The Sun. — London, England, 1856-03-14 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT. HOUSE OF LORDS-(YzATERDA.y). The LORD CHANORLLOR took his seat on the Wool. eaek at five o'clock. TORTURE 'IN INDIA. The Earl of ALBEMARLE gave notice that on Monday, the 14th April, he should present a petition from certain inhabitants of Madras, complaining of the infliction of torture by the officers of the Government, attributing the practice to the weight of the assessment required for the Government revenue, and praying for protection. The noble lord said it was afterward his intention to resolve, "That, by the report laid on the • table of the house, it 'is proved to our conviction that torture, or the infliction of pain by way of punishment, or to induce confession, or for the purposes of extortion, has been practised and continues to be practised by native oflicera for the realisation of the public revenues, or in the administration of the criminal law, to a greater or less extent throughout the presidency of Madras. That the aforesaid torture, although clandestinely practised, has been known to the constituted authorities in India, as shown by public documents. That this house views the practice of torture, extending ever many millions of her Majesty's Government, whether as an instrument for the realisation of the public revenue, or in the administration of the criminal law, as repugnant - to the principles of natioral justice, abhorrent to humanity, and highly disgraceful to the c'aaeacter of the nation. That this house pledges itself to adopt the most speedy and effectual means in its power for the utter annihilatioe of the odious and barbarous practice of torture within the above-mentioned Government and Presidency of Madras." The noble lord gave notice that it was his int-n -tion, immediately after the Easter recess, to inquire of her Majesty's Ministers whether they bad received any account from the Government of Madras respecting 14 asses of torture within the presidency in a particular district, inflicted at as recent a date as July, 1855, by a Government collector, in order to realise some Govern• meat dues, and in relation to a certain tar. The noble -lord then gave notice of his intention to move for a series of other papers, relating to the practice of tor ture in Madras. THE FALL OF KARS. The Earl of ELLENBO ROUGH, pursuant to notice, asked the noble lord the Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether the omissions in the oapers produced upon the subject of the capitulation of Kars, to which ho had called attention on a previous evening, would be supplied ? Lord WODEHOUSE was understood to say it was unusual for the Government to comply with such a req nest. The Earl of ELLENBOROUGII expressed his Ru r• prise that the Secretary for War had not given the ex planation on this subject. It wag perfectly well known that before the investment of Kars nothing whatever was done by the allies for the defence of the place, and now he wished to know what bad been done by them after the fortress had been in vet.ted. During the last war the Government never 'matte the slightest objvcton to hay the a•nplest informa tion',.with respect to military affairs before Parliament. ' In reply•to the Elrl of MALDIESBURY, Lord WODEII.O USE stated that a correspondence -bad'taken place between her Majesty's Government and .the Turkish Government with respect to General Wil liams. • , •____ THIRD READINGS. • The Mutiny Bill. the Marin'e Mutiny Bill, the Con •solidated Fund (21,000,0000 13.11, and thu Drainage 'Advances Act Amendment Bill were read a third time 'and passed. MARRIAGE WITH A. DECEASED WIFE'S SE',TE Earl ST. GERNIA_NS brought in a bill for the lega' sation of marriage with a chs.loase , l wife's sister. The bill wasTpaci a first, time. JUDICIAL STATISTICS. Llrd BROUGILVNI nse - for the ptirpose of resurnine the debate upon the resobtione he had laid before the Louie • cu. the 3.1 'The noble and learned lord urged the irspeitano 'of correct information on the subject. France was not the only oeuiltry which - was superior to this in juilicifd statistics. Belgium and the Sardinian states were also provided with acenrate judicial statistics, and he thotight the happiest effects would a-iso to this cluntry by a like system being alepted., The noble lord con bladed by moving the resolutions on the subject. 'The LORD- CLIA.NCELLOR said the resolutions Should LaVelheTr nioit'si!rieus consideration. Of course be could say not!iinvJertlierat present. EDUCATION. In answer to the FAO of 811AFTESBURY, . E tri .GRA.NVILLE exp'ained the various part, of the bill he ha introduced into their lordships' bonus With reepPcy to education, but he thought *mild bo prudent hdforP they proceeded any further with the measure to await the result of the resolutions of Lord J. Russell in the other house. The Earl of II ARDWICKE called the attention of the noble lord to the system. of Ctlacation for the army and navy. - -.Earl; GRANVILLE • said the Government were perfectly aware of the importance of the subject. .$ The Earl of SIIAFTESBURY said he believed there were upwards-of two millions of children uneducated, but it ma=t be rem nrked th at there were facilities for educating half as many muro children al now attended the schools. HI -thought the' G'-o :ern:Mut would have to attempt c mrinnic"nry ( - 4uocation. i'ne subject tnen nroppeu. Taeir lordships shortly afterwards adjou •noci. HOUSE OF COMMONS.—(YEsTERDAY.) The SPBASER tqok the chair at the uenal hour. PRIVATE BUSINESS. The following bills were severally real a seclnd time and ordered to be committed:-Colonial Bank, E A R , of Fife Railway, Knottingly Gas, and Londor Docks bill. EXCHEQUER BILLS. Mr. SPOONER moved for a return of the amount Of Exchequer-bills changed and the amount of Exche quer-bills paid in money, in the months of March and June in the years 1852, 1853, 1854, and 1355, and in the month of March, 1856, and the amount - ofExcheuer bills now outstanding. —Agreed to. REGISTRATION ACT (SCOTLAND). To reply to Mr. AL7X. HASTIE, • Lerd-DUNCAN BM that the cost of the books for carrying into effect the registration act in Scotland wa -3,000/. The charge for those b mks now averaged about. 2,000 e: per annum. There was now a great im provement in the cost , of • those -books for the present year in com parison, with those. for 1855; The total cod of carrying into efioct the-registration act in Scotla'nd amounted to 18;000/., With 3,0001, for postage, which was merely drawing from one public department and paying over to another. REGISTRATION OF DEEDS. - Mr. DUNLOP moved for' a return of all the records or misters, general and particular , in Scotland, other than books or courts for the registration of deeds, amines, habitations, adjudications,, protests, and every other legal instrument or vyrit.=-Agieed to. BAN] RETURNS. Mr. GLYN moyed for a return of any banks being bank 4 of issue preciously to the passing of the act 7th and Bth Victoria, ohap. 32, which had cemed to issue t'aeir own notes, and of the amount of circulation of such banks respectively, made up to the present date.-- Agreed to. EDUCATION (SCOTLI.ND) In reply to an lION. MumßEn, The LORD ADVOCATE said he had intended before the Easter recess to have stated the course he proposed to adopt with respect to education in Scotland. He now begged to give notice that on the 31st of March he should move for leave to bring in a bill for regulating the parochial schools in Scotland, and also for the pro motion of education in.the burghs of Scotland. THE BALLOT. Mr. BERKELEY gave notice that shortly after Easter he should bring forward his motion with respect to the ballot. THE ATTACK ON TILE REDAN. `Mr. T. gave notice that on the motion for the adjournm'ent of the holm to-morrow ho should put a question to her Majesty's Government al to the failuro of the attack ou the Great Redan on the Bth of Sept. LOCAL MANAGEMENT ACT. Viscount CHELSEA. rose to ask the Attorney- General whether he had not given it as his opinion that by the proiisions of the Metropolis Local Management Act 18 and 19 Victoria, c. 129, sec. 8, all existing res. tries, Whether general or otherwise, were super, eded, and their powers transferred to the vestries constituted under the said act. The noble lord proceeded to make a statement relative to an interview he had had with the Attorney-General, amidst interruption from several hon. members, and resumed his seat by moving the adjourn. ment of the house. The ATTQRNEY-GENERAL said he was not pre pared for the obsertations of the hon. member. He had givin the opinion the hon. member had statei on this gnegtion, but the noble lord must have rnisundevtood him if he thought that opinion was given without di trust in its soundness. The whole nutter was in the greatest confusion, and further legislation on the subject as absolutely necessary. Mr. DUNCOMBE asked the Attorney-General if he was to nuderstand that the Amendment Bill would not be proceeded with 'I He complained of this bill being brought in so late, and read a first and second time too speedily, seeing that its provisions annihilated the power,: of the old vestries. The subject then dropped. CRIME _IN TARTARS. Mr. HOLLA.ND asked the First Lord of the Trea sury whether the attention of her Majesty's Goverr ment had been drawn to the position of .the Crimean Tartar 4 in the event of peace being established, a n d th e allied forces, towards whom they had shown themselves friendly disposed, heine• recalled. Lord PALMERSTON said that according to the custom of war no Cuht the usual amnesty would he granted to the subjects of all the powers who had been engaged in this war. ,p 3,0 :„ORDNANCE, &c. _ _ _ Ia reply to to questions from Colonel BOLDEIIO, .Mr. MONSELL said there would be no objection to lay on the table of the house the contract entered into with Messrs. Grissel & Co. for the supply of iron ordnance, and the eorrospondence thereon. In one of the trials with aanrdinary charge a mortar burst, and on trying them with hydraulic pressure some of them were found . d*fective. The contractor had beeii paid for the ord nance that had been passed. PRIDE&UX'S PATENT VALVE., Mr. HUTCHINS asked the First Lord of the Admi alty whether be would baye any objection to lay upon 'cl.. . `. the table of the house the report of fi aeries of experi ments made in June, 1855, under the superintendence of Captain Denman ' on the effect produced of Prideaux's Patent Valve, both as to the saving of fuel and the re duction of temperature at the firing-places ? Sir C. WOOD repeated the statement he made on a former occasion, that the experiments, not being com plete, he could not comply with the request. PURCHASE IN THE ARMY. Mr. EWART inquired of the First Lord of the Trea sury whether the commission about to be appointed on the system of purchase in the army would have power to inquire into the system of promotion, and the sys tems of education and examination on appointment and promotion adopted in foreign armies Lord PALMERSTON said that in the investigation alluded to an inquiry must of necessity be made into the system of foreign countries. IRON PLATE FOIL GUN-BOATS. Sir G. TYLER asked the First Lord' of. the Admi ralty whether any experiments had been made as to the relative power of resistance between hammered and rolled iron plates for the construction of gun-boats ; and if so, whether there was any objection to state the_re suit of those experiments I Sir C. WOOD said that the report had not yet been made to the Government. ITALY AND SARDINIA. Mr. BOWYER asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether there was any truth in the report that the at tention of the Paris Couference would be directed to the affairs of Italy ; and, also, whether the S4rdinian Government had suggested or 'requested that any and what matters of Italian politics might engage the atten tion of the Confe'rence ? Lord PALNIERSTON declined to give any answer 4) the questions. PRUSSIA. Mr. DISRA,ELT asked a question relative to a ru mour that was in circulation in regard to Prussia having been invited to take part in the Paris C3nferences, and who were the distinguished individuals that were to re present that country at the Conferences ? Lord PALMERSTON declined to answer the ques tion. SIR CHARLES NAPIER AND THE BALTIC FLEET. Sir C. NAPIER (who, from speaking with his back to the gallery, was very indistinctly heard) rose to move for a select committee to inquire into the operations of the Baltic fleet in the years 1854 and 1855. In making this motion he ' stated that his only object was to call attention to what had taken place, and to vindicate his own character., He urged that after so much had been said about what had been done by the Baltic fleet while ceder his command, what might have been done, and what was not done, he thought it only fair that there should be an iuquiry whether or not the admirals had done their duty ; so that if rot, they might be brought to account and punished, or' if the fault lay with the Admiralty, that they might be made to bear the blame, anti not shift it from their own shoulders upon those of others. He (Sir C. Napier) had served his country for n years, he had served under four sovereigns, and believed he had always (lane his duty faithfully and honestly. He had commanded not fleets only, but armies ; and he had at all times shown himself ready to undertake any service to which he Might oither have been appointed by his Goyernmeut or recommended by them. It had been said by . the late Sir.R. peel, .that, in two Minutes, ho hart overthrown a dynasty; but whether that was so oe not he took credit for having .done sonic service in expelling 'the nelirpor lion Miguel from, the kingdom of Fortugel, • and establishing 'the constitutional eivereign upon the throne. He would endeavour t') state his case with moderation and jUstice. 