The Press. — London, England, 1855-01-13 00:00:00

JANUARY 13, 1855. LETTER FROM THE CAMP. We have been permitted to publish the following extract from a private letter, written by a young officer of the fourth division : Camp before Sebastopol, Dec. 18, 1854. My dear —, As I have no doubt but that a letter direct from the trenches before Sebastopol will be a great treat to you all a t , I have deter mined to write you a letter to yourself, though of course you see my letters to . Well, here we are encamped on an immense raised plateau, reaching from Balaklava to Sebastopol, about eight miles, surrounded on three sides by any number of Russians you like, and the sea on the fourth side, not a very enviable position, as we can neither go forward nor backward, so that we must do some thing decisive unless we want to stay here till peace is concluded, or we are all dead of dysentery, which I don't think would take long if the present horrid weather continues. About one-third of the whole army are sick at the present moment ; firewood is very scarce, and gets scareer every day, and we don't know what fresh meat is. I have not warmed myself by a fire since I left England, and don't ex pect to again till I get into Sebastopol ; and what is worse, as if my Ws d►dn't run enough risk by round shot, shell, and bullets, I am beginning to get very seedy from continual exposure to wet and cold, with out an opportunity of drying myself until the weather gets dry: 'What do ycu all think of Sebastopol not falling ? Do you expect to hear the good news by every mail? If so, I can tell you I'm afraid you'll be disappointed every mail, for I don't expect it to fall for two or three months, and I don't see how it is go then. We have not made the slightest impression on it yet, ex cept to make it stronger, for everybody allows that it is six times as strong now as it was when we first came up. The Russians get new batteries and new guns mounted every day, while ours have gradually got weaker and fewer since the day they begun, till at last now I don't believe we could fire a dozen guns at once. The Russians make lots of sorties on us and the French (the latter particularly, as their works, from the nature of the ground, are nearer to the town), but invariably get licked back. I have seen some of those night affairs (they are always by night), and rum sort of things they are. As ;ar as I can see you stand as good a chance of being shot by your own side as by the enemy. The engineers have made a great mull most decidedly. They say that in a week or so we are to begin the bombard ment afresh with a hundred new guns, and that to be followed up by a grand assault ; but I don't believe a word of it. If we were to assault the place we should lose half the army at least, and then what would. England say? I should think that there will be row enough about Inkermann when people begin to bear the real truth about it, and find ouz, how entirely attributable it was to the carelessness and want of foresight in ow leaders. I am sitting in my tent writing this by candlelight; my candlestick is a bayonet (Russian) stuck in the ground, my table is an empty powder-canister, and my seat is a hospital stretcher across two knap sacks, being appropriate pieces of furniture for a camp, I think you will allow. I had hoped that they would have written to me from home by every post, for never were letters of any sort, more parti cularly from those that are dea r to you, so wel. come as they are out here. I hope that I shall find a better correspondent in you. Direct to me, " British Army in the Crimea, via France," and pay it, or I shall never get it. If -- was out here with all his dogs they wouldn't cost him much to keep, for the whole plain is covered with dead horses; at one place I saw 128 all together—that was where the battle of Inkermann was fought. You never saw such a lot of eagles in your life as I saw one day over the battle-field of Balaklava, I suppose there were 200 all in a flock, and such whoppers. I longed to have a gun in my hand, as they come pretty close to you—great, black, and yellow devils. There are also packs of great dogs which, I sup pose, have been attracted by the horse-flesh, and fellows go out with their revolvers to practice on them. I came on a covey of nineteen to-day, and wounded three before they got out of shot; at night they are very fierce. When did C. shoot the big wood, and what was the bag ? I wish I had been there, for I can assure you shooting pheasants at is much more pleasant than shooting (or rather being shot at by) Russians at Sebastopol. Another mail has come in since I wrote this, and still no letters from home. L give them up altogether now, and hope to have a better correspondent in you. The Royal Albert has arrived to-day with 1,200 fresh troops. Dundas is surperseded, and Lyons has the command, to ti e delight of everyone out here. Reinforcements are really arriving now, as three new regiments took up their ground yesterday, besides lots of French. I expect we shall have a great battle soon, as the Russians have 100,000 more men approaching. Of course we shall lick them, but with great loss most THE PRESS. likely. The mail is going soon, and I want to finish another letter. A. PS.—Dec. 22.