The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-10 00:00:00

THE FLEETS.

No tidings have arrived from Sir-a. Napier since
the 2nd inst., when the experimental bombardment
of Hango Fort and the brilliant affair at-Eekness
were announced. The :; attAwk vn Rangy was, it is
stated, simply inidertatheU ler the Itwtoee• at obtain-
ing a plan of the forkficalaeos, 'doh.war aigashad
by the officers who went in.,
The French fleet, twenty-two' ED
on Monday, the 4th inst., steering for the north-east,
on their way to join the British squadron. The de-
lay of this fleet is accounted for by a statement of
the necessity of exercising the crews at great guns
for some time before bringing them up to the field
of action, as the greater part of them had never
served on board line-of:battle ships, and were conse-
quently unused to manoeuvre on a large scale.
Three ships, intended to form the nucleus of the
White Sea .squadron—the Eurydice, 241, Captain
Ommannex; .the Miranda, 14, screw steam-sloop,
Captain E: M. Lyons ; and the Brisk,l4, screw-sloop,
Commander Seymour--arrived at Lerwick, in the
Shetland Isles, on the 24th and 25th of May, and
left, after a short stay, for their destination.
The Mariner, 12, sailing-sloop, Commander F. E;
Johnstone, left Portsmouth on Thursday for the
White Sea.

The fogs in the Black Sea are stated to have been
tremendous. One las(ed sixteen days, three days of
which the fog was so dense that the next ship ahead
and astern were only made aware of their presence
by the firing of guns, muskets, and ringing of bells.
From the Black Sea the latest news •ot: the fleets
is conveyed by the following despatch from Admiral
Hamelin, published in the Moniteur

" Baltchick, May Al, 1854, La Ville de Paris.

" Monsieur Is Minie;tre,living. left Kavarna on the
17th of April to commence their operations of war in the
Blokk Sea, the two combined squadrons cast anchor on
the 20th of May before Baltchick, where they immediately
set about taking in the necessary water and provisions.
" It has not depended upon us that the acts of war with
which the cruise of more than a month has been sown
were not more numerous or more important; but the
Russian naval forces have kept themselves so completely
shut up in Sebastopol, under the shelter of the thousand
cannon of that port, that during twenty days passed in
cruising at a little distance from that point we have not
been able to bring a single one of the enemy's ships to
fight—not even with our scouts.
On the other hand, our steam cruisers brought in
from all parts of the Black Sea vessels carrying the
Russian flag, which constitute a sufficiently large number
of captures since the commencement of hostilities; and
finally, the division of steam-ships and frigates sent on a
mission along the coasts of Circassia have ascertained
that the Russians themselves have abandoned the forts
arranged during more than half a *century, and after so
much labour and so many combats, over the 2(k) leagues
of coast which separate Anapa, near the Sea of Azoff, from
the port of Batoum, in the neighbourhood of the Turkish
frontiers—a new check, it appears to me, to the Muscovite
power.
" In short, Monsieur le Ministre, if your excellency
will well consider that the imperial port of Odessa has been
completely destroyed by our steamers; that the Russian
fleet, defied in its ports, has not dared to leave them for
the purpose of avenging that check ; that it is interdicted,
under pain of capture, to the Russian flag henceforth to
plough the waters of the Black Sea, which hitherto the
Czar has put forth the pretension of making a Muscovite
lake ; if one considers, in fine, that all the Russian pos.
sessions on the coast of Circassia have been destroyed or
abandoned, and that, consequently, the flank of the Russian
army in Asia finds itself uncovered, one cannot help ac•
knowledging that the first phase of the operations of the
squadrons has already produced results which are pretty
notable, all to the advantage of the Western powers, and
all to the detriment of the Russian influence in the Black
Sea—l: am, etc., " HAMELIN.

THE WAR ON THE DANUBE.
The Turkish defenders of Silistria are holding out
gallantly and successfully.. Although besieged by a
Russian force variously estimated at from 35,000 to
70,000 men, with every effort made to hasten the fall
of so iMportant a fortress, no sensible impression
seems to have been made upon it ; and by the last
accounts it was reported that the besiegers had re-
nounced the hope of carrying the place by assault,
and were endeavouring to surround it. The prepa
rations made and making by the allied forces for the
relief of Silistria are detailed above, and according to
calculation the armies would arrive within a useMl
distance by the 14th or 15th of this month. With
the view, probably, of anticipating this advance, a
strong Russian detachment had, it is announced,
been ordered to proceed toißasardscbikt so as to in.

