The Express.
London, England, 1862-04-05 00:00:00

220 REGENT-STREET . LONDON.
etsf• MATTI!. HROTHIEIta try special appointment to
hi. 10=1 MeleglY 7inPnieu MILVEIVINI itil. tro..
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ALLEN'S PATENT PORTMANTEAUS and
TRAgIa.LINO RAO with pear*
Let MN WARDROBE PRUNES, DRIMETMAGS, al*
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DESPATCH ROXV. WRITING and DRVBIND CASE', and
MO other articles Ice home or costinental travelling. Must:Med
catalogues by post for tan stamp..
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pe..,er, Easy chaos, Waelhandetands, Canteens, ate.,
etrads.toy past t.r I...stamps
J. N. ALLES, Manufacturgr and Patentee, 22 ate A, Weat
Strand, 1..b.10a, W.C.

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ISM WATILA AT LOSDON BAUM&
MI 1169.-/Isliam, Ai 11k5..... Ailsoasea. Sh. 44245.
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LOSDON, sAruRDAY, APRIL 5.

THERE appear to be Englishmen who think the
time has come round again for the country to lose
its wits. It is a long while—above a year—since we
had a panic, and things were getting rather flat. It
seems to be thought that the exploits of the Mer-
rimac may serve a good turn. The Merrimac,
heavy and well thatched with iron, has with little
difficulty made short work of destroying or crip-
pling four or five wooden ships found at anchor.
There is nothing extraordinary in this. The
Merrimac was reconstructed, just as the Moire
and Warrior had been constructed long before,
because the immense advantage of armour-
sheathed over naked wooden ships was well known.
The engagement in the James River has shown us
in history and fact what we knew, as reasonable
beings, perfectly well before. The experience is very
impressive and should be turned to account, but it
leaves the realities of things where they were
before. By all means, while the subject is fresh,
let us survey our means and resources, and ask
how far we are keeping pace with the improve-
ments adopted by our neighbours ; but it is not
Deaconry for that purpose to work ourselves into
a frenzy, or feign the thing that is
not. No squadron of unsuspected Merri-
mac& has been suddenly discovered at Cherbourg,
no flotilla of Monitors is announced from Roche
Point. Nor, if there had been, need we have
been so very much frightened. Captain ER1.14,40S
feels certain that with the Monitor he could
sink the '.lerriniac in three rounds; and the Moni-
tor, we learn,, has her weak points, which our
marine artillery would soon find out. The number of
sea-going iron ships has not been increased by one
since the Americans took to iron-plating, and the
Duke of SONERALT was very near the mark when
be said, on Thursday, that the chief thing taught
us by the recent engagement was that we must pre-
pare to find iron-cased ships in all quarters of the
globe. It is to be hoped that the view of the British
Admiralty will embrace all the consequences of this
change. We take it for granted that it will always
be possible to construct for home defence a class
of vessels protected by heavier armour and
mounted with more and heavier guns than any

vessels of war which can be sent and maint

against them from a distance. if that be moo
it will be the fault of the power assailed at home
if itadefenceshould not prove more efficientthan the

attack. Every nation which has a seabord and
porta, and interests and honour to defend, will of
course provide itself at any coat with iron-clad
floating batteries, and only Mexicans and Chingos
will submit to blockades.

Of course we are the great gainers in all that
concerns improvements in the art of naval war.
We may now make aggression on these islands hope-
less and aimless. Our colonies also will be enabled
to protect themselves much better than we
can protect them : and these two interests
being provided for, we shall have merely to
protect our commerce on the seas of the
world. Common sense suggests that we should
keep our eyes on this work, and adjust our means
and inatruments;to it, rather than dwell on swelling
rhetorical phrases, invented to palliate extravagance
and excuse reckless waste. The Duke of Soria.
err appears, from his speech on Thursday night,
to have thus conceived the duty of a First Lord
of the Admiralty, and of course to panic-mongers
his statement seems sadly below the exigencies of
the occasion. An ingenious but purely fantastic
calculation is made to show that for all practical
purposes the navy of England consists of two
ships, the Warrior and Defence. If all the rest
of our navy, it is said, were drawn up in order of
battle, there are half-a-dozen ships in the world
which would run them down, riddle them
with shot, and smash them utterly,
without allowing them a chance of re-
sistance. By the same mode of calculation a
citizen of the world might say that the navy of
the world consists for all practical purposes of six
ships, which could not be got together; and that
if the rest of the same navy were drawn up, Eng-
land has two ships which would utterly destroy
them. All this is pitiful nonsense, designed to
give some show of support to the assertion that
our wooden ships not plated are of no use. Their
uselessness as line-of-battle ships is on all hands
acknowledged, but that is not the most common
use of our war navy. For the police of the seas
and the service of distant stations they will keg
be most useful if not indispensable.
The Duke of Si•msasirr has explained in a
lucid speech, which every Englishman has read,
the action and intentions of the Government Since
the present Administration came into power our
iron-cased fleet has been increased from ems to
ten, of which five will be on the sea in this wens
of the summer. Captain Cowrie Coaxes Cupola
ship has been adopted as the best form et mewl
for the protection of our coasts, and the eensieue-
tion of one as a model has been ordered. Our
wooden ships are to be turned to account. The
L.,au said We have five frame of