'He hed a plain, s'aaightforward ttla to tell, and had no occasion toTts!et to exaggeration or subterfuge, and ho hoped that all- who , f Wowed. hits would follow.ine example, and confine them selves to the simple truth, (Cheers.) On the 21th.of Nov, 1354, the then First, Laid of thoMeairelts, (4ir J..Gea hem) ceirmannicate'd his ,intention to.appeiet Napier) to theecomMariti' if the Baltic fleet in the eseett of a war eeith lenesia. At that time it -was known to. every man in England, and ho'believed to'evt.r/ man in Europe, except- the British Government;' that war was inevitable. Ho received his appointment to thtecomrnand on the 25th leebrnery ; but before that, after he had been told that he was. to have the command of a fleet, he drew attention to the importance of having that fleet well manned. lie made representations to Lerd Aberdeen anti he believed also to Lord Claroudon, of the unpreparedness is whi.:ll our navy was for wile'. He also applied to th - First Lord of the Admiralty, but he derlined to see him. Well, on the 25th of February he was appoiute 1 to the command of the Baltic fleet, and every member of that lid ;se *would be aware that he felt proud at recn.vieg such au appointment ; fOr there were many other officers in the service, probably, who, from their greater capability, .r other • circumstances, Were more 'wait:ell to the ills. tinction. BUt at this time what was the state of our naval forces? We had three ships of Violin° at 'Llsbo •, awl several steamers and small vesicle; while 'at hone the only force we had available be,ides was three ;sail of the lino, to take care of the ()raillery - , :Nail tit for harbour, duty. They had three block :ships, one a', Portsmouth, ono at Plymouth, .and one the tender to the Excelleni gunnery ship. He adtnitted.thet the Goreratnent the moment war was declared made the • most strenuous exertions to fit oat an efficient naval force —but it was impossible to-man the ships properly by the amens to which they resorted. The only availabie hands were the coast-guerdemon and the dockyard riggers, :tie] of the former many .wore not smiles* at. all, havi ig ben teepi e tetvii t the cerise! e emetel serviee be intlussuo There wore two 84 or 9.)-grin ships, the St. Jean tt'Acro and the Princess Royal, and another, a three-docker, ho b shrived at Sheerness. . The great difficulty was to man th:, Beet '•• • • rA j T.JVI 11110 A. cull - . ' ratty ought to kuow, that if the c sentry suddenly past. d from -4esace to war, and an increase of 5,000 or 6,000 men in the navy became necessary on the instant, nothirg was more difficult. • than -te procure -them. Well, he ( it Charles Napier) appealed to the right hon. baronet to issue a proclamation, under the act of Parliament, which empowered her Majesty to do so, and offer to all seamen who would at once come forward and enter dotes blo beunty; but the right lion. baronet did not think pro per to do se. He 'thought the right hon, baronet was wrong ;. and lie believed'other 'members of the Admiralty Board and some of the Ministers with whom he had c in - inun'ca d also' thought he was wrong. They knew per fectly welt that the Russians had an effective fleet of 23 sail of the line in the Baltic, well manned, and organised, and regularly exercised, which was a force' not to be despised, and, feel*? himself responsible fur the safety and character of the fleet, he felt it his duty to make the representatioue he had dime. He would pass over the celebrated banquet at the Reform Club—that glorious banquet where such fine speeches were inatle-e-speochei that stirred up the country to such a pitch of expectation that if he had sue cisedeil in capturing Cronstedt and St. Petersburg, and bringing home the . Emperor of Russia prisoner, they would scarcely have been satisfied. (Laughter.) Bat he would pass that over. (Hear.) The fleet was composed of two three deckers, the throe block ships, two 84 gun ehips,snd, ha thought, another ship from Sheerness—altogether theta were nine ; and when this fleet was ready for sea at Spit head, her Majesty and almost all England—at all events, all who could bear the expense—vent dawn to see it start ; and of course everybody thought that to such a force Cronstadt and St. Petersburg would surrender the momentthey saw it. (Hear.) He saw the position he was in with this half manned fleet from which so much was exoected. He gave the highest credit to the various officers for their zeal and their efforts in bringing their ships into a proper state of discipline as far as the defective means at their dispersal would allow. (Hear.) After referring to the suddenness of the order he received to sail, and the personal inconvenience he was subjected to in consequence, he observed that the Ottvern moat hat with their usual fc.ressight,procured pio' front Hull and the eastern ports of England who were sup posed to be acqoainted with the navigation of the Baltic, who were to take the fleet in safety up to St. Petersburg ; but when they got to the Downs all the pilots except eight loft them, and these eight knew so little of Baltic naviga tion that oncrby one they were also sent back. He did not blame the Admiralty for this, for they did their best under the circumstances ; but what he did complain of was that no steps had been taken to obtain properly qvialified pilots beforehand. He wrote from the Downs that they had. no North San. pilots in the fleet, but he was ordered to sail the next day, and of course he went. During the last war no ship of the line was allowed to go to sea without three pi• lots on board. But this the Governmentprobably could not provide on the inst mt. Well, the fleet sailed, and, hap oily, reached the Sound in safety. Then it arrived at Haugo Sound, where he was directed by the right bon baronet to take it, and there await further orders. About this time he received an order from the Foreign Secretary so to dispose of the ships under his command that no Russian steam-yes eel should escape by the Raltic. Now, those who know any thing about the Baltic woeld be a ware that Hango Sound was not the place to prevent steamers coming upthe Baltic; but env- people here did not know what the Baltic was. He had to consider then how he was to execute these opposing or.lers. If he had remained at Hang° Sound and the itnesian fleet had put to sea and arrived at Copenhagen, eatting off his only means of getting back, what would have been said by the Government, by the house, and by the country about his incapacity and neglect ? He would have been told, "You had your orders from the Secretary of State, and ought to have obeyed them as being superior tie those of the First Lord of the Admiralty." Well, he obeyed the Secretary 'df State's orders,/ and having very active admirals under 'him, Admiral Plutnridge anti others, be placed the steamers amongst the rocks and shoals to command the passage there, and passed with the main body of the fleet through the Belt without accident or loss. On the following night they were obli g ed to anchor in the Cattegat, in the open sea, the windblow ing so hard that the ships could not keep their sails furled, and the men could not go out upon the yards. He should observe that many of the men had never been aloft before, and that altogether the fleet was in a most in efficient state in regard to the manning, and this when they had a difficult service to perform in a dangerous sea and against a peweriul and superior force. Well, when be arrived at Kioge Bay he received a letter from the Admi ralty directing his attention to the order he had.received from the First Lord, and intimating that he had left the station appointed for hirn.to wireless at without sufficient reason. Hoe ever, they afterwarila found out, he supposed, t hat he had sufficient reason, for there came to him no less than four letters from their lordships, which, he supposed, as they were connected with the secret departrnent, he must not read, but which the house might imagine the purport of—one approving of biter:induct—another complimenting him oft the successful passage of the Belt. On the Bth of April he received a letter from the Admiralty condp:iment ing him upon his having permed the Belt under all the circumstances. : Now what that meant he did not know, unless the Admiralty hail forgotten their own order:. He (Sir C. Nup er) wrote ailetter to their lordship in reply, to the one he had alinded to, calling their attention to the order ho had received front the Secretary of State to place kis ships at the.head of theSoand, and prevent the Russian fleet from getting elate and he added, I did my bast to obey that order, and you blame Ime for so doing." Wall, that passed off, and having succeeded in getting the fleet. coaled and watered, on the 12th or April he sailed with 12 sail of the line for the Gulf of Finland. He hail hail by this time•experience of the danger arising frem the vessels, beings inadequately manned. He and the officers under him did all they could in exercising the mon, and teaching them their duty, but everybody must know that it wits not in a day or two, or even in two or three weeks, 'that a fleet even when menned by seamen, could be got into orderaud efficient discipline ; but such had been our neglect of naval a ff a i rs during peace, that we had very rarely had a fleet at sea, and then ocly for a short time, and the ceesequeucs was that when the necoseity more, men were not to bo found. What would a Board of Admiralty, careful of the interests of the country, have , done under puck oircumstcmcco ? It THE SUN S LONDON, "FRIDAY EVENING, MARCH _l4, 1856. they could not have got six or eight sail of the line properly manned, they might have got six or eight frigates, or if not, six or eight sloops, which would have cost less money. But in his fleet he believed there was uot a junior officer, a lieu tenant, or even a captain that had ever sailed in line before. That, however , was not their fault. They had host no op portunity. It was no easy matter for ships to sail in line within one or two cables length of each other. It was diffi cult in the day-time, and much more so at night. This being the condition of the fleet under his command, he na turally hesitated in going into the Gulf of Finland so early in the year, the entrance being at all times difficult from the vast number of rocks and shoals which abounded, and especially so at that early period of the year, when the navigation was scarcely yet open. Upon this he re ceived a letter from the Admiralty, which he thought rather sharp, but he had written a letter to them which, he was afraid, was rather sharp too. Hear, and a