—Last night the Russians made a grand sortie on the English advanced works, gained great advantages at first, but were driven out by the 38th at the point of the bayonet. One field officer killed, and three officers of the 50th taken prisoners into Sebastopol. I am going down to the same place to-night, and hope they don't make another attack and take me prisoner. MISS NIGHTINGALE AND HER NURSES. TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PRESS." Sir,—l am glad you gave publicity last week to Mrs. Herbert's letter. Will you oblige me by in serting my remarks upon it. They were made in reply to the gentleman who favoured me with a copy of her letter. Your assurance that Miss Nightingale is free from Romish tendencies" will go far to allay those apprehensions respecting her benevolent undertaking which have been excited by Mr. Sidney Herbert's Anglo-Catholic partisanship, and by his choosing to connect her with a mission of nuns and Sellonists who have already been found in the way, and have produced so strong a prejudice against Miss Nightingale.—l am, sir, yours obediently, January 11, 1855. B. W. December 28th, 1854. My dear Sir,—l am very much obliged to you for your letter, and especially for favouring me with a copy of Mrs. Sidney Herbert's note to Mrs. —, which 1 greatly wished to see, having heard of the correspondence which has taken place. It is quite an Anglo-Catholic curiosity, and worthy of being classed with the " lithographed" letter of her hus band to Miss Nightingale, which, of course, he only intended for private distribution amongst the initiated ; but which, happily for the cause of truth, and the exposure of his own incapacity, obtained a much wider circulation through the public press than he desired. If I wanted any further testimony beyond that supplied by Mr. Sidney Herbert himself of the nature of Miss Nightingale's religious opinions, this letter of his wife's would furnish it. The endorsement of that lady b' two such Anglo-Catholic Dissenters as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Herbert, is quite conclusive of the character of her creed, notwithstanding Mrs. Herbert's extraordinary assurance that she is " what is called rather low Church." I have always understood her to be an Anglican Papist, and every thing that has appeared in the public journals, of different shades of ecclesiastical politics, has confirmed this im pression. As such 1 have described her, and will con tinue to do so until I am convinced of the contrary by better evidence than that which is supplied by Mrs. Herbert's note, and the Dissenting paper she seems so anxious to recommend. You must see that in these days, when English Church men, of Mrs. Sidney Herbert's school, have discovered a method of holding what they call " the truth, as it is explained in the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent," her recommendation of Miss Nightingale as " a member of the Established Church of England" can be of no value whatever. The pervert Mr. Manning is said to be constantly at the War-office, and his testimony would weigh more with me in a matter of this kind than that of a Tractarian partisan. According to Mrs. Herbert, the learned, but now lapsed, author of the two works entitled " The Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist," and "The Principles of Church Autho rity," would probably have been deemed a sound member of the Established Church previous to his being driven out of it, althoughhe set forth, in the first of these books, the doctrine and adoration of the mass, to the great delight of the Papists, and proved to his own safaction in the second, that the Pope's chair ia the only seat of spiritual supremacy. So also those twelve Tractarian clergy at Leeds who, a few years ago, decided unanimously that the submission of the English Church was due in matters of faith to the Papal See, might be pronounced by the same authority to be sound members of the Church. And thus, lastly, Mrs. Herbert would probably accredit as a good Churchman the Rev. Walter Blunt, the reputed author of " osaries com piled for the Use of English Churchmen," R in which the grossest idolatry and superstition are recommended. I am not surprised at tne " indignant" tone of Mrs. Herbert's letter. The Anglicans have been very much annoyed at the exposure of their pretty little plot, and, if I may adopt one of their own words, " conspirators" do not usually like the light to be let in upon their plans and operations. It is my full conviction that a Jesuit conspi racy is in active peration for the subjugation of England and the ruin of her Church; and a Popish and profligate Government whether consciously or unconsciously 1 do not care to know—have played the game of the conspira tors. I believe that this scheme which the Secretary-at War, probably at the suggestion of Mr. Manning, seems so anxious to carry out—namely to send Itomish and semi- Romish nuns to the East, in the place of good, plain, common-sense nurses, to have been one fruit of this con- spiracy. Mrs. Herbert's denunciations against myself, as "the mouthpiece of slander," have fallen very harmlessly on my head. You seem to consider " her denial very spirited," but I cannot acquit her of the usual fault of her party — mystification and the endeavour to throw dust into one's eyes. When, in order to recommend her Anglo• Catholic friend to such a population as that of my parish, she condescends, pro hoc vice, to adopt terms, the sentiments implied by which she must utterly abhor such, for instance, as " Evangelical," " Protestant," and " Low Church ;" and when she refers to the fact of Mr. and Mrs. Bracebridge being associated with her, as a "sufficient guarantee of the Evangelical nature of the work," she has had recourse to that species of morality which has been so often practised by Dr. Pusey, Mr. Newman, and the Jesuit