The Press. — London, England, 1856-04-26 00:00:00

Soldiers!—By yoar energy, your resolution, your heroic constancy, your indomitable courage, you, in common with our brave and faithful allies, have conquered peace for the world. I have some right to say so at the sight of so many fields of battle watered by your blood, witnesses of your calm self-sacrifice, and from which your glory has each time risen more radiant and beautiful and crowned your su• blime efforts. You are about to see once more your country, happy in your return ; happy in a glorious peace--a peace signed at the cradle of an Imperial child. Let us be penetrated by this augury ; let us see here a new mark of the Divine protection ; and, if it be necessary, one motive more for the accomplishment of all our duties towards the Emperor and the country. At the General Quarters at Sebastopol, April '2, 1826. The Marshal Commanding in Chief, A. PELISSIER. THE RUSSIANS IN CAMP. The intercourse between the allied armies and the Russians is being extended : There have been some unlawful expeditions made by sundry officers, from the rank of general downwards, across the Tschernaya to Mackenzie'e Farm and the north forts. It is stated that passes will not be required for officers, and there has been a great deal of fraternising between the Russians and English. General Codrington, accompanied by Admiral Fremantle and Colonel Harding, Commandant of lialaklava, proceeded to-day in a steamer towards Yalta, to enjoy the beauties of the coast. M. Androffsky, Aide de Camp to General Ldders, paid a visit to head-quarters to-day, anti rode into 13alsklava and back with General Windham. On Sunday a high mass will be celebrated by the Russians at Mackenzie, after which ther will be an open air ball, and many English and French officers have been invited to be present. Already some officers have penetrated to Baktchi•Serai, and have returned with alarming accounts of the price of eatables, dritikables, and accommodation. Porter, 20 francs a bottle ; champagne, 35 francs a bottle; dinner and bed a small fortune. There are some very hospitable fel- lows among the Russian officers, and they give and take invitations to lunch, dinner, anti supper very freely.--Times tar., April U. The Russians have at length come over in round numbers to the allied camp, and fraternised in real good unwholesome earnest. The men are a dirty, greasy set, and appear to infallibly get very drunk in honour of peace:— The great objects of attraction here to-day were the Russians, who crowded over the Tschernaya, and wandered into every part of our camps, where they soon made out the canteens. By one o'clock there were a good many of them "as soldiers wish to be who love their grog." A navvy of the most stolid kind, much bemused with beer, is a jolly, lively, and intelligent being compared to an intoxicated " Ruski." They are the image of the men in Noah's ark— ] mean that popular article constructed at Nuremberg for Young Europe—stiff and angular, and when they full down it is done with a jerk and a rigidity worthy of Richardson's. Their drunken salute to passing officers is very ludicrous, and one could laugh, only he is disgusted at the abject cringe with which they remove their caps, and bow, bare headed, with horrid gravity in their bleary leaden eyes and wooden faces, at the sight of a piece of gold lace. Some of them seemed very much annoyed at the behaviour of their• comrades, and endeavoured to drag them off from the canteens, and others remained perfectly sober. Our soldiers ran after them in crowds, and fraternised very willingly with their late enemies ; but the Russian officers seemed to hold with the French rather than with ourselves. Towards evening the banks of the Ttsehernaya presented a curious appearance at the fords. The boon companions, French and, English, were shaking hands end bidding most affe2tionate farewells to their Ruski comrades, who had to cross over before the rappel. In places this was easier said than done, for the only mode of crossing was on balks of timber, which looked double to their vision, but in reality were narrow enough for a sober man to find some difficulty in crossing; so ever and anon the Ruski tumbled off amid shouts of laughter, and was pulled out half drowned. A grim guard, with fixed bayonets, envious probably of the }savoy condition of their comrades, was waiting for them at the other side, and the bank was patrolled by Cossacks, with ropes, all ready to tie up any " incapable " and take him homewards. Down they came, staggering and roaring through the bones of their country men (which in common decency I hope they will bury as soon as possible), and then, after elaborate leave-taking, passed the fatal stream. General Codrington was down at the ford, and did not seem to know whether to be amused or scandalised at the scene, but I have no doubt he will take steps to prevent any such exhibition on the part of our men. The navvies have found their way across to the caves, and some of them have established such friendly relations with the Russians that they have been allowed to see the chapel cut out of the rock, which they describe in terms of great praise ; " It's sal gould and coot glass." Some Russian engineers have gone over the allied works. They will learn little from them. The French have filled up all their trenches in front of the Malakoff. Our men are removing the wood and gabions front the batteries and the Redan, and these now constitute our principal articles of fuel. They are placed in the divisional commissariat stores, whence they are served out to the regiments. — Times cur., April 6. SEBASTOPOL OF '56. The Sebastopol of 1850 offers a fins subject for an epic, but, from all accounts, stands a good chance of being more rapidly rebuilt than it was knocked down : Sebastopol proper, with some few isolated exceptions, might be knocked down with