laugh.) The moment, however, that he discovered his error, he acknowledged it. Nevertheless ho was afterwards ac cused of disobeying orders, and treating the board with disrespect. He confessed that he had lopted a tone i n that letter which was not altogether proper, but it was his failing to go sometimes too fast and sometimes too slow. (Cheers and laughter.) He ought to have stated that he received a letter before he left Xioge Bay from the right hon. baronet stating — lam entirely satisfied with your proceedings. Neither Lord Clardndon nor r anticipated your movement inside the Belt, and believed that you would watch in the Cattegat the entrance of the Sound and of the Belts' until you received orders to enter the Baltic, Yon judged, however, wisely, and the time which you have gained has been very precious, and the pacsa;e of the Belt in fine caller and in safety has been a most successful exploit. You will also have been enabled to exercise your officers and men to gre.tt advantage, with the certainty that the enemy is in front of you, blocked up in the ice for some time to come, and that your reinforcements will arrive, and that your discipline will be improved. When the state of the ice permits,l conclude that yon will establish a close blockade of the Gulf of Finland, dividing the enemy's squadron at Crenstadt and at Sweaborg, and intercepting the trade of Revel and Riga. I rely on your prudence in not knockinyour head against stone walls prematurely, or with out the certainty of a great success, or the fair prospect of attaining some most important object worthy of the risk and of the loss, which when you attack fortresses with ships are serious and inevitable. Of cenrse ho naturally felt pleased at receiving this laucla tory letter from the right hon. baronet. After ho had made this mistake in writing to the Admiral as he bad done, he received the following letter from the right hon. baronet, which was especially satilfactory to him : I have received your letter of tho 19th, off the entrance of tho Gulf of Finland. I am glad that you decided not to pro ceed to Sweaborg.. The weather is still broken, the channel is not clear of ice, and your force is not yet concentrated. A safe anchorage within the Gulf of Finland would S4Olll to me your greatest and most pressing necessity. I bad hoped that Port Baltic might be available for this purpose ; but if it be commanded from the shore, or if for any other reason you reject it, still I trust that you will be enabled to esta blish and to hold a close blockade of the Gulf of Finland, and to ,cut off the communication by sea between Sweabo'g and Cronstadt. Your force, I hope and think, will be large enough to render the escape of any Russian squadron from the Batic iznpossitle, and to leave us quite at ease in En land, although we may have no large. reserve ready on our own shores. It' will be b: ft, in the first instance, to feel yrur way, and to make good your ho'd in the Gulf of Finland. When I say this, I by no means contempl do an attack either on this or that place (mentioning two pines). I have a great .respect for stale walls, and have no fancy for runnicg even screw line-of-battle ships againA them. Because the public here may be impatient, you must not be rash ; becaur,e they, at a distance from danger, aro foolhardy, you must not risk the Ides of a fleet in an impossible enterprise. I believe both to be all but impregnable from the sea, Sweaborg more especially; and none bat a very large army could o:-operate by land efficiently. If, then, you have no means except naval at your command, you "must pause long and consider well before you attempt say attack on the R:issian squadrons in their strongholds, and I am afraid they are much too cautious to come out and meet you Had you been weaker, they mielt have done so ; now they will wait and watch an opportunity, in the hope that you wi 1 seriously cripple your Lot co by knocking your head against their forts, when they cony take you . at - a serious disadvaa tige, and inflict a fatal blow. These considerations must not he overlooked by you. I recall them to your mind, lest in the eager desire to achieve a great exploit, arid to satisfy the wild wishes of an impatient multitude at home, you should yield to some rash impulse, aid fail in the discharge of one of the noblest of duties, which is the moral courag , to do what you know. to be right, at the risk of being accused of . having done wrong. It is enough to present this view to deliberate attention; you wia reflect on it, and I am certain that your judgment will not err. Thinking, then, that it was not right to go into the Gulf of Finland at that early period of the year, he went into the Harbour of Elfsnabea with the intention of looking to the rigging of the shits, anti getting in water, but it came on to blow, and bad nothing but a succession of gales for - several days, so that he was detained for ton days when he expected only to be detained for twr. Considering the shoals and rocks about El fsnaben he was never more anxious in his life than during this limo. Had it come on to blow hard, the danger woal 1 . have been imminent ; but by the mercy of Providenee all the ship. got. safely out of this'trap—.'or such he might Call it. In this difficulty, which was in" Creased by a thick fog, the greatest zeal and energy were exhibited by officers and neon. There was no wavering, no ivaat of decision on the part of the captains, and the rea diest obedience on the part of all the subordinate officers end the seamen, and, as he, had said, every vessel was broue,ht safely through. But he would leave hon, gentle men to suppose what a state of anxiety he was in until the signal was made in the afternoon that all were in safety. He felt he was fully justified in going into Elfsnaben, seeing that there was nn roadstead off Sweaborg. He then wrote to tko Admiralty sating that he intended to proceed to the tipper part of the Gulf as soon as he could get together a sufficient force, but how it was to be done with 20 sail, some of which were not fit to go into action, he did not know, bat all thet could be done with the means at his dienoal, ,?e ti plied, a Their lordships are saCsied that you will do all that you can do. It is to be regretted that, by your latter of the 23 ,- 1 ult., you consider some of the ships under your command are unfit to go into action, an I my lords cal,- not but feel surprised that such. a statement on your part should have been unaccompanied by • detailed - re ports of the condition of the vessels to which you allude." de read this letter. because when his noble and learned friend behind him (Mr. :NIL lins) made a ;notion on this sub ject the right hon. baronet read this letter and said he had had no reply to it. He (Sir C. Napier) did reply to it. The letter was to the effect; " that he alluded to the ships which had lately come from England which bad not seen a shot fired ; they were poorly manned, but the admiral; had been indefatigable, and the c Vains had done their best to put them into a state of discipline."' Why the right hon. hart. made that statement unless to brin g him into had *dour he could not conceive. How could be be astonished that the ships were not in proper order in two tenths, when every experienced officer knew that it could not be done in loss than 12 mouths, or even two years? tie (Sir C. Napier) wrote alsci to his hon. and gallant friend ( admiral Berkeley) as follows. The hon. and gallant gentle man then read the letter, to the effect " that he had done all in his rower to get the skips se my for battle, but that it must not be supposed ships could be made perfect in a day, whereas the Russian ships were in excellent order." Re wrote another letter complaining that " the ships were without subordinate officers, mates, masters as sistants, midshipmen, and cadets, and that there were yoni g men who might have been sent out." He mentioned this because there were so few o cers of those ranks in the navy generally, and it would have been easy to have picked up from the numerous steam-vessels in tile mercantile marina young men for,thoie . ranks, on the under standing that they were not to stay in the service unless they were found quite capable. But that was net clone, and there were too few of those officers, without whom it , vas no easy matter to carryon theduties of a 'ship. After this ho returned to Hango Sound with fourteen sail of the line, the Russians having eight or nine sail of the line at flelsingfors. By the by, he must say it was most extra ordinary that though we had a minister at Copenhagen, a uinister in Sweden, a minister at St; Petersburg, a minis sr at Hamburg, and consuls all over the Baltic when the fleet sailed, it was not known whore the Russian fleet was, and 11 gallant officer now no more was sent from England to poke his way up to Revel, and a very extraordinary way he did it in ; for he put his vessel's bows against the ice and bored her through it, and one very break he pushed her stem through it. That was that gallant officer Captain Lyons (the son of Sir E. Lyons), who was now unfortu- Innately no more. (Rear.) His (Sir C. Napier's) object in going to Hango was to endeavour to coax the Russian fleet, and, following the example of Nelson, he went in, hoping that the Russians, seeing his fleet in one of their own bar brows, would have had the courage to come out. Bat they did not, and rernained snug in their harbours. He then went to Sweaborg to examine the Russian fleet there. There he received a letter from "the right hien. baronet of the most complimentary kind : I am well pleased with all your operations, and the con centration of your force at the entrance of the Gulf of Fin land, in a safe harbour where yon can command fresh water, appears to me a judicious operation.. I conclude that you will leave a squadron before Helsingfors sufficiently strong to prevent the escape of the Russian squadron within the har bour, and proceed with the rest of the combined fleet to the neighbourhood of Cronstadt, which larn afraid you will find unassailable. If the Russian fleet will not come out to meet you, and if you find that you cannot reach them, after having well reconnoitred the works and ascertained what it is pos sible and impossible to do, your return to the more open sea below Helsingfors would appear to be a judicious measure, every necessary precaution being taken to prevent the re union of [the Russian force now divided at Cronstadt and Helsingfors. I am well aware of all the difficulties of your position, and of the impossibility of triumphing over an enemy who will not fight you on fair terms; but you will discipline your fleet and make your officers and men ready for any service. It is a disgrace to Russia that she dare not show. a ship in her own waters, and that eh) is driven to seek for safety under the shelter of her fortresses. It would be madness to play her game, and to rush headlong on her granite walls, risking our naval superiority, with all the fatal consequences of defeat, in an unequal contest with weed against stone, whiCh in the long run cannot suceeed. I had reliance on your prudenee which was doubted. Your bril liant courage was proved long ago. You will now show to the worl i that you possess a combination of those great virtues , e' , ieh are necessary to make a consummate Commander-in- Chief. tie went to examine Sweaber; and to see if it wan possible to do anything, and he wrote to the First Lord of the Ad eliralty the f Mowing letter. The letter was to the follow iez effect : " That he had taken sounding's about Sweaborg, led he would have undertaken to carry the ships up as far AS a certain channel, but it was impossible to get them tin to Sweaborg, for the passage was not wi ler than the length of a ship and a yeetel was sunk across it, while the stneke of the steamers alone without that of the guns Wee en Ili tient to defend the harbour; it was only by Means of a large military force occupying the ielamis and' Reeding shells into the fortress, that it was. assailable." Various plans were sent to him by the Admiral ty—sonie of then ridiculous enough—and OR the ISth' of July he wrote to Sir James Graham the following letter, which lie wrote to him personalty, as he