The Express.
London, England, 1855-08-25 00:00:00

LONDON, 8.4177RD47, AUGUST 25.

IT would be too much to expect that Sir CHARLES
NAPIER should be in a very good humour just at
present.
Sir JAM'S OILMAN is alive and well. The
present Lords of the Admiralty are beginning to feel
as if they were popular. Bir Cruituts's euesseor,
DV DAs—whose former exploits were performed only
in the Chinese war, where he assisted at the taking
of a town with an unproaounceable name and
ludicrous defences—has due a good stroke of
business at Sweaborg. The country feels a little
thrill of its old naval enthusiasm, and assumes a
jaunty air at its watering-places. So, Sir Clis.aine
resolves to give all parties a little setting to right.
We most =Crate ear exultation. We must know
why we did not perform this exploit before—we mut
not forget t'aat it is not thoroughly finished off yet—
and we or.ast prepare ourselves for hideous revels-
toes of the fog ratite& with which ens of mar leading
statesmen trer.eld Sir CHARLES lest year. Certainly.
Orem Eritai a he. a peculiarity of her own in this
war. She by le wars going on at home, es well as the
one abroad. Her Lords of the Admiralty have to
combat the Haien admirals, and their own admirals
into the br
There i r no doubt that such letters as those of Sir
CHARLES WM./Ilea, which we published yesterday,
an open be all kinds of criticism. Steady-going pro-
hssional men disapprove of them extremely. The
Russian a like them. They are irregular and scoen-
tine. S° sr Quatis has a palpable relish for agitation
—a lik hag for the kind of thing. In vain he may tell
us that the eountry'e good requires it all. Perhaps it
does. But at beet the union of a dashing Admiral
and . touter for the applause of Finsbury is an odd
come Autism. Sir ClueLis unites qualities appa-
rent ly quite inharmonious. He is a mixture of awe-
moo 'in.. &unman and a vestry orator. He blends
in I "is Nature some of the characteristics of WILKIII
en, .h some of the characteristics of Ilunow. All
this makes Sir (luau's es eccentric as he is certainly
p fleet; but nevertheless everybody relishes a
is' ter el his as far as its mere readability
gses. And with regard to this last one, we,
are inclined to think that —apart from the
egotism and the querulous tone, which, after all, are
natural in the Cue—it is entitled to more attentive
consideration than people who carelessly applaud all
present successes are likely to give to it.
At all events, let us begin by extracting what
information we can get at, from it, about the history
of the war. What Sweaborg is, in position and
general fortifications, our readers now pretty well
know. There was a wild anxiety last summer that
something should be done there, and Sir CHARLES
had certainly left England with a popularity which
pointed him out as the man to do it. The Admiralty
seem to have got anxious about the affair GS the
summer waned, and ordered a council of war to ex-
amine plan after plan for active operations. Mean-
while the squadron " had neither gun nor mortar
vessels." Now, should Sir CusaLts have attacked
the place without these advantages P
If we are to judge by what DUNDAS has since done,
we should say "No." What that Admiral has just
achieved has been entirely by the employment of gun-
boats and mortar vessels. The tires, which fill so large
a portion of the descriptions we receive of the proceed-
ing', were obviously caused by the shells from the
mortars. The "sea defences in general," says the
despatch explicitly, " were little injured;" in fact,
but for the ousels in question there is no reason to
believe that HONDAS would have attacked the place-
The action was not a naval battle in the familiar old
sense at all, but a bombardment, with which the ships
had nothing todo.
It is impossible to lay down rules u to what is and
what is not possible in the way of attacks. The ap-
parition of a very great man in the Baltic might set
said* precedents, for each a man's business is to make
precedents. But certainly scientific opinion is against
ships, in the question of " Ships versus stone walls,"
at present. Of course, if ships "be permitted to
approach"--as Sir HOWARD DOUOLAS observes—and
to take up their position at fifty yards off, as Lord
Elsours did in the Queen Charlotte at Al-
giers, great things may be expected from their
tremendous weight of metal. But these Algiers,
Navarino, and Acre precedents are quite unsafe ones.
The resist..nce was feeble. Batteries are different
things in these scientific days. Besides, to do any
thing effectually against walls, ships must be able to
get pretty close to them—which the draught of water
doer huge vessels will not permit. There is a fashion
Is the public notice about these matters. After the
Aces 'triumph, the Duke of WiLuotoros, in Parlia-
ment, thought it necessary to caution their lordships
not to suppose that ships were capable, as a matter
of course, of contending successfully with stone walls.
Why the gun and mortar boats now proved so
useful were not supplied in Sir CHARLES Nurse's
time, it would be vain to inquire. The utility of
both gun boats and mortars was often experienced in
the list war. A want of mall vessels was a constant
source of annoyanos—sometimes a cause of such com-
paradee failures is those in the Basque Roads in 1809,
which led to the complaints of COCHRANE tied the
trial off:Written. We frequently had tough work
to do with the gunboats of our enemies. Mortar ves-
sels, again, are infinitely important, and have always
been found so. In 1801 Nzisoze had seven bomb-
ships with him when he attacked Copenhagen. Sir
HOWARD DOUGLAS remarks that, even on that great
occasion, "the land batteries were comparatively
little damaged," and that it was the fear of a bom-
bardment from the bomb-ships which induced the
Crown Prince of Denmark to order the firing to
011140. Sir CHARLES Nan= recalls, in a paragraph
of this letter, the taking of Martinique—at which
time, by the way, he commanded the Recruit. On
that occasion, Fort Demi: was bombarded with 28
mortars and howitzers for nearly five days; the
French surrendered entirely from fear of the explo-
sions to be expected from the shells falling on the
roof of the magazine.
These facts one would think would have induced
our Admiralty to make the proper preparations in
good time. But they were not made. It would be
too bad to blame Sir CHARLES NAPIER for not doing
without them what his successor would not have
attempted but for them. This seem* to us the rea-
sonable part of his defence. At the same time his
professions were so obtrusively magnificent that he
had no right to wonder that people laughed at his
coming back from his °ruin with as little result as
the commodore of a Cockney Yacht Club. "Difficul-
ties," at best, ars an ungracious plea for a British
AdsairaL