a pick and carted away as rubbish. The walls, which look firm at a distance, are THE PRESS. seen on a near approach to be mere shells, which a strong man could overthrow. The desolation and silence of the grass-grown streets, the course of which is marked out by heaps of white stone in fragments or in blocks, piled con fusedly on each other as they were thrown down by the shock of explosion or the actual agency of powder, are appalling. One may wander between these walls of debris, which look like ruinous trenches, for hours without meeting a soul, or hearing even a sparrow chirp. If a stone disturbed by his tread falls clattering among the ruin, the stranger accustomed to the profound noiselessness of this new Palmyra starts as though Sebastopol were in the Great Desert, and untrodden by any but himself. All the roar of the batteries, the smoke, the tumult, the shouting, the tramp of men, the stern life of the trenches, and the labours of the siege have died away, we cannot trust for ever, but let us hope for many a long year to come. Alone unchangeable, the blue sea sparkles on the sunshine between the white forts and the sheer headlands of the roadstead, and ripples over the sunken fleet, which just rears its mastheads above the waters. The harbour is still there, the Dockyard Creek, the Careening Bay—all ready once more to lend their aid to man in forming a new Sebastopol. The Tschernaya still flows into the deep bay, and can bear on its bosom countless tons of freestone from the quarries of Inkernaann, which are to all appear ance inexhaustible, and which may well contain a new Sebastopol. Let the rotting skeletons, the heaps of humnn bones, the debris of ragged uniforms and equipments, the remains of the fierce struggle which ended in that ravine still scattered over its side, preach a lesson to whoever is about to build the city again. An engineer officer re marked the other day that he never saw a city which could be so soon reconstructed. The very ruined mansions and the stones of the houses could be used to fill up a small ravine which intersects the city, and to form quays by the waterside. As to [the sunken ships, there are various opinions. Some say they are by this time utterly ruined, others contend that they can be weighed and rendered fit for service; but for the most part they are only sailing vessels of the old build, short and tubby. I have seen a piece of teak cut out of one of them, which was as per feotly sound and good as it was the first day it was used. The deal of which the submerged gun•carriages are made has, however, suffered from the ravages of the worm. All operations against the ships must now be hopeless.—Tines eor., April 8. THE CRIMEAN INQUIRY. ADMIRAL SIR EDMUND LYONS was examined before the court on Monday, and gave the most important evidence of any witnes' hitherto. In reply to the question as to whether he had ever been applied to for sails or canvas as shelter for the cavalry horses, Sir Edmund Lyons said he had not been applied to, and he did not believe that the idea was ever enter tained, it was obviously so useless. Moreover, had he been applied to, he could not have furnished any such quantity of canvas as would have been required. As to there being fifteen sail of the line off the coast, Colonel Tulloch was wholly wrong ; there were never more than eleven, and then only for a few days, the average number being seven. In further reply to Colonel Tulloch's question whether ho could not have spared carpenters from the fleet in sufficient numbers to construct shelter for the whole of the cavalry, Admiral Lyons said No; we had already thirty carpenters attached to the Naval Brigade, under Captain Lushington, and there were thirty more at Balaklava, all employed in service connected with the army. Colonel Tulloch seems to be under the impression that we had fifteen sail of the line, whereas we had not quite half that number. He seems also to have looked to the establishment and to have concluded that the complement of every ship was complete, whereas we had hardly half the complement. It results, therefore, that, as far as the line•of battle ships are concerned, we had only one-fourth of the number of carpenters which Colonel Tulloch imagines. But then he is also under the impression that we had thirty or forty steam-vessels, whose carpenters, or a portion of them, might have been em• ployed in the set vice of the army. But those steamers were employed ou various duties, such as going backwards and forwards to Constantinople for supplies, blockading a thousand miles of coast, including the coast of Circassia, lierti.h, the Crimea, the Dnieper, and the mouths of the Danube ; and when those vessels rejoined the fleet, instead of their being able to spare carpenters for the army, we were obliged to give them carpenters to complete their re pairs. It results, therefore, that we had not one man who could by any possibility have been spared for the army from those vessels. Colonel "Istilloch also, as I said before, seemed under the impression that the fifteen sail of the line of which he spoke were lying in a snug harbour. Colonel Tulloch was not there, and of course he believes it, bat he has been misinformed. Now, what was the fact? The vessels were at anchor in forty fathoms of water, within a mile of the rocks, and only just out of gun shot of the batteries of Sebastopol; indeed, on one oc casion the Royal Albert drove within gunshot. I should observe also that the state of the weather was such as to render it absolutely necessary to prepare for every emer gency. The board may judge of the state of the weather when I tell them that in one gale the Royal Albert lost her rudder, which broke in two; she was thirty-one days at anchor before Sebastopol without a rudder, and I see by a note from Sir Thomas Paaley that all the carpenters of the fleet were employed during those thirty-one