did not wish it to go before the Board of Admiralty. The letter was to the following ef fect, "that the only euc'eesful manner of attacking Aren berg that he could see, after grim:, consideration and can snltation.with Admiral Chad; who was well acquainted with gunnery, was fitting out a great number of gun and mortar boats, each carrying one grin with a long range, and stationing them west of slweaborg ; then every shell wou'r tell, that force being backed by the fleet to relieve the men as they requited .it. By this means Sweaborg snd Hel eingforis might have been laid in ashes. The sshipe not have been destroyed ,for they could have moved az t of the way. lie was at the siege of Martinique, and then they could not take Fort Botirbon until 50 mortars wore 'used tat shell it, when it soon surrendered. ' He had sent ; Lome copiee.of all the Tisane propose:l, nail he thought if ithey were laid before artillery and engineer officers they would agree that it was the only way to destroy the for tress. It was too late in the e*aon for that to be done,. but preparations ought to be made for the next year. lie - was sure that thirteen such mortars would do it ; and, although it would be at a great expense, yet if they wanted the war to be carried on successfully, that ought not to be considered. Ho could excuse the Government and the Ad miralty in 1854 for not having gun-boats fitted out, for in the sudden , transition from peace to war they could not be aware that mortars would be wanted, and they probably never read how Martinique was taken. The weather was . now settled, and the ships were assembled in Faro Sound. - The French fleet were there too, and a beautiful sight it was to see 27 sail of the line in a Russian port, and pitiable to think that they were all useless. He wrote to the right hon. baronet his opinion in a letter dated after that of the 18th July, which the Admiralty denied that they had received. The letter wasto the following effect--"that hehad received the Duke of Newcastle's despatches and his (Sir J. Gra ham's) instructions, and he believed that they could be car ried out. He had been told that there was to be a complete blockade of the Gulf of Finland, and that was done ; he had boon told to look to the Aland Islands, and send home the soundings and Capt. Sullivan's report. There were three courses which might be followed—firstly, to make the ser vice one of blockade, but that would not please the peo ple of England ; secondly, to go to Cronstadt and offer battle to the Russian fleet, which they were not likely to accept, unless you went into their harbours, where the channels were so narrow that only one ship could go in at a time; or the Aland Islands were to be attacked; but if that was clone and there were no troops, the ships might go in as near as they could and land all the marines, French and English, and attack Bomarsund, for which purpose 10,000 seamen might be pnt on shore and turned. into soldiers. He could propose this to the French admi ral, and, if he did not assent, they could go up to Crou st eft. The French admiral had doubts about , the at tack on Bomarsund without troops, and that it would be bettter to go to Croustadt. That being his view, it was determined to go to Cronstadt." It was no doing of his that 10,(00 meta were sent to attack the Aland hies. All he wanted was 2,000 or 3,000 mou ; but the GJvernment sent 10,000 French troops. The right hon. baronet wrote to him in reply as follows : If anything can b 3 done you will discover the best means of doing it„but no rash experiments must be tried which do not hell out a reasonable prospect of success. lam anxious to hear your opinions aA. intentions when you have looked at Swcaborg and entered the Gulf of Finland. lam afraid that the Russians will not pluck up courage and come out to meet you. Some gentlemen might perhaps think that he (Sir C. Napier) ought not to read thew because they were partly pzivate.; but it should be recollea:ted that they were on the public service ; and when he reas I the evidence of the right hon. baronet before the Sebastopol committee, that he had a right to turn offieers' private letters into public ones, he (Sir C. Napier) die 'hot see whylie should not du the same. (blear, hear.) His hon. and g. last friend opposite (Ad miral Berkeley) would, he hope :I, excuse hies if he read some of his. (He teen read is letter of Admiral Y-mke ley, of 27th Jane, expreesizeg the satisfactiou of the Admiralty with his conduct tine their reliance ou his judg- • moot.) Now, ha of course felt kileasure at receiving these communications front his euueric•rs, and if any one thought he was wrong, they inuA rawest nor thithe considered that he hail beseu sent adrift and disee!aced, anti he must be ex- Cased in any &forte ho inarie to ;retrieve his character. Out the 19th the fleet sailed for Cro a steel t, and arrived before it on the 22d. Thu French adadiat and himself reeoeuortred the ler tress. Now he had seen letrosie fortifications ; he hal seen Tuition, Cadiz—he had not s set' Brest—but he had seen Cherbourg ; but not one of the el was to be compared as fortifications or w:th regard to te.rzeleth with Croustade. it Was not merely a-fortress, for it those stone 4-deckeis wore ie an open sea, and could be got. at, ho would not have hosi t .tell though ho had to try A:4 s against stone walls ; but the danger was in going i 4 tit ue. The soundings in the only channeLshowee the depthezu the passage to lie quarter less three. How then could 1. ship drawing 27 feet of water go through such a p issage where the depth of venter was only gum ter less - throe ? Both ho and the French admiral were of of inien that it was impossible, and he had never changed his opinion. Jie wrote to that effect to the Admiralty, and he also seut, a, plan, which he had formed, for attacking the place, which. of course he c:.uld not die ceise. The Admiralty wrote. to him in reply. In that letter they called "attentien to an able and well-executed surveyof the approaches to.. Croustadt ; they expressed conlideace in his judgment ; Cher were aware that ho had offered battle to the emeny, heat it would be of no avail to attack au impregnable fortress.; that he Must bear in mind that the great object was te render the Russian fleets useless. The troops must • be removed without less of time ; that the primary object was a close blockade of the Gulf of Finland; and thsat having a sufficient force to keen the enemy in check, he must bring up the troops from Faro ~Suund wi bout 6.elay." Those were his in structioes ; and when he gate a to examine them he found it iMpssible to execute them, lie was to take care of Cronetadt, to watch Svet'es berg, and to go to Faro and 'embark the tro.)ps. Mow was it possible to de it all ? He did what he thong Let best; and instead of going elsewhere he brought all the teemps to Ledsuud. He there received the following letter from the right hon. baronet : I am glad you have gone up to Croustadt, to see with your own eyes what it may be peseible to do there. Whatever man can do I ant certain will be• done by you; and, if you are restrained by a sense of duty feern embarking in,any despe rate enterprise, on your return to Faro Soiled you shall ro e:eye In 1 inlay:flans from me respecting an attack upon tho Aland Islands . •It went on thus : I had anticipated your return to the westward after an oiler of battle, which I felt certain the enemy would d:cline ; and it now remains for you to blot;kado the Gulf oC Finland, to keep the fleets at Cronstadt and lielsingfore disunited, and to await the arrival of the French tromps, When'yonancltao Frene admiral and general must deliborate on the operations to be .undertaken by the combined for.o;es. Bomarsund will clearly bo within your 'reach. Sweabm..g . , if it were possible, would be a noble prize; but on no acuo ant be lecL into any despe rate attempt, and above all things avoid the least risk of the Rassian fleet slipping out of the 'Gulf of Finland. when your back is turned ; and be slow to laud your marines, without whom your line of battle is disate.ed. • The Russians, thou;h shy, are crafty ; and if they can. catch you at a disadvantage they win Lu aoao open you o . With ou,utio troops and -200 gun-boats you might still do something groat an:l deci sive before the end of Sept.—l am, my dear Charles, yours sincerely, Jo U. GRAHAM. In another letter it was said " that the Admiralty had w.t.thed all his proceedings with approval." He left Cron/ stadt on Aug. 3, and on the 6th arrived before 13omarsund. He sent a squadron of 9 sail of the line to take cars of the Russian (irate while he was at nonaar.un.l. When ko was there he got the following letter from the sight hoe: ba ronet : Admiralty, Aug. 1, 1 854. [Recd. 6th.] My dear Charles,--By your foresight and g,oci, arrange ments, the who7e of the French army will have joined you off Bomarsund before the end of this week, and I hope that you will send back the line-of-battle ships which carried them to you as soon as possible. . lam aware that Bomarsund presents difficulties, but I feel certain that you will overcome them. The next move must be well considered, but the fall of Bomarsund will be no bad begiuning.--I am yours very truly, • J. G. GRAHAM. The whole of the troops havingarrived at Ledsund, on their way to Boum-send, there being a very intricate channel to that place, he sent Admiral Chads to survey the ground before Bemarsund. The French troops arrived on the 3uth July, but the stores did not arrive till sth Aug. ; and he would show that no time was lest, for on the 7th the troops were transshipped, and came on to Bomarsand'; on the Bth a landing was made simultaneously at tso places; on the I)th the guns mere landed, and dragged by Sailors three or four miles into the wintry ; batteries were established, and on the 14th two towns on the island surrendered ; and on the 16th the fortress of Batnarsund also surren dered. It was expected that it would have held out for some time, but to their astonishment it surren dered at the time be had stated. It would have been easy to have run the 'ships up to Bomarsun't be fore the troops arrived, but it would have been at a loss of a great many moo, and perhaps of some of the ships. But th French bad sent out au army, and if he had attempted anything Wore they were ready, they would naturally have been angry and disappointed. The French Admiral thought that tomarsund ought,• not to be attacked before the gone were placed in position. He had now brought the history of the campaign down .tothe taking of Bountreund. Afterwards the Admiralty wrote to : him to the fol lowing effect:—" Your report of the combined military an d na val operations before Boiaarsund has afforded us the utmost satisfaction, 'and we cordially approve of the admir ableaand judicious arrangements which you adopted." The right hon, hart., wrote thus : Portsmouth, Aug. 22,1854. My dear Sir Charles,—l congratulate you sincerely on the success of your operationsbcfore Bomarsund,anl I highly com mend your prudence and wisdom in effecting the capture of this stronghold of the enemywithout the loss of a ship or mauylives. You have judged well in every respect, both in detaining the line-of-battle ships and steamers, and then in seeding them home laden with prisoners.