The Press. — London, England, 1855-08-18 00:00:00

'Y/6 can become have been taught that systematic personal abuse of leaders of the Conservative party cannot be performed with impunity. THE BALTIC TRIUMPHS. Iv the subject were not quite so serious, it would be laughable to note the feverish ex ultation which appears to characterise the popular voice in this country upon the receipt of any intelligence of success from either the Baltic or the Black Sea. No details are waited for, no comparisons between the rela tive forces of the contending parties made ; everything short of disaster is accepted as a success ; the mere fact of a bombardment taking place is a triumph, and its consequent conflagration a conquest. A vast stronghold of Russia in the Baltic is declared upon all sides to be destroyed, her loss estimated as terrific, and the road admitted now to be clearly open for the easy destruction of St. Petersburg! From what, in this instance, all these extrava gant deductions have been drawn, it is diffi cult to say. The despatches of the Admirals are so vague, that nothing of any value can he extracted from them, beyond the fact that the fortresses of Sweaborg were bombarded for forty-five hours, and that their estimated loss is very severe, while ours is nominal. No further facts are given, no mention made of the fire of the Russian batteries being silenced, or whether even they ever opened at all upon the mortar-vessels, and no further attempt appears to have been made to test the success of the bombardment by bringing up the liners to force the passage, or even anchoring them within point-blank range of the fortresses. We confess, for our own part, that as yet we regard the affair as a mere experiment, rather partial than otherwise, to test the capabilities of the mortar-vessels, and unless it be well followed up, the granite batteries of Sweaborg really destroyed, and our fleet force its way into the harbour—then, and not till then, shall we consider that Russia has experienced a most sensible defeat, and that we have achieved a most undoubted triumph. But at present we see no reason to believe that any such success has been obtained, nor that the batteries, as said to be, are a heap of ruins, or even very materially injured. Admiral PENAUD in his despatch is very vague, though he mentions the arsenal as being in ruins ; and Admiral DUNDAS clearly limits the destruction and con flagration to the two islands Vargon and Svarto, while we know very well that Swea borg and its principal forts lie upon a cluster of four or five islands, connected with stone bridges, and mounting from 800 to 1,200 guns in their granite batteries. Furthermore, on the eastern main some powerful earthworks have been thrown up to command the narrow passage, and within the harbour are several islets, mounted each with heavy batteries, while the town of Helsingfors itself is said to be defended by solid and stupendous works. Upon the islands of Vargon, and Great and Little Svarto, are several government build ings, stores, arsenal, and docks, the latter hewn out of the solid rock. It is probably these former which, from a forty five hours' bombardment, have taken fire and been burnt to the ground ; but until we have some better proof than the mere estimation of the allied Admirals we can scarcely believe that the Russian losses have been very enormous, or that the granite batteries faced with earth—no very inflammable substance it must be con ceded—have been successfully destroyed. The future operations of the fleet will be the test, and most sincerely do we trust that no false humanity, worn a desire to spare life or the city of Helsingfors, will induce the allied Ad mirals to withdraw definitively from the spot without the most complete and ample success, if such be really practicable. After fifteen mouths' procrastination, we have struck a blow at last, and let us follow it up ; for whatever is worth doing is worth doing well, and we anti cipate with some little anxiety the intelligence of the ulterior operations of this portion of the fleet. At present we have no cause for extra vagant nijoleings ; on the contrary, if any THE PRESS. great success has been easily attained, it be comes as much a matter for self-reproach that it was not attempted somewhat earlier in this, a fifteen months' war : a few ouch hard blows twelve months ago, when Sir CHARLES NAPIER was incessantly begging for gun and mortar boats, might have orotight Russia to reason, have spared the Sebastopol campaign, and have raised our credit and glory to the highest pitch, while it would have taught Russia a lesson that a century would not have eradicated. Not that a series of successive and well-directed blows