The glimpses we of the outer public pt of the

THE IMPRESS, SATURDAY

Maims betimes Admiralties and Admirals in 0 ja, is allowed.betweenits I.th of December sap. 16th
letter are untsing. Sir CHARLes wea eitee:iod - WiitemiZiwaild. 'el'
last
eipmeetils Is
,iasi km'
leaving Whir Sound—in obedience te 14 . Ithich
4
...., i. raeuita, Om habits of &Aka- '
DON'S orders, which he bad been die*.a to folio
able lir mill interfere•with cub an alteration of
correspondence of Sir Jszits4J3 cooled ilatawaimes ea I seam& But what is celled
"My dear Sir CHARLES "1.611 My dear A iral,"-at at " "is regal:4'Mo by the segos, not the
am se "Peel" were kcooming dissatiefied." These session by the e seeeeer It is to the augmented
6. a assiduity of modern parliaments, not to any change in
little t"throf,_ aa. "'de ere the Peeper thereete;jet7:: the habits of the pleasure-loving part of the public,
comedy. &t •• tali isettwee with which he States Buvu that we owe the lengthening out of London radii-
things that constitutes OM charm of the Admiral's ties into the middle of summer. Fifty years ago
lucubration& "Though he returned to ,My dear the session began nearly when it does now, but it
Sir enselza,' I saw he was no longer to be trusted." ended in June. The social nuisance of which we
There lis a tinge of melancholy in this last hit— me.Pleie—the heiug. cooped up between walls of
Ascend by the humorous vision one naturally
brick and mortar during nearly all the fine part of
the year—is one of quite modem origin. Wo who
kerne of the cold chuckle of the Admiralty 110144* seek to abolish it are restorers, not innovators.
%Asia—which, give to the whule passage a The conduct of parliamentary business will be as
dramatic reality. easy under the old u the new system. Even the
mg. production of the budget at an earlWr period than is
Sir Cluauts cannot deny that something
now usual would canoe no inconvenience or derange-
&table has been done: and that more would have meat, except perhaps during the first year. It is not
been done with more means is a conclusion too among working politicians, whether in office or oppo.
obvious to demand our thanks. When he mentions sition, that the present arrangements.will find sup.
that DUNDAI was one of a Board who oensursd him p Niers. I have conversed on the subject with many
for not attacking Sweaborg last year, he plants a hitmembers
.
doubt expressedof alleitheres,
asaatdolthhir heard
of .he
at that Admiral, not wales.., perhaps, but which existing practice or the possibility of amending it.
gees home to its mark. Undoubtedly, DUSDAS has Some argue that though in times of emergency or'
achieved his success by possessing means which when any question of interest presses an autumn
Sir Crisman did not. The reflection which a reader session has frequently been held, yet that the
earlier commencement of parliamentary proceedings
with no partiality one way or other forms
is likely to be the stale one that the war preparations has not caused them to end earlier. They instance
the session just closed, which began in December last,
are so managed that men are at the mercy of apps- and also that of 1862.3. I reply—That the practice
rates, instead dapparates being at the service of men, of meeting in autumn in, as matters now stand, ex-
iled the mortars been supplied earlier, the Russians ceptional and irregular. The object is to pass some
could never have strengthened their position so much particular measure, or to take the sense of the
as they have—under our very rya—these many
national,sal representatives on the continassleolOmeme et
sush wille maws
months back. Sir CHARLES NAPIER'S letter, indeed, iltusinessineto.f theayeear i 'them budretp, the setates, the
though not entirely satisfactory am regards himself, votes of onpply on taken a the end time; and
has an effect which in his present temper he will pro- generally the whole period gained in advance is
bably vales more—it discredits the system which he occupied by debates on some one or two topies.
When we separated last year for the Christmas MB.
' wishes to expose, but in spite of which a greater man
than himself would perhaps have succeeded. days, nothing had been done except to alumni
the conduct of the war, and to pass the Militia Bill