—l atu, yours ♦ery truly. J. G. GRAHAM. On the 25th of August the right hon. baronet wrote again as follows : Devonpore, Aug. 25, 1854. My dear Sir Charles,—l am more than satisfied with your proceedings. lam delighted with the prudence and sound judgment which you haVe evinced. It would have been a. miserable want of 'firmness had you yielded to clamour, and risked your slips, and sacrificed many valuable lives, iu an at tempt to destroy, bi nay, 1 weans, works which were certain to fall to an attack by laud. Your reasoning also, in favour of t immediate and entire destructien of the forts at Bomaisuud, is irresistible, and I hope you will take care that the destruction is complete, and that not ono stone is left upon another. lam well pleased also with the promptitude with which you have sent back the line-of-battle ships and steamers. The work has been well done, and I gladly give you the utmost credit for it. I write in great haste, but that which presses is the order for destroying Bomarsund. At greater leisure, and in a few days, I will write to You on the subject of your ulterior ope rations; and of the preparations for an early retreat from the Baltic before winter. am yours, very sincerely, • J. G. GRAHAM. . . These were the whole of the commendations he 'calved ; but up to thiFi time every . act be performed was approved. After that the French Admiral and General went to S wea borg, and gave it as their opinion that it could not be at tacked with success. General Jones, the Englielf)com maading officer of engineers, was of opinion that it could be attacked by land with 5,0,0 troops. The French general was of a different ,ophion. He commenced the embarka tion of the troops ; General Niel, the Fr uch engineer, was, however, of opinion that ten sail of the line could knock down Sweaborg. He (Sir C. Napier) might as well say that he had received other letters of approbation which he would not read.--[The hon. gentleman, however, i read one Or txo, which was not of importance.] —But now 01100 the ilirficutty. When the right hon. baronet heard that Vie F. &Ali Admiral had decided that Bei - mire:lnd was to he destroyed, he wrote to him (Sir C. Napier) on the 29th of August as follows: My dear Sir Charles,—The Emperor bas sent orders to Gen. Baraguay d'ililliere. Wboa we know what arrangement is to be made with moped to the French army we will concert measures with France for the gradual withdrawal of the fleet from the Baltic. You should begin by sending honie, with out much delay, the sailing three-deckers, the least weatherly of the sailing linck)f-battle ships, and the slowest and worst of the block ships. This will do for a beginning, and, by de grees, you must withdraw to the southward, leaving the Gulf of Bothnia open, and watching only the Gulf of Finland with a squadron of observation. Kiel, I conclude, will be your first halting- f place; but this is on the assumption that the French army is withdrawn for winter quarters at home. I am, (Sze., J. G. GRAFI ‘3l. iAny parson reading that would have concluded that was an 'authority for sending home the bad sailing ships and the .three-deckers. lie (Sir C. Napier) knew that it was right, Tor August in the Baltic was not like Au -iiat in England. -But when it was known in England that toe _French army !woe coming home, meetings were held to Maine the Go tverriment because Cron , tadt was not taken, or Sweaborg, or eeen Sebastopol. The right hon. baronet got alarmed, and he turned shout to see who was to bear the blame, and he thought he would place it on kiln (Sir C, Napier), J ' ~.,. ; - - --k - -- and out came an order' for him to hold a council of war with the French admiral and his own admirals, in order to ascertain whether anything further could be done against Sweabore. Well, the council of war met on. board the Duke of Wellington, and it was unanimously decided that at that season of the year, and with the means at their disposal, nothing further could be done against such a fortification as Swoaborg. Well, then, the right hon. baronet felt his border blood begin to boil. He forgot his " Dear Sir Charles," and turned' that address into " Dear Admiral." He forgot having called him (Sir C. Napier) a " consummate commander in -chief," and having expressed satisfaction with all his arrangements. lie forgot that, only a few weeks before, he had recommended caution with regard to attacking stone walls, and had expressed the opinion that Sweaborg could not be attacked with less than 200 gun-boats , and 50,000 men ; and now he wanted him (the admiral) to attack it with Bor 10 sail of the line. Sir James also for got that he had written, " I am commanded to acquaint you that y . ourinstructions are not to control your discretion as to any joint operation ; it is your duty net to undertake any operation which your own judgment does not entirely approve." Could the house believe, then, that the same right hon. gentleman who had toll him that ha . was "on no account to risk her Majesty's fleet," was serious now in wanting him to attack Sweaborg with S or 10, ships of the line? No, the right bon. gentleman was not serious; but there was a commotion in the country, and the Government looked about to see upon whom they could throw the blame. It was a mere flash'in the pan, by which the right hon. baronet tried to cover his own political cowardice. (Hear, hear.) This life(Sir C. Napier) was able to prove. On the sth of September the French Minister in London applied to the Admiralty for steam-vessels to tow the French ships with the troops lame. Notwithstanding that, nod although the Government - hero must have known that General Beragnay d'iiilliers had got orders to evacuate the Maud Isles, they sent out an order to him (Sir C. Napier) to call a council of war, and ask the French general, a Marshal of France, to take General Jones's plan into con• sideration. Now, what had General Jones done ?He had gone with the French general of engineers to look at Swoaborg, and had come to the opinion that by lending 5,000 men upon the Island of Bakholmen, which was strongly fortilie and within pistol s h o t o f G us t avevarn , the strongeit of the forts, with three batteries upon it, not knowing the number of troops in it, with a Russian three (locker lying iu the passage between them, almost touching each shore, and with eight Russian sail of tho line lying in the harbeur of Sweaborg, covering the whole of the island, and manned, perhaps, by 0,000 or 7,00 e men, beside?, tl e getrison—by landing in such a situation, the attack might be made. Now be (Sir C. Napier) would put it to any military or naval offieer, whether such a thing would be safe? vie asset toil that. it would not bo sefe ; and that if he and the French admire' and general had been foolish enough to attempt such a thing, although the weather was so bad that they positively could not have effected a land ing. With their guns and stores, not ono man would have come off again free : eve: y Man jack of them would have been made prisoner. (A. laugh.) Thet wes ns clear as pos sible to him : there could not be the slightest doubt, of it.. Well, the French general laughed at such a proposal, and left the place ; so that he (Sir Charles) could not call the council of war, because the French general and all his army were gone. After that scheme was repudiate! crone an other order, in which he was referred to the opinions of General Niel, the French general of engiecers, a very clever man, who hid been opposed to the plan of landing 5,0U0 French troops, bet, after examining the place, was of opi nion that if eight or ten sail of the line were anchored abreast of the battuties of aweahorg, which were stronger than Gibraltar, and were said by officers who had seen Sebastopol to be stronger also than the latter place, they would be ahle to knock it down ; but., like a sensible meet, General Niel added that he should think it a desperate at tempt, and that he did not consider it within his province to recommend it. Why, that was condemnatory of the whole project ; for Goneaal Niel spoke as areengineer, and would no more undertake to tell a sailor where ho could place his ships, than ho (Sir C. Napier) would undertake, as a sailor, to tell a military engineer where to place his batteries in besieging one of the strongest towns of Europe. ( [leer.) Well, the French admiral felt excessively in lag nant at being de:rile:a isy the English First Lord of the Admiralty to reconsider his opinion, or to consider the opinion of Gen. •Trlde. The French admiral woull stay no longer, but said, " I have given my opinion, and if I were to go with yon DOW, and ycu undertook anything there, I should be obliged to assist von, and if it failed should be to blame for having been so weak as to join you in it." So Admiral Parseval was naturally very much irritated, although he (Sir Charles) tried to pacify him as well as he could. The right hon. baronet at the Admiralty, however, was still fall of fight, and wrote to . say that " British steamers in fine weather, and in the earlier part of September, might bo more gloriously em ployed then in towing home French troops. Now what sort of tine weather was it the fleet were at that time en joying ? They were pitching at the bows in a gala of wind, for five days together. It was impossible, then, to think of landing troops at an anchorage which the ships could hardly get into in the best weather. Sir James Graham said at the same time—" We know nothing with certainty respecting the return of the French fleet from the Baltic." Now, that statement could not be correct—for the French nelmiral received his orders on the 30th August to return to Cherbourg, and showed him (Sir Charles) his orders on the Ist Slptcraber, and also a letter, in which it was stated : that the French charge d'Affaires in England had commu aeioated to the English Government the fact that the French fleet was ordered home. The Government fie med not to know that the French fleet was going to winter i the B iltie. There was no end of the plans which they ap peared to think were flasible. One was, that he (air Charles) should get two dredging machines to deepen the passage at Sweaborg, by which 15,030 tons of rubbish wore to be mixed in two days; and it was suggested that he shinild take advantage of the smoke and fog to work them unobserved by the enemy. Another plan sent out for his consideration was to blast the ice in the winter when the sea was froz in between the islands and the mainland, to prevent the Ituesians from marching over. He was also informed by the Admiralty that he could anchor all over the Baltic in winter in any niece. which certainly did go beyond After quoting some other letters of Sir Jas. Graham's :bout the end of Septdnber, and showing that they were contradicted by the orders he received from the - Admiralty about sending home the sailiug ships, the lion. 'and gallant gentleman gave an uccetints of his recon noitring Sweaburg in the Driver, piloted by Captain Sul livan, in conseqiumee of which he wrote to the right hon. hart., a description of the formidable obstacles which would have to be encountered if Sweabore , were attacked by the fleet alone, and concluded by saying " Whether this. attack would succeed or not, it is impossible to say ; but we must calculate on ships being set on fire by red-hot shot amid 'Jells, of which there would bo abundance ; and whe ther successful or not, it is evide ,t the ships would he in Ito condition to beat the Russian fleet afterwards, and if the 'attack were mado at this se Will of the year. when you cannot depend upon the weather, Ido not know what would be the result ;" he went on to say, " I beg you will hot suppose Sweaborg cannot be attacked ; I think it can, but it must be with caution and judgment." There were thus two distinct opinions which he had, upon different oc casiens, given about an attack on Sweaborg. Ooe opinion related to the supposition that the ships alone wero'to attack; and in that case he pointed out the inadequacy of the aneans, amid the dangers which would render almost certain the loss of a large part of them. Another opinion, nr plan of his, related to an attack 'with mortars and gun. b rate, and with the whole of the fleet. It was on the 4th October that the hoax arrived in England, the t tumour of Sebastopol being taken ; upon which Sir James Graham wrote to him, quoting his letter written after the last re canuaissance of Sweaborg, and interpreting it with the ondea.vour to persuade him that he had committed himself by that letter to the opinion that Sweaborg could be taken with the means which he then had. But this was putting a most impertinent construction upon his letter. He (Sir Charles) had never said that the attack by the ships, which ho bad described to the Admiralty, would succeed; on the contrary, he had distinctly asserted that if he at tecked with the ships alone, he would lose a great number of ships, and not be certain to succeed ; but what he had said was, that if he attacked with the mortar-boats and gun-boats which he had asked for, he was (pits certain that Sweaborg would be laid in ruins. (Beer, hear.) He could not really believe that at that time of the year, the 