The Press.
London, England, 1856-01-12 00:00:00

DESTRUCTION OF THE DOCKS OF
SEBASTOPOL.

[The following account of the demolition by the French en•
giueera of the first of the five docks of Sebastopol, appear'.d in
the letter from the camp of the cortespoudent of the Daily
News, Dec. 24.]

One of the five celebrated dry docks in the Karabelnaia
suburb of Sebastopol was demolished by the French en-
gineers on Saturday, the 22nd of December, at 2 p.m , by
the explosion of mines. The destruction of the dock was
fully accomplished, the blast having almost instantane-
ously reduced the massive fabric into a ruined and con-
fused heap of stones. The intention of destroying a por-
tion of the docks was not known in camp until an early
hour of the morning of the same day. The six companies
of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment, which for the last month
or five weeks have been quartered in the Karabelnaia,
assisting in the necessary preparations for the destruction
of the three docks in rear and the part of the basin in
charge of the English engineers, were moved up at five a.m..
before daylight. Their departure was thus unobserved by
the enemy on the north side of the roadstead. it was
considered prudent to march these men up to camp, in
case the Russians might think proper, after the explosion,
to direct a heavy fire on the suburb, and to avoid all risk
of casualties, should any of the buildings fall from the
concussion. This movement was a sufficient intimation
that the explosion of part of the docks was at hand. but in
addition all servants and men on fatigue, going into the
town for wood, were early in the morning stopped at the
Redan, and subsequently a cordon of sentries was drawn
around to prevent officers or any person from approaching
within the neighbourhood of the docks where there was
the slightest chance of danger from the explosion. As it
turned out, however, these precautions proved unnecessary,
for the mines were so laid that the effects of their explosion
were confined to a very limited sphere of action. The
dock selected by the French engineers for demolition on
this occasion was the one placed to the west of the lock
through which vessels formerly entered into the great
basin. in addition to this dock, the French have to
destroy another dry dock on the east side of the entrance
lock, the lock itself, which, with its sides and foundation
of cut masonry and magnificent floodgates, has the appear.
ance of another dock, and half the basin. It is understood
that the engineering operations are completed for the
demolition of the whole of these structures, and that the
object in demolishing one portion only was to test the
accuracy of certain calculations with regard to the quantity
of gunpowder necessary for effecting the desired result.
The quantity actually employed is said to have been a
little over 2,00 pounds English, or 1.000 French kilo-
grammes. The French engineers have followed a some-
what different plan from the English engineers for the
destruction of the docks. They have trusted principally
to galleries carried across and beneath the bottom of the
dock. They have also, however. parallel with each side, a
horizontal gallery, to blow out the foundation and lower
part of each side wall. In the docks to be destroyed by
the English, perpendicular shafts have been sunk at fre-
quent intervals along the sides, for the purpose of blowing
the whole of the sides inwards. Latterly, also, galleries have
been constructed beneath the toundations of the bottom of
each dock, so that their demolition must be very effectual.
Arrangements have been made for firing the English
mines by a voltaic battery. The French mint* on Satur-
day were fired by means of trains of laid gunpowder
and fuses. The report of the explosion was by no means
loud. It was heard in camp, but was generally sup-
posed to be the bursting of some of the Russian pro
jectiles among the buildings of the town. Nearer to the
scene of the explosion a tremulous agitation of the
ground was felt, and this was followed by the peculiar
compressed sound—more like the rumbling of distant
thunder than the usual report of gunpowder fired from
within metal which always accompanies subterra•
nexus discharges. Simultaneous with the noise of
the blasting, the air over the situation of the dock became
thickened with smoke, atones, and rubbish. A large quan-
tity, among which were masses of considerable size, rose
perpendicularly upwards, while at the same time a shower
of masonry was hurled from each side upwards and curving
towards the centre. The greater portion of these blocks
and fragments of stone appeared to fall downwards into
the vacant space of the dock ; scarcely any were observed
to fly far besond its limits. A dense cloud of smoke
filled and rested over the place of ruin. and this continued
hanging over it for a considerable time, for there was no
breeze to waft it away. No sooner had the explosion oc-
curred, the crash of the falling masonry had scarcely died
away from the ears, when the sharp reports of several