and the Foreign Enlistment Bill.
Lastly—and this is the only objection to which I
can assign any validity whatever—it may be ors-
tended that there is in the house a numerous awl
valuable body of men whose love of sport leads them
to prefer a winter recess, and who must either sacri-
fice their favourite pursuits or neglect their public
duties. If this were so, it would be an argument 91
weight, and I therefore go into the question a little in
detail. I pass by noidentally, and not as laying
stress upon it, the obvious fact that by keeping
country gentlemen away from their homes in summer,
and thereby almost compelling them to reside them
in winter, the Legislature directly encourages that
partition. kind of sport which is most injurious both
to agriculture and to rural morality—l mean the
preserving of hares and pheasants in large numbers for
bateau. But is it true that the amusements of sport-
ing M.P.'s will be interfered with to any consider-
able extent by a November meeting ? Let us see
how the case stands. Scotch moors, with their pecu-
liar pursuits of deer-stalking and grouse-shooting,
are out of the question long before November. The
lovers of those amusements will not be interfered
with. Partridge shooting begins on the Ist of Sep-
tember, and the best time for it is over before the
proposed day of parliament meeting, not to mention
the month's recess at Christmas. Even for the
slaughter of hares and pheasants two fall months are
allowed—October, half December, and half January.
Surely one sixth of the year is enough foe the pastime
of a legislator. But, in practice, it is well known
that very many M.P.'s now reside in the country
until near Easter, only coming up at intervals for an
important debate or division. In this slack perform-
ance of duty by individuals, though not abstractedly
justifiable, there is less harm to the public than many
might incline to suppose. Most of the business
transacted by the House of Commons is business of
Business of detail cannot, without a degree of
a▪ l Imam and patience, which in no parliamentary
*tenthly can one reasonably expect to find, be trans-
and by 650 persons. If, u in old times has been
aomatissa done, every member of the house were
compelled to attend, and to remain present in his
place, I greatly doubt whether much of the work
which parliament now gets through would not re-
main altogether unperformed. But in this I am
rather palliating than vindicating a custom of
which it is enough for my purpose to say that it exists
at the present time, and that it is not likely to be
materially increased by the change proposed.
The question at issue is, in one concluding sen-
tence, this: Shall the apathy which makes men un-
willing to depart from established custom, and the
risk of some slight interference with the amusement
of a few individuals, stand in the way of a reform
recommended by nature, by common sense, by the
prattle° of all other countries, by the wish of a large
majority in parliament itself, and of a far larger
number of persons not in parliament, whose habits
are indirectly, but powerfully, influenced by those of
the members of the Legislature ?
The matter no doubt is not one of national import-
ance, but nothing is small that concerns the conve-
nience and comfort of some thousand persons, and that
tends to improve the conduct of public busioesa—l
remain your obedient servant,
Knowsley, Aug. 24.

STANLEY.

