The Press.
London, England, 1857-11-21 00:00:00

THE PItE S S, NOVEMBER 21, 1857.

SIR ROBERT PEEL AT TAMWORTH.
Sin ROBERT PEEL delivered one of his usual post-
prandial speeches on Tuesday last. There was
nothing particularly striking in the speech; but a
peculiar and personal soreness was apparent in its
general tone. Sir Robert was clearly not in an
amiable humour. He spoke as if his amour propre
had been damaged. He sneered at Lord Canning,
laughed at Sir Charles Wood, abused Lord Lyons,
ridiculed Lord Granville, made ill-natured remarks
about his former pastor and master, the Premier, was
indignant with Mr. Lindsay, and especially savage
with Mr. Bernal Osborne. The only person he
defended was Lord Dalhousie :
One man actually had the audacity to affirm that the
disturbances were owing to the government of Lord Dal-
housie, and to propose that his pension of 5,0001. a year
should be revoked. Was anything more monstrous than
for a man to get up and say this of a man who had perilled
his life and broken his health by so long a residence in
India as Lord Dalhousie—a man who, he made no hesita-
tion in saying, was as great a Governor-General as ever
governed our Indian territory? His name was to be held
in as high estimation as that of Clive or llentinck—or,
still greater than either, as Hastings. Lord Dalhousie was
a man who showed that he was possessed of le gant de suit
et la main defer.

He believed that the outbreaks in India were to be
ascribed to the mismanagement of the East India
Company, and said it was clear that " sweeping
reforms" would have to be introduced. With
respect to domestic measures, he thought Lord
Palmerston had his hands full—too full, indeed, to
take up Reform.

citing cause, and should propose its complete aboli.
tion :

His belief was that Christianity and Ithuddistn cauld
not flourish in the same soil—where the one flourished
the other must perish; and therefore, although it had been
the (practice of the Government of India, from its first
institution to the present moment, not only to tolerate, but
lie believed to cherish, to show marks of public respect to
that miserable, gross, and ridiculous superstition—so far
front that consolidating the people of India to our rule—
so far from making them respect us—he believed that
they had been interpreted as a mark of fear, and of sub-
serviency, and of a want of sincerity in those professions
of faith iu the undoubted truth of the Christian revelation
which we had instructed the missionaries to preach.
After a few further remarks on India—respecting
which a voice called out, " We have seen all that in
the newspapers,"—a general cry was raised for some-
thing on Reform. Mr. Massey said that upon that
subject be should give them no information. (Hisses,
cheers, and great confusion, which lasted some
time) :

Reforms in Parliament were discussed in the Cabinet
Council, and were not communicated to him, and he knew
no more of them than his audience did, and he could not
pretend to tell them that of which he knew nothing.
(Hear, and hisses.) They knew as much as he knew upon
that matter. They had been promised by the Minister of
this country a measure of reform, and he had no doubt
Lord Palmerston would keep his word. But what that
measure might be ho knew no more than they did. (Great
confusion.) He could not hold out to them the prospect
that the measure would be of so extensive a character as to
suit the very ardent and go-ahead reformers; it would be
of a practical character. When they made up their minds
—(laughter and hisses)—it would be a well-considered
measure.

THE INDIAN GENERALS.
From the London Gazelle of Tuesday, Nov. 17.

WAR-OFFICE, Nov. 11.

Tim Queen has been graciously pleased to give
orders for the appointment of Sir John Laird ➢Mir
Lawrence, K.C.8., Chief Commissioner and Agent to
the Governor-General of India for the affairs of the
Punjaub, to be an Ordinary Member of the Civil
Division of the First Class, or Knights Grand Cross
of the Most Hon. Order of the Bath; and of Major-
General Henry Havelock, C. 8., to be an Ordinary
Member of the Military Division of the Second
Class, or Knights Commanders of the said Most
lion. Order.

Her Majesty has also been graciously pleased to
make and ordain a special statute of the said Most.
Hon. Order for appointing the following officers to be
Extra Members of the Military Division of the
Third Class, or Companions of the said Order—
viz :

Colonel Archdale Wilson, of tho Bengal Artillery.

Colonel Henry Charles Van Cortlandt, com-
manding a corps of irregular levies in the East
Indies ; and
Lieut. Colonel Neville Bowles Chamberlain, of the
16th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry.

NON.:EDir.I•:It 14.