would not now affect Russia, but any defeat inflicted has lost much of its terrors : they are prepared for attack, have been long waiting for it, and have taunted us with our inactivity. Like a surprise, prepara tion is half the battle ; and moreover the Rue sians are now more or less regarded as martyrs, waging heroically, and as yet not unsuccess fully, a tremendous war at both extremities of its vast empire against the two most powerful na tions of Europe. While we, with our credit rather tarnished on the whole, with all our vast means, our science, our preparation, have hitherto obtained but questionable successes. How much have all the talents of '54 to an swer for ? SIR CHARLES WOOD AND MR. LINDSAY. SLR CHARLES WOOD has neither enjoyed a brief ,triumph over, nor even a short release from, that thorn in his side " the Tynemouth shipowner. Mr. LINDSAY, in a pamphlet of some sixty pages, has returned to the charge of his Drury-Lane assertions with tenfold vigour ; and taking up, seriatim et verbatim, Sir CHARLES WOOD'S denials in the House of those imputations against the conduct of the Admiralty in various matters connected with the Transport Service, he thoroughly exposes the mystifications of Sir CHARLES WOOD'S defence, and more strongly than ever fixes his charge of gross mismanagement upon the Board of Ad miralty. The incompetence of a Whig Board of Admiralty is traditional. To seek for proof we need go no farther back than the days of Sir CHARLES ADAM, when he boasted in the Rouse of our maritime resources against invasion comprising two liners and a guard-ship. Since that creditable admission it would be a long work to count up the blunders, failures, and extravagance, which has, more or less, been characteristic of every Whig I Board that the country has had the misfortune to endure. True to their principles, the existing Board of Admiraity have endeavoured, particularly in the Transport Department, to combine the utmost waste of money with the least possible result. "My Lords " in that department have revelled in a " liberty of negligence and a superfluity of means " to a degree that must have excited painful regrets among the ghosts of departed Whig Lords. We are no admirers of Mr. LINDSAY or of his party of Administrative Reformers ; but no one who reads his pamphlet will deny that he has incontestably the best of the argument with the Admiralty—that he brings home his charges with force and truth—and that he as fully establishes them as he disproves the counter charges brought against him by Sir CHARLES WOOD. . _ We have not space to enter into his charges in de tail—they will be well remembered—the ship ordered from Deptford to Newcastle, en route to the Crimea ; the 2,649 horses for the army in England for two months, because the steam-transports bad not re- turned from the Black Sea, though a fleet of sailing ships could have been obtained, at 16s. a ton, early in March, instead of steamers at 60s. a ton, in May ; the refusal of the Admiralty, ata most pressing time for the at my, upon some ridiculous rule or other, to hire ships for transport, which upon their refusal were imme diately after taken up by the French Government; the gross errors of the printed transport returns, which Sir CHARLES WOOD excused on the plea of general ignorance ; and, finally, the wilful misstate ments and prevarications which Sir CHARLES WooD appears to have persisted in throughout his speech ; all these points are taken up seriatim, and apparently proved. But there is one case which Mr. LINDSAY appears to have been at some pains to elucidate. We all remember the circumstance of the Perseverance, a steamer, turning a summerset, one day in the dry-dock at Woolwich, hut we never could get at the reason of that remarkable accident. The true state of the case, upon the authority of Mr. LINDSAY, is as follows : She was a ship built especially for speed, with fair space, beautifully proportioned, and with flush deck. The Admiralty, however, were bent upon improvement : the ship was docked at Woolwich, and fitted with poop and forecsatle—possibly because no such thing was cur SATURDAY, heard of in the last war as a Government transport without a huge poop to form a quarter-deck. Possibly, also, the next step was to keep up the official dignity of the ship. Her original owners intended to fit her with brigatine masts and yards, but, according to " Establishment," arli regardless of her symetrical proportions and narrow beam, her Majesty's servants of the Admiralty rigged her out with the masts and yards of a seventy-four, and put on board the anchors of a seventy-four; and were so marvelously successful in their amendments upon the due proporti ons of masts, spars, and