnpore. We are told that 3,000 of our tents were captured and burned by the enemy. This is covering for an army of 20,000 men. The supply of tents in Calcutta is extremely narrow ; these tents were only collected with the greatest difficulty, and had been despatched by river to Cawnpore in •order to be in readiness for the arrival of the troops. At one blow, therefore, our men in the rapidly approaching hot season have been 'deprived by the enemy of that shelter so essential to Europeans in the conduct of a campaign in India. We sincerely hope that there may be some error here in the number, and that the same ingenuity which magnified Sir COLIN CAMPBELL'S escort to Alumbagh from 500 to 5,000 may have been happily exercised on the present occasion. With respect to Sir COLIN CAMPBELL'S return to Cawnporo two opinions are expressed —one, that on hearing of WINDHAM'S misfortune he rapidly returned alone to Cawnpore, and, assuming the command, set matters to rights by inflicting with the garrison of Cawnpore such a defeat on the Gwalior rebels as they will not easily forget ; the other is that he returned with his whole force from Lucknow. This opinion we are disposed to adopt, and for the simple reason that the fact of his retreat from Lacknow—or at least of his intention to do so—was known to the home authorities before last Wednesday. We cannot but regret the step. Sir CoLiN's original plan of action we have reason to believe was first to effect the relief of the garrison at Lucknow, and, PEMPIONAiIiaI