Fathers. Her appeal to the Christian Times is of the same character, and has strengthened the persuasion I have long felt, that Mr. Gladstone and his friends, whilst they denounce the Protestant clergy for uniting with Dissenters in the circula tion of the Scriptures, are ready enough to fraternise with them for their own Revolutionary purposes—as, for in stance, the separation of Church and State. It is instructive to notice the compliments that now pass between the Guardian and the Nonconformist press. I observe, also, that a sharp tire has taken place between the Christian Times and the Record, relative to Miss Nightingale: but, though Mrs. Herbert seems to patronise the former of these organs, as 1 atu neither a Dissenter nor a " Recondite," 1 have nut gathered my views on this subject from their columns. I am, my dear Sir, your's truly, P.S.—The fact that Miss Nightingale is so variously represented, by some as a " Roman Catholic," by others as a " Unitarian," and by Mts. Herbert as "rather low Church," is a pretty good proof that her creed is not very distinct.. The creed of the modern Iligh-Churchman is likewise of a very nondescript character. It would not be difficult to show that it is a combination of Judaism, Romanisin, and infidelity ; while some, like the Bishop of Oxford, love to infuse into it a tinge of Evangelicalism. LORD ELGIN'S RETURN. THE ELM OF ELoiN arrived at Liverpool on Tuesday night, on his return from Canada, and was on Wed • nesday presented with addresses on behalf of the American Chamber of Commerce of Liverpool, and the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce. In the course of his speech in reply, his lordship said That the tale of his administration of affairs in America was very simply and easily told. lie went out in January, 1847, with two objects in view. In the first place it had been his earnest endeavour to place the colonists in such a position politically and economically as would leave them nothing to envy in the condition of any other people on earth, not excepting that of their neighbours and prospe rous citizens in the United States. He might say without egotism that, in undertaking this task, he considered it of no ordinary difficulty and magnitude. In the report of Lord Durham on Canadian affairs, the respective conditions of the territories 13 ing on opposite sides of the boundary lino separating the United States and the British provinces was contrasted, and even if later evidence were required of the hopeless entanglement of Canadian affairs, it would be found in the recently-published pamphlet of his distin guished and immediate predecessor. Be felt, however, great as was the task, it was his duty to undertake it, be cause he felt confident that upon no other condition than its fulfilment could the connection between England and the Canadas be permanently maintained. The other view was not of inferior importance. It was to place the com mercial relations of the United States and the British pro vinces on such a footing that the y should not, if possible, at any future period furnish occasion to estrangement or alienation between those two kindred nations; and be thought that both of those objects he had to some extent at least accomplished. Indeed, he imagined he might say that nine-tenths of the people of Canada were now of opi nion that their condition in connection with England con trasted favourably with that of any other people in the civilised world ; and he believed, also, that the intimate commercial relationship which would spring up between the United States and Canadawhen the R ec iprocity Treaty came into full operation would render Canada in its affairs, not a barrier or a severance, but a link that would unite the kindred people of the United States and England. TUSCANY.—From a report ears pre that sented to budget the Grand for Duke of Tuscany, it app the 1855 is fixed as follows :—Receipts, 31,340,338 f.; expenditure, 31,288,910 f. ; leaving a surplus of 51,417 f. This is exclusive of the expense which may be required for the maintenance of foreign troops ; but the report states that the reorganisation the Tuscan army has been successtully com- Plbted. The Moniteur contains a letter from Cardinal Antonelli to the French Ambassador, acknowledging in grateful terms the communication that the Em.. peror will allow French troops to the number of 3,500 to remain in Rome. THE Courrier, of Douai, tells the following story :—A lady, of Soignies, feeling some time ago that her end was approaching, summoned M. Pletain, a notary at Mons, and directed him to have a will made, by which she would leave him all she had. He thanked her, but said he could not accept her generosity, and reminded her of her duty to her family. She, however, insisted, and declared that if be would not accept what she offered, she would give her pro perty to a M. M—, a complete stranger to the family. Finding that she was quite determined, and being himself a distant relative of hers, he at length consented to have the will made as she wished. Shortly afterwards she died. Immediately he assembled the heirs of the deceased, none of whom were rich, and two resided in England, and de. dared to them that he had only consented to accept the legacy in order that they might not be deprived of it. Ite . thereupon tore up the will in their p resence, 114::‘ 1 4 : 1 • 11 over to them the fortune of the deceased, atiiepan a t 100,0 Mt This generous notary has died withpi few days, and this is the brat time his noble a* . made public. :, .. ;1 ,....• to; ; 1.4, ti