4th of October, the Board of Admiralty, consisting of a civilian First Lord and five or six sailors, seriously intended that the French fleet should return, and the English fleet go- up without it into the Gulf of Finland et the begin ning of the winter season. Ho had no hesitation in saying that if all those heavy three-deckers had gone up. the Gulf of Finland at that date, to remain for the purpose of undertaking any operations, there would have been an end of them. After reeding some of the cor respoutlence which ensued upon his representing to Sir J. Graham the uncertainty of the weather, and the advanced season of the year, in reply to which the right laonngentle man argued that those objections were not insurmountable, and having advised him to calculate the chances, and not to lose an opportunity, ended by saying. " But the final decision must rest entirely with yourself," the gallant ad miral said that if, during th‘ summer, such a goading letter as that had been sent to him, instead of the cautious ones he then received, he should not 'sieve hesitated for a single moment to go into Sweaborg, lot the consequences be what ever they might, because no officer could endure to be writ ten to in such a style. But he was perfectly certain, in Oc tober, it was a piece of mere insanity ; he was convinced that the Admiralty themselves could never have intended it, and if they did, he would denounce them as totally unfit to manage the British navy. But when the rumour cameo that Sebastopol was taken, all England ran wild, and the Admiralty shared in the excitement, and under its influ ence that letter was written, with a proposal which hie own better judgment repudiated. But that the people in autho rity shuuld be capable of writing such a letter, whether to destroy him, or out of their own folly, was disgraceful to the public department over which they presided. (Llear.)l He next read a letter from a gallant officer holding a coin-I eland under him in the Baltic fleet, whose na ne ho did not men den, agreeing iu the testimony that nothing co old -be done at thee, season of the year, and that so far from then thinking of an attack upon Swoaborg, he thought the fleet was lying in a most dangerous position even where it was at that time. Two or three letters of his own addressed to the Lords of the Admiralty ire the month of April, Sir Charles Napier then read, in.which he strove to impress upon their lordships thterceighness and severity of the Bettie winter, anti explained also that the plau proposed by him (the admiral) in August was, firstly, that Sweaborg should be well bombarded with mortars, shells, and rockets by the gnu-beats, and that afterwards the ships should go in and finish the work. On the 9th Oct news cache to England which undeceived the Government end the public use to the rumour of the capture of S3basto , poi, and, without waiting for his reply to their orders, the Admiraltyat once telegraphed that the ships were to go borne; both French and English, and that they wore uo longer to attempt to attack S wet-berg. Constant _gales of wind prevailed at this time, the fleeelying at Nargen ; and it was a pity the First Lord of the Admiralty was not oa board then, that he might have picket out a favourable day at that season for the fleet-crossing over to attack Sweaborg. (A laugh.) But the right hon. gentleman was as much of a gunner as he was a sailor, for he actually fan cied that, with long guns he could throw shot in the man ner of vertical firing, as from a mortar, that was with An 41evation of 45 degrees. Te be sure, be might have'learned better than that if ho lied gone down to Portsmouth to see the practice of the Excellent. The gallant admiral then react a letter from' tbe Lords of the Admiralty, which he received in October, before quitting the station, in which they said, "My lords are fully satisfied with the reasons you leave assigned for not undertaking to attack Sweaborg after it became known to you that the ships under Admi ral Persoval had been withdrawn, and they might also have keen satisfied with the decision adopted -by you ou the joint report of the (aeons, had not your ewe letter of 'the sth September expressly informed their lordships that You had formed a plan for an attack." Now that state ment Ira; not true. Ho never gave such an opinion. His reason for not taking Sweaborg was that it was impossible. In his letter of the ,9th Aug. he said he had sent them ;Gen. *Town's opinion, but he had nothing to do with it. As he had said, it was perfectly impossible, and he might as well, if Gen. Jones had sat down before Sebastopol, for in etance, have told him they were all wrong, and that that was _ _ . not the way to take Sebastopol, but that the only way to take Sebastopol was to do so and so. He would now read nu extract from a letter which be wrote in reply, in which he said, "I beg to conclude this letter by most solemnly protest ing against the interpretation that theirlordshipe have put on my letter." Their lordships replied to this in a most jesuitical manner—he could not call it anything else—And that reply anu•t have been written by the right hon. gen tleman himself, for no one else could have written it. (Laughter.) "My lords have already declared themselves satisfied with the reasons assigned by you for not attacking Sweaborg." Here again they were assigning reasons that he never gave. "But coteileringthe conflict of authority, and the reports brought before thorn, their lordships can not look with satisfaction on the decision not to attack Sweaborg." Now, how could they write him such a letter? Why, in May he had not seen Sweaborg, and their lord ships had sent him plans of Sweaborg, and a Swedish en gineer also sent him plans, and on looking at them he thought it impossible to take it. In his answer to that conateunic stion he sail it was unfair for the Admiralty to take the first part of his letter and issue the rest, and he protested against it. Their lordships raised a► new question. They said that in May ho sent them plans. This was.quito true. His judgment was formed from the plans sent to him from the Admiralty. But their lordships had forgotten Ad miral Chae's report, sent to Sir J. Graham on the 11th of June, and hi, report on the 13th of July, after seeing S wee berg. Their lordships alluded also to a report he sent home on the 24th July, and they referr©d so the Lancaster guns not being sort.. He was aware that the Lancaster guns could net be sent that year, and his observations regarding them had reference to their being seat out the following year. In reply he wrote as follows : Kiel, Oct. 27. My dear Sir James,—So far back as Aug. 29, announced to you the intention of ie French General to withdraw his troops. I agreed with the French General and Admiral that Sweabo.g could not be attacked at this season of the year, and I have no hesitation in saying, had we moved the troops and ships up to Miolo roads, and landed 5,0)0 men, we should not have brought off one man, and how many ships we would have lost I cannot say. After the capture and destruction of Bemarsund till I loft Nargen, there h ,vo not been three days fit for operations that required seven or eight, and then the ships and transports must Laic lain amongst the rocks and shoals of Miele Roads--a position that might have done for a general, but certainly not for au admiral. Shoe ly after the troops sailed, I communicated to you that the French ad:td ral bad received orders to go to Cherbourg, that they were dated the 30th of August ; so that the decision was notlaken 'on the spot, as you suppose. Geueral Jones's report made no change whatever in our opinions. You say the French gene— rals partook of General Jones's opinions; then Way did he I not carry them cut ? Surely, Sir James, you could not have rea I them ; they are quite opposite. The French geu,rals thought the fleet could knock down Sweabwg in two hours. General Jones required acombined movJment, which would require seven or eight days. The French general, in his letter to use, says : —" Nous parosgeous l'opiuion do M. le General Jones, Sweaborg peat etre att ique et pane par les flottes si elles veulent faire contra cette forteresse nue attaqn . seriease." He went on, alter some other observations, to say— All summer, Sir James, you were cautioning me, and so were the Government, not to risk my ships against stone walls, for which yon had a great respect, and praising me for the manner I had conducted the fleet ; now winter is come, you are diss ithfied.at my not doing ; and as the people arc not satisfied, the Government are preparing to abandon me. because I will not follow the advice of a general, contrary to that of my own admirals, and diametrically opl•o -site to the opinion of the French general of• engineers, and attack a fortress at a season of the year when it is mere than probable I should have lost half my fleet. I have gone into this explanation :it great length ; it has given me much pain. I mu conscious of having done my duty, and, if you are dis satisfied, you can bring 1113 to a court-martial, or remove me, as I before =aliened to the Admiralty. lam very far front well, an t I assure you this correspondence has not improved my health, and I am suffering much from cold, Well, they were mot satisfied after all that explanation ; and after all the trouble he hart taken to show the position • he was in, Sir James G:aham said— . My dear Sir Charles,—You refer to my letters at the end of Aug Ist, as contemplating then the early tcrtninaton of active operations in the Baltic for this year. 1 was not pre pared, even at that time, for the immediate departure of the French army after the capture of Bomarsuud ; and I point Al oat to you Abe, Sweaborg, and Revel, as points which, with nilitaty aid, were open to attack. Much less was I prepared for the withdrawal of the Fre.ich squadron from the eons bi-ned-nartt operations - almost shaultancously, with the de parture of the army, as soon as Bomarsund bad been de strayed. These decisions were taken on the spot-- I believe, with your consent, but without any reference to the English Government. They were no such thing as taken on the spot with his con sent. They were taken by the French Government and communicated to our own Government. Sir James welt on : But in August we had not seen the report of General Jones on Sweaborg, which you forwarded to us from Led-und on the 29th of August, and which was in your hands before either the French army or the French fleet had left the Aland Islands. The report is entitled to respect. It made a great impression here, and raised a strong presumption that with the aid of the military force then present with the fleet, in seven or eight das s the works at Swcaborg might be destroyed, and that the month of September afforded ample time for tho oppeation. On the sth of September you seat us the obser evations of General Baraguay &liners and of General Niel on the report of General Jones. General Baraguay says expressly, after having reconnoitred Sweaborg hims lf, together with , 'eaeral Niel :--s‘ , We partake of the opinion of General Jones. Sweaborg may be attacked aid taken by the fleets, if they think fit to make on that fortress a so/lions attack." General Niel went further, and said that, without any military co-operation, eight or ten sail of the lino could lay the works in ruins in two hours, by a bombardment near at hand, on tl o sea front, where the works are weakest; and he intimated very distinctly an opinion that the attack ought to be made. Now he presumed Sir James Graham nuderstood Free . a orie e e i vi e ] Re es, , R tssessiess e s s eses.stre st•s pis et pries id.si les flottes, si sales vealent faire centre. cette,forterease one attaque se.riease." The right hoe. gentleman translated this tie moan that'an attack ought to be made. Sir James went on to say : Intho Leo of these reports, and within a week after re ceiving them, the iatellieenee that the French army and French fleet had left you, without a, shot being fired, except at Bo marsund, was both a surprise and disappointment. Then came your own second reconnaissance of Sweaborg, and a plan of naval attack, which you considered practicable. We were anxious, if the French and English