bull, that the ship overset in the dock, her towering masts and spars dashed in the roof and wall of the new saw-mills, whilst the hull drove out of place and even broke some of the massive blocks of granite of the quay wall. After this mishap there were no more attempts to make the ship stand up under the masts of a seventy-four; she was sent away to Sheerness, and fitted with more humble masts. Thus masted, and after so much mischief and delay, the original proprietors were appealed to, to appoint her officers and equip her for sea. The captain was a man of expe rience,—the ship herself had shaken off the Admiralty masts, bat neither ship nor captain could get rid of the Admiralty anchors; go she must with the anchors of a seventy-four, thirteen tons weight, and worth DOM., when her own proper anchors would have cost 3001., and would not have weighed seven tons. - Now, was ever such a case of flagrant incapacity as this? Which was the "official cat" guilty here? This case surely could be brought home to some one, for where was the necessity to alter tht) vessel's rig at all? But the public are used to these lamentable failures in the Admiralty, and whether the Perseverance topples over, or a floating battery refuses to steer, or a ship fails to carry her armament, the blunder must be accepted as an in evitable necessity, and endured on the homely prin.. ciple that it is not to be cured, as long as a Whig Board is in office. The poverty of Sir CHARLES WOOD'S defence h singularly exemplified by his attempting to bring charges in return against Mr. LINDSAY. A "tu quoque " is at all times the feeblest of retorts, but the cases of Admiralty mismanagement and personal failure are not at all analogous. In the one case, the public pay the very preposterous piper who is always coming to our doors with his book in his hand; and in the other, the individual shipowner bears his own losses. But we cannot agree with Mr. LINDSAY that the cure for all this mismanagement is the appointment of a naval man to the head of the Board, or of a great shipowner to the post, like Mr. LINDSAY himself, for instance. We quite agree with Mr. LINDSAY that the First Lord of the Admiralty, as well as all the members of that Board, ought to be fully acquainted with maritime business, but we don't want a First Lord from Mr. LINDSAY'S peculiai school. Mr. LINDSAY is a man who by industry and frngality has worked his way up in life from the position of a cabin-boy to that of a wealthy merchant. So much the more credit to him; and we should be quitewi,li g to accept his industry without his frugality as an excel lent qualification for a First Lord. Mr. LINDSAY may rail, and justly, at " profuse waste," yet we must have a liberal expenditure. All that we need is a sound and vigorous Cabinet united in their policy, fitted for their departments, and determined to educe the resources and skill of this country in the successful prosecution of this war—to use them liberally without extravagance, in such a manner as shall contribute to the most successful result. That this has not been done yet, the Sebastopol Com mittee and Mr. LINDSAY'S pamphlet sufficiently show : that it would be accomplished by a Cabinet of Admin sitrative Reformers, who, as Rabelais says, Can, after all, do nothing But new-vamp rusty saws, no one with a grain of that common sense Mr. LINDSAY is so fond of, believes for a moment. Meanwhile we should like to receive Sir CHARLES WOOD'S reply to this pamphlet. THE official statement regarding the results of the applications for the New French Loan has at length been issued. The number of subscribers actually amounts to 316,864. The capital subscribed for is 3,652,591,985f.—name1y, subscriptions of 50f. and under, which are not to be reduced, 231,920,155 f.; of 60f. and upwards, subject to proportionate reduc tion, 3,420,671,830 f. The departments have furnished 236.577 i.nbscribers for an amount of 1,118,703,535 f. The 2,538,888,450 f. subscribed in Paris included about 600 millions from abroad. The tenth part dc.. posited in Paris and in the departments by way of guarantee forms a total of 365,259,198 f. The Minister of Finance, in order to prevent the unneces sary absorption of so large an amount of capital in excess of the ten per cent. instalment required on the subscription, began to repay the subscribers in Paris on the day succeeding the closing of the applications, and upwards of 5,000,0001. has been reimbursed to the subscribers, thus leaving about 0,500,0001. to be still returned. FOR the last twelve months not a single expedition has taken place, nor a single gun been fired, in Algeria. This is the first time since 1830 that such a remark could be made. - 7 1 F F -"