The Express.
London, England, 1863-11-17 00:00:00

If Aim ,he one thing which cm be called a
11.04„4441, tii.,*ngliehs mind, it is that if our
ootnta7 is to be maintained in its high position
amongst the nations, the first human agency in
sealling ituch a mutt meat be the possession of a
naval force capable of protecting our commerce all
over the woad, and, at home, of preserving our
eleireafrOm tbs dement of the invader. We never
, had sauskaliffisulty about the ships from the days
Oar irdeg ftdwsrd sailed with 3,000 TOMAS to
UtkOeidayll, down to the greet:evolutions/7 yam+,
when every sea was covered lath our fleets, and the
ta of France were so strictly blockaded;lst it was said that not a oockboat could
::=-Gut. •al .e French port without the'
• sty of being snapped up by an English cruiser.
I Atria in the supply of men that the pineh lay, and
IMk notbecause we had not enough of galore, or.
did One iailots Mau* from' searfers, but that the
octiimarce of the nation was always so great as to
absorb all our maritime enterprise. and bone and
mhscle, and force the government in time of war
caseessipmey into expedients for manning the navy,'
were always unpopular, but .whioli in
t days of geumal enlightenment and pub-
hove humane, imposeible. , 240 great peo•
• lidileibea aid naval administsators bee
dareWkwrby some pagodas aid accept-
Minas„ the Marinas fares of .tailitai aseniest
! erg yeast-'boa matted. fat Madames df
,wary :ha squired ; and it ettaki seem as
.•Ift Abe • establishment of the Bayed Naval
tasbave at length cut the (Jodi= knot.
I." The' difficulty of obtamieg Kimpetind peareen for
:reached its Qui/Meeting point during the
.war.. In former wars, .our Acni-
•.• what pinched for mamas took their choice of
expedients, or eemetinica adopted all three
ulteneously. They oould either. lay,an embargo
-inerehant shine, shoat w PIPS":"4 tm*P•s °r 416 y
am a tempting bountand worst of
they.oonld issue a prod compulsorily
luring the, service of seafaring xten in, clams ;
is tqw, they could let the ferociputprata-
gut loose in all our seeporte, hidnappinS every
met, whethee mafaang or not, mid forcing
*their captives with unheard of barbarities into the
•of the navy. It is not necessary to' waste
. • uch space in Mowing that two of Ahem old-.
Monad expedients have now become (tete,
• o minister would now be mad enough to MI
• • • bergo dn 'Our outgoing merchant ships, nor would
' •y, we fancy, be willing to pot his hand' to spro-*
*maim' letting loose the prestige:mg. Of the old
'Machinery, tbetefore, for raising men for the wavy
there only remained the botarty, ass possible capet•
skeet., but this, which was tried very recestlyea air
••• • •. • led sena orlibeeslity, besides b...ora
all awls of hued, has been found •ollewtaileilts
gll thy navy only with the woad and moot, swift
4rable class of seamen.
In the presence of so many difficulties standing
ip the way of an object of the deepest national ins-
Isortanoe the coueeptioe and instituticia of the Royal
'Naval Reserve must be admitted to have been a
happy. tweet. for England— 181 i the Rays/.
conummion . was appeieted• lualudiM among Lit
members exanced states in veteran JOY*.
dimes, merchant shipmasters n 'ehipowners, and
by that commission the subject of manning the
navy was carefully considered In all its. bearings
The great fruit of its labours was the establishment
di the Royal Naval Reserve, and it is to the undo.
,atle success and rapid ingress of thatinstitution
we ziqw hope to ettiraa the attention of the
oa stt public. •
• By he regalations of the Royal Naval Reserve
111 Mtish-born seamen of good character whom
lige, do not exceed 90 Years may be enrolled, and
be condition et their service 'ice that they shall'
attend gun drill for 28 days is every you. and h•
lade to be called out for active service in case of
' emergency. The intention of the force is, in fact,
that it shall be on the water what the volunteers
are on the lind—namely, the last line of the;
oath:Mal defence, with this important difference,
however, iu favour of the Reserve, that the men
receive permanent pay at the rate of Of. per
Minuet and a guinea I ' week whilst out for
Ind' that they' may leek forward to a
pension of Greenwich Hospital 'in their old
age. The captains of the mercantile marine
are eligible fur commissions, at present rising
no higher than that of lieutenant, but there
is a strong hope that the ranker cogunauder will
also be shortly thrown open to such officers of the Re-
/terve as shall have shown mere than ordinary real is
promoting its success. ft will be seen, therefore, that
nothing could be fairer or more liberal than the terms
upou which the institution was established, and yet
it made but slow way for a king time. Jaek,who bad
the traditions of the preargaug period, with all its
traps and devices, fresh in his bead, smelt suspiciously
id the tempting bait for some time. It was, he
thought, too good to be true ; awl in the majority
of instathoes his wife or sweetheart, as the case
might be, made every effort to strengthen this
adverse opinion. Some of the women feared that
their husbands were sure to be killed ; othersthat •
they would lose their relish foe Lome, but it will,
perhaps surprise many of our readers to learn that,
a large proportion of objection took the religious
fetes. A great recruiting field for the Naval Reserve
would, of course, be the northern colliery ports,
rod there, it is itnown, the seamen who have but
ahnet voyages to make spend a good deal of time
adhere, and are very regular attendants at their
various places of worship. There the criminality
of war in any shape is often insisted on from the
pulpit, and the doctrine bad obtained so firm a
hold ou the minds of many of our "Geordies," but
enure especially on their wives, as in the first is-
stance very much to mar the success of the Royal
Naval Reserve. But time, as is always the ease
when the matter in baud has merits which
will bear its le-arching test, has done wonders. The
sailors began to drop in fur enrolment by degrees,
and those wuo did so, finding what were the reel
character and advantages of the iustitution, became.,
so many willing agents tq advertise it further iutp
popularity. Small shipowners, who feared that the
o" men would think too much of them-
selves, and demand higher wages, were in the com-
mencement a great stumbling block, but their petty,
obstructiveness was niore than neutralised by the
patriotic and liberal conduct of the great magnatei
of the mercantile marine, who gave the reserve
their warmest support, and in all cases preferred
reserve men when manning their own ships. These
intelligeut merchants soon saw bow much more
likely they were to be well served by men
of character, and of whom it might be' lite-
rally said that " they had a stake in the
country," than by the casual wanderers'
of the docks and quays, of whose qualifications or
character they could know nothing until the
knowledge was too late to be of any wait
Some of them, whose ships traded to piratical
seas, soon found oat that a little training in the
working of ships' guns and small arms would
sometimes turn out to be a valuable acquisition to
their crews. It is nut many days since accounts
were received of the destruction of one of our
ships by pirates in the Chinese aeaa preceded
by the murder of the crew. Had that ship had
a few Pm; and had her crew been Naval Reserve
men, if only of one year's standing, that terrible
catastrophe would most assuredly have been
averted. The results of the favouring causes we
have eutuuerated hate been most gratifying. In
four short years a force of 17,0(0 picked end,
trained seaniesi has been enrolled, all of whom
have boss matte perfect in the great gun and small
arm drill, and 180 officers have received cionimiesions
ranking "with but after" lieutenants iu the royal
navy, these latter having every rearm to hopithat