SATURDAY,

shells about the docks and neighbouring buildings told that
the eimmj had been no unobservant spectators of the scene.
They hoped to hit some of the troops, whom they suspect, Li
to be in the neighbourhood of the explosion, the nature of
which they no doubt understood, but, as usual, fired aim-
out effecting any injury or causing casualty. Rep„rt
says that all the preparations will be completed for the
demolition of the three docks to be destroyed by the
English in the course of a week from the present date.
The arrangements would have been finished already had it
not been for the large quantity of water which has found its
way into the shafts and galleries excavated for the recep-
tion of the blasting powder. It appears that the reason
of the water having entered so copiously into these exeuva-
tions, while those connected with the French mines hi v;+
remained dry, is their relative position with regard to the
termination of the Karabelnaia ravine, between the Ma a.
koff and Redan hills, and at a short distance from the
dockyard wall. The three docks in charge of the Engl ai
are separated from the end of this ravine—where an et of,
mous amount of water had collected and formed an
immense pond or reservoir—only by an artificial causeway,
constructed at an enormous expense of labour by the 'ins-
slabs during the formation of the docks, and through this
earth the water gradually percolated. Under ordinary cir-
cumstances the water of the middle or Karabelnaia ravine
would drain through the soil and find its way to the Kant-
beluaia creek or harbour, and in this direction the w ter
collected in the shafts has now had to be conducted, atter
much labour, by pumping and other means of drainage. It
would have been more easy to drain, the shafts thronith
the great basin into which the three docks open; but this
would probably have led to flooding a portion of the Ft ench
works. When the time shall arrive for the destructs,,, of
the English portion of the docks, it is hoped that then,
destruction will be as complete as that of the French dock
already demolished; and if the three are demolished at
the same instant the effect will be proportions sly more
striking. I have heard it stated that the floor of the ilock
just destroyed by the French engineers has not been so
effectually and completely broken up as it was anticipated,
it would be by the explosion, but I hardly believe that this
can be ascertained while it remains encumbered with the
ruined masonry at present heaped over its surface.

THE EMPEROR ALEXANDER, when at Xicolaieff, is
said to have desired a French officer, taken
prisoner, to be brought into his presence. When
presented, the Czar, according to the officer's
account, conversed with him, and asked him many
questions relating to the war, at the sane time avoid-
ing, however, all embarrassing subjects. On dis-
missing I•im, the Emperor shook him by the hand,
and said, " I give you a hand which will soon, I
hope, be a friendly one."
THE EMPEROR or THE FRENCH, at the first Court
ball at the Tuileries, on Tuesday night, paid marked
honour to the Crimean generals present. His.
Majesty gave his arm to General Bosquet—who is or
was a stern Republican—and walked, up and down
the room with him for some time. It is said that
•he Emperor plainly intimated his desire to have the
gallant general by his side in the probable campaign,
of '56.

PRINCE GORTSCHAKOFF, at the Russian Embr,y at
Vienna, lately gave a dinner to the Austri-4,11 Field
Marshal, BRIM Hess, and other office.ta of high
rank in the Austrian army. The Prin.*, in pro
posing the health of Baron Hess, is related to have
dwelt with peculiar emphasis upon the excellent un-
derstanding between the Russian and Austrian
armies. Baron Hess, in his rept), omitted all notice
of so pointed a political allusion, and the Austrian
Emperor is said to have expressed extreme indigna-
tion at the Minister of a foreign power hinting that
the army disapproved of the foreign policy of the
State.

THE KING or PRUSSIA, in his reply to the Letter of
the Emperor of Austria, it is reported at Vienna,
states that he will counsel the Czar to accept the
present conditions of peace, but can de no more, as
he is resolved to maintain the position which he
at present occupies. The King is also said to have
complained that Prussia was not invited to. aid tit
drawing up the propositions, and asks for explana-
tions as to their objects and motives. Colonel Mau-
teuffers mission is also said to be in some way or
other connected with an intended appeal on the part
of Austria.

THE KING OF PRUSSIA'S AIDE-DE-CAMP, Captain
von Rauch, left Berlin on a private mission to St.
Petersburg simultaneously with the departure of
Colonel Manteutfel for Dresden and Vienna. Cap-
tain von Rauoh is supposed to bear an explanation of
Colonel Manteuffel's mission to Vienna.

COUNT O'DONNELL, aide•de-camp to the Emperor
of Austria, left Vienna on the sth instant on a poli-
tical mission to the smaller German Courts.
THE AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT, it is affirmed in mili-
tary circles in Vienna, has declined the offer of tha
Western powers that an Austrian officer of high
military rank be permitted to attend the council of
war at Paris.

PRINCE Bonne° lately passed through Berlin, for
St. Petersburg, bearing important despatches front
the American Gove,nrnent. Russia, it is well known,
has entered into heavy contracts in America for the
delivery of steam machinery and general war ma-
terials.

JANUARY 12, 1856•

/ortign iarrtsponMltt.