The Queen has been graciously pleased to give
further orders for the appointment of Colonel Arch-
dale Wilson, C. 8., of the Bengal Artillery, to be an
Ordinary Member of the Military Division of the
Second Class, or Knights Commanders of the Most
lion. Order of the Bath.
MEMORANDUM.
Colonel James George Neill, of the Madras Fusi-
lier, and Lieutenant Colonel John Nicholson, of the
27th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, would
have been recommended for the dignity of Knight
Commander of the Order of the Bath had they
survived.

THE CAFFRES.—The following is an extract from a
letter dated Eastern Province, Cape of Good Hope,
August 20 :—" The country is passing through one
of the most remarkable changes that can possibly be
conceived of. I speak now in reference to the
Caffres. There is every prospect of Caffreland be-
coming denuded of its original inhabitants. A
dreadful famine is now raging throughout that
country, extending from the frontier to the Basile°
River. Thousands are perishing for want of food,
and thousands are now pouring into the colony
in the most abject state in search of employment
and food. The vast extent of this immigration
will appear when I inform you that one of the
magistrates has registered and sent into the colony
one thousand souls, so that there is now no want of
servants. The Government of British Caiiraria employ
about four thousand Caffre men on the public roads,
road-making, &c. Never were a people so corn-
pletel3 given up to strong delusions to believe a
lie. At the bidding of a Caffre prophet the nation
destroyed the entire means of its own subsistence ;
cattle, goats, and corn were all destroyed, and the
ground lett uncultivated. They have sold their
guns, assegais, ornaments, and everything they could
dispose of, to procure food. They are now spirit-
broken, naked, and starving."

MONSTER GUNS.

TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS."

Sir,—In your impression of Nov. 11th you pub-
lish a letter addressed to you, and signed " Robert
Mallet," containing a most unprovoked attack upon
me. This letter must be a hoax, and the production
of some enemy of Mr. Mallet, not from himself,
because I have been lately in friendly correspondence
with him in reference to the priority of our inven-
tions, in consequence of a review in the Mechanic's
Magazine of a pamphlet of mine, in which review it
was stated that Mr. Mallet had forestalled me. I
thought the most frank and gentlemanlike way of
finding out if this were so would be to write and ask
Mr. Mallet and Dr. Hart, who was quoted as having
made the calculations. I did so, having had the
pleasure of malting their acquaintance during the
meeting of the British Association in Dublin, and
received from each the same reply, viz., that our
dates were so close that I could not have borrowed
from them nor they from me, but that they really
could not say which was absolutely first. On the
7th November the Mechanic's Magazine published
a letter from me to this effect, in which I added that
I applied the principle referred to in a different
manner from Mr. Mallet, and that I had not very
sanguine hopes of the performance of the wrought
iron chosen by him. It is impossible that, a week
after this, Mr. Mallet could have accused me of
wishing to be thought the maker of his mortars,
which I never saw till a month ago, and do not
think much of now I have seen.
Your correspondent further states that the design
for the mortars was " carried to completion without
alteration in any essential principle," a statement
which cannot have been made by Mr. Mallet, as the
mortars have no longitudinal bars in the inside,
which I believe would have been very objectionable,
but which were certainly part of the original plan.
In Mr. Mallet's book on the subject, published I
believe in on page 14S there is a drawing, and
in page 149 the following description, of his in-
vention :

A gun thus formed will consist of one or more plies of
longitudinal bars, extending the whole length of the gun
and closely fitting at the edges, forming by their internal
surfaces (when together) the cylindric cavity of the chase,
upon which a number of circular rings will be closely
fitted, 4:c.

Again, your correspondent says that the merits
of his mortar " rest on totally different ground, from
their being built up of concentric lamina," whereas
Mr. Mallet in his book, page 152, says:—

I ..
1 IP
1 II
1 I,
158 ~

Solid reinforce rings, indeed, have been repeatedly pro•
posed and frequently applied to various projects or forms
of cannon, but the author believes that the reculiar
advantages of their application in their concentric laminte,
the internal ones of which shall be compressed by an ini-
tial extension of the external ones, has never before been
distinctly pointed out, and their adoption proposed and
urged—the essential and radical distinction being this,
that by no arrangement or variation of design can a gun
be formed in a single ply of rings, whose strength to
sustain an internal pressure shall be greater than the
cohesive power of the material per square inch of section ;
whereas by the subdivision of the rings into a number of
superimposed plies, each compressing those within it, the
strength of the gun may be increased so as to bear an
internal pressure any required number of times greater
than the ultimate cohesive powers of the material—in fact,
may be increased ad ilyinilurn.