days in repairing the rudder. The rudder of the Algiers was also very much damaged ; and, as a proof of the suddenness with which the gales come on, I may mention that the second in command and some of the captains of the fleet having come on board my ship were obliged to remain on board for several days and nights. Now, under those cir cumstances, it must be apparent to everybody that the SATURDAY, boats of the fleet, upon which the supplies of the army were very much dependent, must have been constantly getting out of repair, and therefore that all the carpenters of the fleet were required afloat. Colonel Tulloch asks what there was to prevent me from sending on shore one hundred out of in) two hundred or three hundred car penters. Now, speaking from memory, I believe we nevi? had more than fifty or sixty carpenters available. It must be remembered, too, that I had the supplies of my own fleet to think of. The fleet experienced very great diffi culties as regarded its resources, and the on1\• reason why this was never publicly known was because these difficul ties were overcome. In the course of further cross-examination, Admiral Lyons said that all the spare canvas they had was sent on shore for the use of the Naval Brigade : It must not be supposed that the spare sails were over and above what was required for the safety of the ship. Those spare sails might at any moment be required, and without them no ship could be considered efficient, pain cularly on a coast like that. As to procuring a supply of canvas from Constantinople in a very short period, there were other persons who could answer that question better than he could. He had never had cecasion to send for it. He could speak more confidently with regard to the possi bility of procuring carpenters from Constantinople. They were so badly off for carpenters in the fleet that he was obliged to write to the Admiralty, stating that Admiral Grey in the Bosphorus and Admiral Boxer were both con• stantly applying for carpenters, and that there was not enough to keep the ships' boats in repair. In reply, the Admiralty said they thought his application fur more car• penters a very• reasonable one—they were surprised, in deed, that so much had been done with the means at the disposal of the fleet—but they could not possibly send any more, for there were none to be got. Instead of being able to procure carpenters from Constantinople, Admiral Grey was obliged to send to Malta and offer very tempting wages to the Maltese to come and perform the indispen• sable duties of the fleet in the Black Sea and *he Posphorus. In reply to General Berkeley, as to whether he had remarked any want of promptitude and ingenuity in sheltering the cavalry horses, Sir Edmund Lyons replied " Certainly not. Everybody appeal ed to me to be hard at work and doing his best. They were always doing, and always appeared very hard at work." The gallant admiral, at the conclusion of his evidence, gave a rapid and concise sketch of the different ser. vices of the Black Sea fleet during the war, with the view of disabusing the public mind that the navy did not do for the army as much as lay in their power, but, on the contrary, to prove that "neither labour nor material were sparingly or tardily given by the navy when required for the use of the army." Sir Edmund Lyons recalled to the memory of the court the disembarkation of the troops at Old Fcri i the embarkation of the wounded after Alma, the making 742 cots in three days for the sick, 20,000 cartridges, the erection on board the Sanspareil of the first coffee-roasting apparatus, the stabling the mules it Balaklava, the building wharfs and landing-places, and the vast assistance generally rendered by the Naval Brigade in the front. At the conclusion of Admiral Lyons' address, Major Conolly and Colonel Low were briefly examined with respect to Lord Lucan's desire to get the cavalry under cover, both officers asserting Lord Lucan displayed the utmost promptitude and anxiety, when the court adjourned till Friday. On Friday the court reassembled, when Colonel Tulloch read his statement. First alluding to the difficult position he was in, either to come forward under every disadvantage and defend his report, or to leave it to the mercy of those who had charged the commissioners with distorting facts, the gallant colonel proceeded at length to point out the difh culty of finding with whom responsibility rested, and the certainty that a want of promptitude was exhibited when t'aree months were allowed to elapse before the order :or sheltering the horses was attended to, and insisted that plenty of shelter could have been obtained for the horses at an earlier period. Colonel Tulloch then reviewed the evidence of the principal witness in detail, and concluded by defending himself and Sir John 111'Neill irom the charge of having exceeded their instructions. He looked upon the approval of the report by the Go vernment and the country as a complete refutation of the charge. The court adjourned till Monday, when Lord Lucan will deliver his final reply, and the case of Lord Cardigan be commenced. THE AUSTRIAN CONCORDAT shows its cloven foot in many ways. Hitherto it has been the custom in Austria to inter the Roman Catholics and Protes tants in the same cemetery. But of late the Minis ter of Public Worship has received information that a number of cures have refused to allow Protestants to occupy a grave in the common burial-place. This line of conduct, which they found on the decrees of the Council of Trent and on the late Concordat, has caused much agitation in many districts. BARON STEIGLITZ, the Russian Rothschild, is at present attempting to found a Credit Mobiler Com pany at St. Petersburg, in connection with that of Paris. Various negotiations are also at present going on with the Amsterdam house of Hope and the capitalists of Berlin and Vienna. 1 1 , I.Pqr