FRANKFORT, Jan. 8, 1850.
Wu flations in active hostility do not the less
couuuue to respect each other, there may exist
a well founded hope that othet means than the
sword may terminate the wattare. In tile midst of
civilisation man may degenerate into a savage state
of moral degradation, if war, protracted to extremity,
be only governad by those tendencies of cruelty and
barbarity that are inherent in man. Rousseau
sought for the foundation a his " contrat social"
in the history of savages. But progression is su-
perior to retrogression, and experience would be
without a mural if the t ieoriesof the unwise philoso-
pher were held to be just. Hence it is that the
practical past inculcates the maxim of an open foe
being preferable to an insidious ally, and therefore
Russian hostility, frank and noble, is preferable to
.kustrian amity, artful and ignoble in its essence.
Le Nord, the accredited and legitimate organ of
Russia, has prominently placed in its pages the
follesing quotation from the work of Moutalembert
on the institutions of England :
Ce qu'on no volt plus parni les Anglais c'est ce eynirne
de l'apostasie, ce (suite abject de la force, et du sucees, cet
alaissement presqua univeisel des a mes qui out trop son-
vent deshonore noire histoire contemporaine. Nous ne
talons pas qu'il n'y aft aussi en Angleterre des exeinples
d'apostaaie et de corruption; noes Mons qu'ils aient etc
acceptes on pardonnes par l'opinion. Place sons le feu
a*aue publicise implacable, eleve dans des traditions d'hon-
heur politique qui rendent a ll.itume public la bassesse
aussi impossible, que lest au soldat la lachete, l'Anglais
qui se sent des inclinations basses, qui vent sacrifier au
lucre, prend son parti; it salt ne lni est pas promis
d'etaler sa home aux yeux de sea concitoyens, et it se fait
oublier dans quelque recoin obacur du budget. II n'y a
pas exempts dans l'Angleterre de nos joura d'un homine
qui nit gran le par l'apostasie, et qui nit gouverne son pays
en faisant a son ambition le sacrifice de Is morn e et de
l'honncur.
Les historiens futurs ponrmnt felieiter l'Angleterre d'avoir
toujours en l'aristecratie la plus deiniicranque et la demo-
cratic la plus aristocratique que le monde aft connues , et si
de nouveaux Louis Xl. doivent triornplier stir le continent,
no nouveau Coonines pourra repeter le temoignage que ce
grand politiqne rendait it y a quatre cent tins :—" Scion mon
advis, en toutes lea seignenries du monde dont j'aie con•
noissanee, on la chose publitpie est mien: traictee, et oil
ripe moins de violence sur la peuple, c'est Angleterre.
Tette est la lecon supreme qu'offre la societe Anglaise,"&c.
The remarkable words, and the more remarkable
quotation of them by Le Nord, do not receive in
Germany a ready solution. Although directed
against the present Government of France, yet, in
order that the point should tell, the principle of the
governmental optimism of England must in the
first place be accepted. And it is accepted. This is
the more singular, since the Peeiite', against whom
the sarcasm of " exemples d'apostasie " is levelled,
are pro-Russian, and the "inclinations basses," that
would " tout surlier au lucre," directly refer to
Richard Cobden, Bright, and the peace-at-all price
party. flue Cabinet of St. Petersburg has di-covered
that there is a strong Conservative party in England,
led Ly Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, that, whilst up
holding the value of the principles for which the war
was undertaken, will not consent to a forced con-
struction of the European balance of power that will
go to strengthen and reward Austria at the expense
of Russia. The generous compliment paid to
General Williams by the Russian general Moura-
vieff, contrasts strongly with the deliberate insult
offered by General Prince Coronini to the royal
uniform of England. Nothing can extenuate the
apologetic defence of a woithless associate, known
to be such, or justify a reluctance to acknowledge the
courtesy of an enemy.
The amenity of M. de Bismarck-Schhnhausen has
been disturbed by the observations of the Morning
Post
If Russia aura abate her pride, and yield to our terms,
we shall be glal for peace sake ; but if she cannot agree
to the conditions which she knows as well as we do to be
necessary, we shall face the coming campaign with the
more ardour, that we shall obtain, we are convinced, a suc-
cess transcendently great, and conjointly with this we
shall have an opportunity of teaching Prussia a lesson she
will not forget, and of showing her, not only the danger,
b it the penalty which a first-rate power incurs when it
abandons its position, and that nobler vi,•es are not more
fatal to their owners than hypocrisy and cowardice.
These expressions are not more forcible than the
occasion warrants. Had Austria and Prussia dealt
fairly at first, the war might have been avoided.
They will pay the penalty of their misconduct at a
period not remote. Nothing, however, can exceed
the universal contempt for the German princes whet
whilst reviling France and England, dare to use high
language to Russia now that the day appears to be
against her. State policy may at times compel a
doubtful conduct; but no ingenuity can or ever