Lastly, Mr. Mallet is a person of education, and
has mixed with society and knows its laws, therefore
cannot have written the threat of your correspondent
to "go into questions as to the originality of my
investigation or patent " out of revenge, if any one
sets up claims for me as respects these mortars—so,
as I said, the letter must have been written by an
enemy of his.

My plans aro at all events successful, as a perusal
of the following results will show :—Four 9-pounder
guns were tried in 1855 at Woolwich and. Shot:nu ry-
ness to decide their relative ♦alues. They were, a
cast-iron service gun, a brass service gun, one made
by Mr. Dundas of wrought iron (on a plan identical
with Mr. Mallet's, except the adoption of the one
principle, which your correspondent disavows), and
one on my plan. They were fired—

THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 21, 1857.

2 rounds, with 8 lbs. of powder, 1 shot, 1 wad
8(1 It 3 19 1 „ 0 „
26 ~ 1 1 „ 0 „
5 5 19 1 11 1 11
5 ~ 5 >, 2 „ 1 ~
3 11 6 ~ 2 „ 1 „
Here Mr. Dundas' gun burst. The rest were fired
107 rounds, with C lbs. of powder, 2 shot, 1 wad, when
the cast-iron gun burst. The remaining two were
fired sixty-four rounds with the same charge, when
the brass gun became unserviceable, mine only re-
maining, and bearing an additional proof of
134 rounds, with 0 lbs. of powder, 2 shot, 1 wad
I ~ 0 19 4 „ 1 „
1 ~ 6 ~ 5 „ 1 „

6 1
7„ 1 „
8„ 1 „
9„ 1 „
10 /I 1 1,

Have I any reason, sir, to prefer Mr. Mallet's untried
plan to my tried one?
I prefer also my own way of bringing forward a
plan. Mr. Mallet was at ones backed up by Lord
Palmerston and a more exalted personage, and re-
port says that the country's money enabled him to
carry out his views. I hear that the two mortars
cost 15,0001., although Mr. Mallet has givan his
time and first-rate abilities gratis. In 1853 I was at
Constantinople, and saw what a few gunboats could
do to avert a inar, if armed with one monster gun
each. I urged thisi view with the Turkish com-
mandant of the arsenal, Halil Pacha, and with an
influential person in the Embassy. When the army
came, I had some conversation on the subject with
Lord de Ros and General Cator, but neither could
neglect their immediate duty to attend to me. In
August, 1854, I laid a plan before the select com-
mittee at Woolwich, and they answered distinctly
that they did not contemplate the use of very large
guns. I next tried to get some manufacturer to
make a huge gun on my plan (cast. iron, strengthened
with concentric cylinders or wire), but failed. In
November I heard of the battle of Inkermann, of the
storm in the Black Sea and of the likelihood of a
long siege, and immediately started off to Turkey
to urge the use of the immense Turkish brass guns,
to be strengthened with wire and used as howitzers,
and of the 10 inch shell guns of the navy so
strengthened to throw solid shot for battering pur-
poses. This was a practical proposal, and could
have been carried out in a few weeks, not two years.
Again I failed, and returned to Europe, and set to
work to get 18 and 21 pounders made at my own
expense, as models. I saw the Duke of Newcastle,
and was referred to the select committee which had
already decided not to use large guns, and which
now pronounced my plan of making them imprac-
ticable and dangerous. After several experiments,
I sent the gun which stood such a wonderful proof.
Then Lord Panmure strengthens all the Lancaster
guns, thrown aside as dangerous, on the plan de-
clared in June,'ss, to be impracticable, and writes to
me that my plan is not new, having been proposed
in 1807. Here was encouragement to a young
officer to advance the science of his profession!
I used what interest I could with the late Lord
Hardinge to be allowed to sell my commission and
devote the money to making a large gun, and not
succeeding, I raised money to carry on my experi-
ments at a ruinous cost. This proceeding will cause
me inconvenience for life, but I glory in having made
sacrifices to carry out what I clearly saw was of
importance to my country—what, if adopted, would
have saved thousands of men and millions of money.
I have not one relation at either the Horse Guards
or the War Department—l am not even a Scotch-
man—so have little chance of even being thanked
for my exertions. Mr. Mallet, backed as he is, will
probably be well rewarded. I sincerely trust he
may; but he may rest assured no reward will give
him half the satisfaction which I feel in having per-
severed in a good cause, in spite of poverty, great
mechanical difficulties, the entreaties of my friends,
and the resolute obstructiveness of the War Depart-
ment.—l am, sir, your obedient servant,

T. A. BLAKELY, Capt. R.A.

THE TRANSPORT OF TROOPS BY THE INDUS is thus
referred to by the Sind Kossid :—" The steamers
Planet, Napier, and Assyria, with the flats Ethersey
and Nitocris, have been ordered down from the
Persian Gulf, and are expected here daily.. . .
With this fleet, and the camel train, organised so
efficiently by Colonel Hutt, we ought to be in a
position to despatch some thousands of soldiers for
the relief of the upper provinces in a shorter space of
time than can possibly be done from the Calcutta side,
and we think the public will agree with us in saying
that it is very much to be regretted the home autho-
rities did not order the greater portion of the rein-
forcements now on their way out, to disembark at
Kurrachee rather than in Bengal."