P"'

JUNE 10, 1854.

tercept the route between Schumla and Silistria• If
this be true, the first encounter between the British
and French troops and the Russian enemy will pro-
bably occur on that spot.
The slight details of the siege of Silistria which
are allowed to reach atilt way of Bucharest and
Vienna report some galleat actions on the part of
the T . ho have inflicted some serious losses on
the bee ' -
urlair
y in many-partial encounters.
Acco ' .Omer Pacha, received vid Belgrade
on the 2nd, announce successive repulses of Russian
attacks against Silistria since the 16th. On the 20th
and 21st threo .succeesive assaults were directed
against the• flosabed forts, the assailants retiring
each titneyillt eouslderable loss. . Another message
of 411 otipp that on the night of the 27th of
tlitv....erk
May t Tok— • lin made-ibree assaults upon Silistria,
with ' -each , time, and were repulsed, with
the low: of 1,500 men killed and 3,000 wounded. A
detailed ve of a subsequont affair is given in
a tel c despatch from Kalarasch of May 21:—
" on the aiglit of the 28th to the 29th the Turks made
a desperate sortie from the fortress of Silistria, and simul-
taneously attacked the Russian outworks on the right, left,
and centre. As they were thus extended in some measure
too widely, the Itrissians on the left, who were, n superior
force, were priabled to repulse them, and'aci advance against
a Turkish redoubt, which was manfully contested, and the
assailants comelled to retire. Constantly raked by the
close and heavy fire of the Turks, the Russians sustained
immense loss."
Russian amoutits received from Bucharest of this
attack state their loss at 186 killed and 379 wounded.
General Silvan was killed, and Colonel Costanda and

Count Orloff, jun., seyerely wounded. The Russians
add that they captured the redoubt on the subse-
quent night, the,:letla.ult.
Other advices irepert further encounters and suc-
cesses. Toward 'the end of May, it is said, 5,000
Turkish horse took tbei:Thissians by surprise at
Turnu. Only 107 of the Jager. escaped to the left
bank of the Aluto. General of Division Baumgarten
has been missing-ever since the affair. .

Wednesday's kossiteur states that on the 31st en
engagement took place •at Slatina, on the frontier of
Little Wallachia. The Russians, who occupied a
favourable position with" 2,000 men and four guns,
attacked the Turks, hitt ,the 'Turks, assuming the
offensive, killed nearly_ 000 of them, and carried off
their artillery.
It is calculated that the ,Russians have lost 8,000
men on the Danube since the 20th of May.
According to a letter from Orsova in the Paris
Preue, the Turks aro in ill possession of the whole
country of Lesser Wallachia np to the banks of the
Aluta. It is stated that they treat the inhabitants
with the greatest kindness,juid seek to recompense
them for the sufferings which they have experienced
during the Russian oeiiiipsition. The Pacha of
Widdin has caused to be,aistributisl to the Walla-
chian peasants a quantity of maize, the Rusaians,not
having left them so much as they required for sowing
their ground. . • •
. •
(SANITARY CONDITION OF THE RUSSIAN
ARMY.
The following letter from the Russian camp is
given in the Vienna Medical Journal :
" All the hospitals and infirmaries on the right bank of
the river are overfilled, and ague, catarrhal affections,
rheumatism, dysentery, scurvy, and hospital mortification,
rage so terribly that it is a question whether more of our
brave fellows fell victims to the sword or to disease. • Still
these troops display the most remarkable courage, and it
is not the fault of the common soldier if Rissova and Silis-
tria have until now been bombarded and stormed in vain:
The wounds of the men—almost all dangerous—are in.
flicted by the musket or sword, and on the front of the
body. The ' pitched battles,' of which the papers speak as
having been fought in the Dobrudscha, and at Trojan's
Wall, were nothing but most sanguinary skirmishes.
Thousands fell in the attacks on the fortified places, and
in the continual landings."
Before one of the assaults on Silistria two Polish
sub-officers, being Catholics, having refused to re-
ceive the communion from the Greek priests, were
shot by order of the Russian general.