J. T. Bedborougb, Esq., the Treasurer of the Perry
Defense sad Testimonial Fund, informsjhe subscribers that
an arrangement has been made for the investment, in Aus-
tralia (to which country Mr. Perry is about to proceed),
of the balance remaining of the subscription received on
his amount, amoaatisg to 2,0101. 3s. 3d. Mr. Bedborough
also publishes the following letter, which he has received
from Mr. Parry:—" London, August 21, 1866.—My dear
sir,—The conclusion of my Windsor mitten has errived.
sad, although the end is neither such as you
desired to effect for me, or that the kind aid of
the people of England evinced their desire to see
oossummated, I have the eouselatiou to reflect ea having
been bone up by the generous sympathy of my thaatrymea
at a period of great perplexity. I cannot find wade to
express my sense of the goodness shown to me in my troubles,
and without which I must have sank under them, but I
hope to show by my future career in another land, that the
sympathy sad kindness I have received will ewe tees. bee
thrown sway. My father's efforts for me in a military
capacity have bees, by an safortaaste combination of sir-
asustaness, rendered abortive, sad my greatest mortifica-
tion is, that his thence ,from his native country—if not
• considerable extension of his already long military ler-
vios—will ►e the result of my lose of positioa in the army.
To yourself and the other kind Moods who gave me aid
sad countenance, I shall ever retain feelings of the deepest
gratitude. Believe me, my dear Sir, with great respect
sad esteem, yours sincerely, J. B. Perry.—J. T. Bed-
borough, lip."

_ -
The Atheneum remarks that when this Yankees
marched into Mexico they carried with them a printing.
press, and published a newspaper along the line of invasion.
Across prairies, through dangerous panes, over mountain
ranges, sometimes on males, oftener on men'. shoulders,
occasionally in waggons,—travelled press, paper, type, and
ink,—editors, contributors, and pressmen, fighting, tong-
ing, writing, working onward. Infinite were the uses of
the press. It serried orders through the camp. Every
111031110( the soldier read in it the story of the previous day.
llt anticipated gazettes. It disseminated orders of the day.
It perpetuated the pulp of the camp ; reflected public opt
sloe in the army ; made known every want; supplied 'Tay
informatin ; clucked, inspired, and animated every heart.
Had the Almeria's. been M the Crimea, they would have
had daily papers at Basilan, Enamels, Tenikali, sad
Constantinople; and these papers—reflecting the humours,
I Incidents, sad life of the amp—would have ranked among
the best historical documents os the war.

Military officers returning wounded, or disabled,'
es• provided, at the public Gummi' both with lodgiop
sad medical attendance. Many oMesn of oar army us in
a position to deollas eneh aid, bat all km a right to it : and
for all who Mahn it, them accommodations me instantly
provided.

The Gardeners' Chronicle states, with reference to,
the slectioet of four finerys of the Berlinllama fleshly of
Loudon to be eerresposdiag members of the society at Path,
that the Conseil of the Lauda' Society hare ordered a si-
milar eoutpllareat to be paid to our Preach horticultural
friends as see* as the formalities required by the lifailish
shut*: sea be complied with after the mama new.

\

re, AUGUST u, 1114

\

'jc court.
DESPATCH FROM LORD CLARENDON.
(iao LAST 3uests •Assrri.)
WHITEHALL, Avon: 24. 1666.

The Right Hon. Sir George Grey, Bart., has re-
ceived the following despatch from the Earl of
Clarendon K.G., dated Bt. Cloud, the 22nd of
August, 1143:

Si. CLotn), AvaosT 22, 1856.

Sir,—The Queen, Prince Albert, the Prince of
Wales, and the Princess Boys], arrived on the 18th
instant, in the Victoria and Albert yacht, at Bou-
logne, where her Majesty was received by the Em-
peror of the French, amidst the salutes of the Army
of Boulogne, posted on the heights, and the acclama-
tions of a vast °mourn o( people assembled for the
occasion.

At Amiens, where the Queen stopped for a short
time, and along the whole line of railway, her Ma-
jesty was received with every demonstration of re-
spect and kind feeling.
At Paris, from the station to St. Cloud, these feel-
ings were manifested in the strongest manner; and I
can convey no better idea of the reception of her Ma-
jesty by the people of Paris than by stating that the
enthusiasm was quite as great as that which greeted
the Emperor and Empreas on their arrival in London.
The same cordial welcome has been given to the
Queen at the various places where her Majesty
has since appeared in public ; and her Majesty is
profoundly sensible of the spontaneous and universal
kindness which has been displayed towards her by
the people of France.
It is impossible to doubt that the Queen's visit will
still more Comely cement the alliance which now so
happily subsists between the Sovereigns and the
people of England and France.
I am happy to inform you, that the Queen, Prince
Albert, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal,
are in perfect health.—l have, &a,
CLARENDON.
Right Ron. Sir George Grey, 0.C.8., &c.,