forces could be united, that it should have been tried even this year, before the im mense fleet which bad been assembled retreated from-the ; but our own sailing ships having gone to Kiel, and the French squadron being omits way home, the opportunifry was lost, and nothing now remains to be clone but gradually to withdraw the line-of-battle ships, and to await the moment when ice shall enclose the Russian fleet within the Gulf of Fin land for the winter. Where were the - 50,000 men and the 250 Swedish gun boats? Then the right hon. gentleman came back again to ." My dear A, , miral.". I am very unwilling to be involved in a written controversy with yen, but you have brought it on yourself, by your re port of the 25th of Sept.,- after your second reconnaissance of Sweaborg. • That report appeared to me to be entirely at variance with the opinions previously expressed by you, and I certainly understood you then to say, that if you had mor tars, rocket:, and Lancaster guns, you con-i 'ered Sweaborg assailable by sea. In May you declared it to be unassailable, by sea and land, and the Admiralty did not send to you the appliances which, in September, you de;lared to be wanting, beeauSe they believed, fresh your account, they would be use less against a place which in the first instance you pronounced to be impregnable. I could not bring myself to believe that the want of Lancaster guns, or even of mortars, rendered a sea attack, on your plats of the 21th of September, impossible, if you had 25 sail of the line re-assembled before the place, with all their moans of vertical fire. I am sincerely sorry to he u. that yen are unwell. I hope that Kiel Harbour and milder air will restore your health. This was the answer : I can assure you, Sir James, it is far from my wish to enter into a controversy with you, but I will not admit that I have brought it on myself ; there is not a word in either my pub lic or private-letters that justifies the construction that you., and the Admiralty have thought proper to pat upon them. My letter in answer to their lordships' last despatch is plain enough; but if their lordships think proper to deliberate on one part ably letter,* and ignore another part, I can only protest against it ; and I am quite prepared to defend my self against any unjust attacks that are made against me. I have documents enough in my possession to justify my con &act, Enough has not been done to satisfy an impatient public, as you called them—some one must be blamed, and I am the chosen one ; but I will not allqw myself to be crushed because I could not do impossibilities. All this stir has been caused by the reports of two engineers (ono French and the other English), diametrically opposed to each other ; in ad dition to which was the report of the capture of SeSastopol, not yet taken, though the fleet there is assisted by an army of 70,009 men, in a fine climate ; and I have been expected to take places much stronger with a fleet alone ; and the same people, who se often warned sue against unnecessarily risk ing my fleet, are now dissatisfied because I did not expose their to certain destruction. I presume yore have seen Cap tain Sullivan by this time ; he is capable of _opening the eyes of the Government, if they are not hermetically sealed. I have gone through the world with honour and credit to my self, and just as I am about to leave it unworthy attempts aro being made to ruin my reputation ; but they will fail, and recoil on themselves. A. full report of the state of Sweaborg was rna i tle by him to the First Lord of the Admiralty, because he did not wish it to get into the hands of the clerks; and the house would be astonished to learn that that report :vas never laid before the aeard of Admiralty, and the he rd knew nothing about it. The Admiralty wrote to him amusing him of falsity ; it would have been more honourable in them to have written to hint and said they mistook his letter, and to have madedsim an apology, and there would have been an • end of this difference. Now he did not like to make use of hard words, and this was not the time to accuse a person of high treason, but it appeared to him that the then First Lord of • the Admiralty Was never serious in the Russian war, because. ho .g him orders not to attack Sweaborg in the summer time ;. and if he had written to him in the summer the letters 'that he wrote to him in the winter he should Most decidedly have attacked Sweaborg But the moment winter came the right hon.baronet fo got all that he had written to him in the summer, and tried to goat him on to attack thwe fortifications, when he had told him that if he did so the fleet w.euld probably have been lost. If the Emperor of Russia had been First Lord of the Admiralty ho would have given him just the same oriole that the First Lord of the Admiralty did ; he would have forbade him to attack the fortifications when it was just possinle to succeed, and he would have ordered him to do it when it was impossible. Well, they came away from Nargen and went toKiel, and shortly afterwards tho whole fleet arrived safe in England, after a most arduous campaign in a sea that had never been navigated bysuchaflest before. When they arrived in England he went, as in duty bound, to p•ay his respects to the First Lord of 'the Admiralty, atilt he must say that he was received ie a sneering way. They knew how the right hon. baronet could sneer when he chose. It was with the greatest difficulty that he (Sir 0. Napier) kept his temper. Sir Jas. Graham sail to him.— " You may tell me what you please, but I titan make no reply." That was the language use 1 to him by the First Lord of the Admiralty. When he got back to Portsmouth. he received an order to haul, down his flag, and after that interview he was not surprised at it. He did not expect to be sent to the Baltic again, and he never would have served again under the right 'eon. baronet after what had taken place between them. He considered that no man's houour was safe in the right hon. baronet's hands, and the board wrote to bins a letter in which they said, "'though their lordships have on some occasions not bail th. , t sati faction in reading your repot ts as on others, they have only to repeat that no censure has been passed on your conduct with reference to the operations under your orders, and their lordships have already expressed their sense of your services in the manner customary with an officer of your rank. Their lordships do not feel themselves Called upon to enter a aecond thus into as disc', aion on matters which have already been the subject orcantreieiiy between you and them, and still less to enter into a discus nion on documents which have not been laid before them:" He lied written for acourt-mattial, and they said they de clined a?controverny. They had heard of the praise —thee lavish praiso—which they had bestowed upon him. "But from the moment you left Wingo Sound, which you did without orders"—after themselves saying that ho was right in so doiue•—after his conduct in that respet had been ap prove! by the First LOrd of the Admiralty and the Secre tary of State—they went on to say that he had not treated the board with respect. He did not deny it. They had ac euied him of cowardice almost, and he considered it was perfectly impossible' that any man could have restrained himself and not have written as severely to them as it was possible to do. He did not complain of their not again giving him the command of the Baltic fleet ' • the Queen had a right to cheese whom she thought fit to command her fleets ; but he complained of the unworthy manner in which they Lad behaved to him, trying to throw the whole of the blame upon him. He had now done with 1874, and he would come to what took place in 1855. Tho house was aware that he recommended a large fleet of mortar and gun-boats to be sent to the Baltic when the fleet was fitted out again. Heedid not blame them for not sending, them in 1854, but after the intimation received from him • of the mode to be pursued to take Cronstadt and Swea borg, it was the greatest neglect—it was worse than ne glect, for the Government to send to the Baltic, in 1855, only sixteen gnu-boats and sixteen mortar-vessels. There was no excuse whatever for want of time, because a pewter vessel was built and ready the other day in three weeks from the time she was laid down. • What instruc tions were given to the commander of the fleet he did not know, but it was Very evident that no instructions could have been given him to go . to Sweaborg and attack it with the whole of the force. because part of the gun-, boats went up to Cronstadt, where they remained a consi derable time to examine Croustadt, and see what could be done with it. They must have known perfectly well that Cronstadt could hot bo attacked by the force they had sent, but he thought Sweaborg might. In 1854 the fleet was sent out without gun-boats and mortars, and in 1855 the gun-boats and mortars were sent out, and the fleet was sent aw,ty. Now, he did not blame Admiral Dundee in the least. He was • erfectl e aware that wit bent a large fleet of gun-boats and mortars it was ie pee ible to attack Sweaborg with success. Had the whole of the fleet, and the gun-hosts and mortar-boats, been assembled before Sweabor,e and not a single vessel been sent to Cronstadt, lie thought the admiral would have been perfectly justifies in expecting to destroy Sweaborg , but it appeared that te,r a bombardment of 33 hours the whole of the mortars werte split, not owing to the badness of the mortars, but because they were tired so fast. The admiral had but few mortars, and he was desirous of tryiug the experiment as long as he could. He thought Admiral D Irides would have beeh wrong, seeieg that his mortars we -e split, to have taken the fleet in. He thought, after the example of 1854, Government ought to have Rent into the Ba!tio as large a force as they possibly could; they ought not to have thought of the expense. It was necessary to do it in order to put an end to the war. lie believed tbliFif - the same exertion had been made in 1855 that wed now being made for 1856 the war would bavi been finished in 18:i5 With honour anti glory to this country. 'No .tenht, swee torg would have been destroyed. Ai to Croristadt he had no hope of the kind. Ho thought the-house would see that the Admiralty hail treated him in the most scandalous manner; they had put into his mouth words that he never used, which was riot werttey of a men iii the - position ist the ight hon. baronet. He•hoped that some notice would by taken of this in order. to prevent this kind of 'conduct again. He must say he was never more surprised than to Se 9 Admiral Berkeley's name Or such a document. He !Sir Charles Napier) could not see any reason why the Government should hesitate to give him the committee for which he asked. Two geneial offibers had complained of the report of a commission which had impunged their cirri rast!r, and a new commission had been appointed to exa mine into the whole case in order to see whether these pl iant officers Were right or wrong. He (the gallant admit al) considered ho had an equal right to an inquiry. If he had been guilty of misconduct let him be punished ; bat low, could it be ascortaine4 whether he had been in fault unless. committee was appomted to investigate the conduct of the fleet in 1851 and 1g,55? He had now told his tale, and • he put his case into the hands of the Government and of the house, trusting that they would act towards him with justice and fairness. Thanting the house for the attention with which they had heard him, he would conclude with the motion fur a committee, of which he had given notice. After a short pause, Admiral WALCOTT said he never could see , a brother officer adrift without throwing him out a tow rope. (Laugh -1 ter and cheers.) He did not see any one disposed to second the motion, and he would therefore do so himself. (Hear.) At the same time, he thought that whatever disappoint. inent or personal reproach might lie at the door either of The gallant admiral or the right hon. gentleman the mem ber for Carlisle, they had themselves justly incurred it. Before a fleet was despatched to the Baltic both the right hon. gentleman and the gallant admiral Ought to have considered the course which it was right and proper to pursue. The / difficulties of navigation. in the Bal tic, the prevalence of shoal water, the intricacies of the' :entrance to the harbours, and the strength of the fortifies , tions, must have been known, or at all events ought to . have been known, to them both; and both had therefore been.to blame, the right hon. gentleman for .not baying provided adequate means of attacking the Russian forts, and the gallant admiral for not having seen that the means: supplied to him were sufficient. • (Rear, hear.) .11e con sidered, too, that they were also to blame, the one for his speech 'at the Reform Club, and the other for his celebrated signal for having led the country' to expect successes which it was not probable would be obe taincd. With respect to the question which had arisen on the subject of mortar boats, he did not think that suffi cient use had been made of the experience of the last war. tee (Admiral Walcott) happened to have served in the Baltic during the years 1808 9 ; and he thought that the experience of that period Might have suggested the sort of force that would be necessary for services such as the fle e t could he required to perform. Ho remembered three eases in particular. The first was one in which the boats of the dzeieruplion attacked t: e sea batteries at Hango Head, and lestroeed them. In the second the boats of the squadron, ' under the command of a most sagacious and, intrepid offi cer, Sir Byam Martin, to the number r f 17, manned with, 2,70 men, attacked a flotilla of 12 gun-boats and a large armed ship, with a convoy of 12 ships, laden with provi sions and ammunition, all of which, with the' exception of, one gun-boat, were captured or destroyed. The third-was similar exploit performed by an officer named Forest, whet brought out three gun-boats of the enemy. Those :gases showed clearly what might have been done had there leen a naval force adapted to the difficulties of the case. (Hear.) If the object of sending our ships into the Baltic' was merely to blockade those of the Russian Government, no success could have been more complete than that which had attended the g• !Lilt ad Hirai. He hail before now pro testiel against charging the'enemy's fleet with fear, because it had not some out and fought with our own. To have done so would have been a great error; because, the ene my's fleet being composed of sailing vessels, to have given hettle to our screw line-of-battle-ships would have been in truth a most senseless act. The courage which our foes had shown at Sebastopol had redounded greatly to their honour, and it ought to secure theta from all attacks upou their • lall3ntry. He thought it was the duty of a Government to select officers upon whom they could rely. not only for their valour, but for their wisdom and disci-el ion ; but hay ing done so, it was no less their bounden duty to repose in them the fullest confidence. There was much sagacity in the maxim of that greatest of all modern authorities, the first Napoleon-5" Let the men of the sword be made to - del:rand as little as possible upon the men of the pen." About 10J years ago a very admirable farce was recited by our gallant and witty allies. In it an English courier was represented, very protuberant before and also at the stern. (Laughter.) The commanding officer seeing him, said, What hare you got there before you " Your orders, sir " " That is all right," continued the officer, " but what have got behind ?" "Your counter-orders " ' " The devil !" exclaithed the officer,'" then it's all up." (Laughter and cheers.) So long as orders and counter-orders weee given disasters must ensue. (Hear.) With respect to secret orders, on which some obset vations hail been made, he was not among those-who denied that it was right to give such orders . ; but he thought that if secret order; were, read agsinst an officer ho ought to be at liberty also to read, them in his own defence. lie thought the gallant member had done quite right in bring:ng this subject before the house ; for he would not give that (said Admiral Walcott, snapping his finger...) for an officer who did not value his honour more than his life, and the verdicts of his country even more. (Hear.) The country no doubt desired greater success than had been gained in the Baltic, but still be thought that when a dispassionate view was taken of the services of the navy during the last two campaigns it would be allowed that they had been most meritorious. Those services in the Black Sea had been most creditable consider ivg means the fleet had had at its disposal. The pro. ceediegs, too, at Kertch, in the Sea of Aeoff, and at Kin burn—the manner iu which nearly 100,000 troops had been transported by a fleet which covered nearly 16 miles of sea without the loss of a ship or a man—the behaviour of the fleet in the attack on the sea batteries of Sebastopol, and the uanner in which the histuric Agamemnon went into action, were worthy of the best period in the history of the British. navy. (Cheers.) If the investigations of the proposed eimmittue should remove any misconception which the public might entertain, or oven, if having shown the con dition of the service to be faulty, it should lead to its im provement, he for one should rejoice that this discussion, unsatisfactory as he thought it was, had taken place. Sir C. WOOD said the hon. and gallant member who had made this motion did not seem to anticipate that he (Sir C. Wood) should take upon himself the task of replying to his speech. Nor would he do so, but he must say that the g ..11ant officer had rend extracts from despatches not laid before Parliament, and from private letters, and he had stated the confidential opinion of foreignofficers and officers in her Majesty's service in a manner and to an extent which lie (the right hon. baronet}, after a quarter of a century's experience, had never seen done before. (Cheers.) Last session when a similar course, though to a very limited ex tent, was taken by the hon. and learned member for Wal lingford (Mr. Dlalius), be (Sir C. Wood) stated his opinions in similar terms, and the house then seemed very much to concur with him. (Cheers.) The hon. and learned gentle man withdrew his motion, and it was much to be regretted that the gallant admiral should now have taken a step which he could not but regard as one very prejudicial to the public service. (Hrar.) He would not fellow the gallant gentleman into a single point which he ha raised upon the correspondence be hal so read, for, so far as it would be necessary to do so, his right hon. friend beside him (Admi ral Berkeley) and his right hon. friend the member for 4 iarlisle(SirJ. Graham), ►r ho were cognisant of all th facts, would no doubt do so ; but he should be sorry if they seould think it incumbent upon them, in defending their own character-, o follow the gallant.aduairal in a course so xtremely tnisenievous on all accounts. It. wasaindispen sable, not only that secret' orders should he given to com manding officers, but that perfectly eonfidential relatis us should exist between them and the First,Lord of the Admi ralty. Even in Lis (Sir C. Wood's) short experience he had experienced the greatest possible assistance from receiving such confidential communications ; and the admirals had been good enough to say that they had also found great advantage in the private litters he bad addressed to them. But it wiee obvious that if it might be brought forward in the manner the gallant . titliniral had done, there would, be an end to confidential correspondence, and he ventured to_ say that in that case the .public service could not he ad vantageously tarried on. (Hear.) With respect to tie gal lant admiral's motion, it was not enough that an hon. member should ask for a committee; but some public ground roust bo shown why one should be appointed. He would appeal to any lion. gentleman in that, house whether the gallant admiral who bad made the motion, or rho gal lant admiral who had seconded it, had given the slightest ground for the ap, Campaigns of the Admiral \VALI did not say a won Ibog it may be de depend upon the a for Carlisle may Sir C. WOOD of this house— Admiral %VALI the rule. (Order senkible that sue] - - " order.") Sir C. WOOD seconds a motion one that ought to aware that if he I once have fallen 1 Rea that even the does aot approve Admiral WAD Wats prevented by lir. Spooner, whc Sir C. WOOD, did very iaa h str he ought to reeiA person - the gallant he did certainly avow that he caa to see a brother o : aPprove of the me the gallant gentle that the melt of t Mea of thJ pen • I be d es i ra bl e t h a t he investigaied There were a grea that house mighl committee would which to bring th conduct of a cam' admiral would Inc baronet, or would seemed not in(list is him ; but an vrould not by any a step. He (Sir With the exceptio to have been read forward one siogli The gallant aduii been directed to II servica ea which . (tone before him, Tear. During the sion the right hon its pretty strong to :Battle fleet ; and the Governtneat'i received his share down without say an officer as ever Luau (Sir C. Napit meant General Jo her Majesty's ser than another it wa time when he was down to the prose service of his cow ferring to the opts] of Admiral Dnusi atadt while the re: Alit surely it was force before Crous firth as it was is u nderrated the ni were instead of cient for the desti 'been in the faulty that a mortar oug which had proved been used in the Algier s had stood niudern• constructi bred 100 times, 01 `, l id Lot agree that been at all inaperi. tnitte e of the Hon its vindication ; 'officer opposite (. Itussiaus had pros 4 ,Nuer been a eami 'rola the admiral vrith more gallant Poluttnent of a col ions, ho hoped the ttinsous as pos.ible Sir J. GRA.HS. titfficulti elperien Southwark in find and gallant officer 'with that genorosi hts personal clam brother officer adz Wear, and a laugl for Christchurch b gallant meml harp been to sect that has passed, I (hear, hear.) Ac Preferred, frequen return of the galla to day postrmed,• co gs ; and this mo be en made until motions for going to the hon. and gl Now, Sir, nothin Poing this mot lio n gentleman t 11 Pori his official thirs committee w, the public sorvic Monger are conct 4 4,tisfaCtion to u Pointed that er( bon. s,nri . gallant Qorumittee ; and comtnitt:e as well Sir, the hon. and Judge of the relat uut b e must peru Rood judge of eta 4, ,duairal cowmen , loduiself with tem: than not be wron adwiral containe O ne• The folloi gallant admiral u , e °wardice—(" ave written fro 1 : 1 0 oth er person c honour of an oil b eau guilty, in hi never said so"]-- ; 'thul war—that tl: t he head of the A Interests than being met by ac; desired to make t Rnilty of conduct These are the ct ferr a d against im hi% det erm i na ti o te • rised by tempe: Sir, I floc , 0 th e use that h: 'With the gallant hat I took excel l earned member B owen with respi ,°Xpected use ma , Nvithheld by the l igation would 1 Private letters, A' 'knee at the mw , 0 0tnnaaud—prod letter s , or obtair ill the order of ti Possible objectio vete correspond, ,7tness of the v 'louse, and I am time and having l ine been no suet "ate despatches t° you, Sir, "lid public lette % 11 that has our Zan th e attenti .4 " been made 111 ,Y hand an est 4- nBB—which c Permission of tl resident in Sh Ineetin g there, the appointinen hedition of heard such to Graham ho Mr. Grant, t .ue was inforrne to him. Mr. G D Dear Sir,—l rrespondenee betw een Sir Jan starting of the returned it to S 8 1 ) ontaneously !: I Red not say ar 'ng that I shou ishad, however, a nd, had you ci Possession, I ell to You. I hay idea of what evi facts of undoub treason. -Your o n tbe receip Charles Napie I mks Sir Chart Charles Napier Sir,—Mr. 10 vo those lett ( been accused o 'when it is deei, when there is b almerston, ai house ; and if Is the consequl had I don° wh 1 1)ressed in 1 lost he r Majcsi ;serves itupeacl I, e Was advisin Ro successful r t4k e 0 1) the B e n 3 ed by me o ?neeu's fleet Were I in Pa:r . not think it ri t ° show them on. an itnotinht of sl e froth tho apv speech 1 113 ""ly hon. In le r le, before Pti blication e 81 vanc e 1 ( on vernment Co leiztent 14 °Priety be