1135

THE LATE MR. AUGUSTUS STAFFORD.

MR. AUGUSTUS STAFFORD, M.P., died on Sunday

night at Morrison's hotel, Dublin, to which Mr.
Stafford bad been brought from his seat in the
county of Limerick a few days previous. The cir-

cumstances of the death of the hon. gentleman were
such that his friends determined to have an official

investigation. An inquest was held on Wed-
nesday last, and the evidence given revealed
the most painful particulars. It appeared

that about the 4th of November, when at Cratloe,
near Limerick, Mr. Stafford suffered an uneasy

feeling in the lower part of the stomach. He had
experienced this without alarm on previous occa-
sions. But the feeling becoming painful and the
pain increasing in intensity, he seat for Dr. Griffin,
a surgeon in Limerick. Dr. Griffin bled him and
administered a dose of laudanum. In the night, the
bandage getting loose, the arm burst out bleeding
again, and Mr. Stafford rose, roused his servant for
his assistance, and ultimately getting into his
servant's bed fell into a sort of stupor. From this
he was never fairly roused. The soles of his feet
were beaten, by direction of Dr. Griffin, to keep him
awake ; lie was pulled out of bed and forced to walk
up and down the room. Another medical man was
called in (Dr. Dickinson), who pronounced Mr.
Stafford suffering from an overdose of opium. The
beating by sticks on the soles of his feet was con-
tinued ; at one time five men, on and off, were en-
gaged. On Tuesday, the 10th, feeling better, Mr.
Stafford expressed a desire to be removed to Dublin
for superior medical advice. Sir Henry Marsh was
sent for, and attended him until he died on Sunday
evening last. From the medical evidence of Sir
Henry Marsh, it appeared that, while admitting the
value of laudanum iu a case of excessive pain arising
from gall-stones, he said that nothing would justify
an " excessive dose " unless intensity of pain existed.
The necessity of copious bleeding would also depend
upon the "intensity of the pain experienced." In
answer also to the question whether, after a patient
had been bled to the extent of :30 oz. and had taken
300 drops of laudanum and henbane, a further dose
should be applied, Sir 11. Marsh said, " I will not
say it was wrong practice, but I would not do it my-
self." In another portion of his evidence, Sir Henry
Marsh said the treatment applied by Dr. Griffin to
Mr. Stafford appeared to be " very st. ong ;" that the
bleeding and laudanum unquestionably did debilitate
him, and that the necessity of flogging the soles of
Mr. Stafford's feet to arouse him from lethargy
during the whole of the next day as " decided
evidenc"s of his having been completely narcotised
by the use of opium to a dangerous extent." Mr. G.
Porter attributed the cause of death to fatty de-
generation of the heart. The intense pain Mr.
Stafford suffered arose from nineteen gall-stones in
the bladder. He considered that the bleeding and
laudanum aggravated the debility caused by the
disease, and "hastened death." The Right Bon.
H. A. Herbert, who had visited Mr. Stafford in
Dublin, said that deceased entirely attributed the
cause of his illness to the overdose of opium given
to him by Dr. Griffiin :
He told me that he had been ill at Cratloe, and had
received an overdose of laudanum from Dr. Griffin. He
also described the agonies he had suffered during the
treatment. Before long it was evident that the effort of
speaking was too much for him, and I said he had better
postpone telling me the rest. He then said, " Mick will
tell• you all " (meaning his servant), and his servant then
told me the story, only not so much in detail as he has
related here to-day. He alluded to the subject himself
after that, and was certainly convinced that the cause of
his death was the treatment to which he had been sub—
jected.
Dr. Griffin in his explanation briefly said that he
could not charge himself with having acted rashly
or improperly :
He did not know how any man could withhold relief
from a patient in excruciating agony, where the pain still
continued, and where he still cried out for relief, the first
dose not being effectual ; lie believed that any man in the
same circumstances that lie was in would have exercised
the same discretion. As the jury had been told by Sir H.
Marsh, it was by the intensity of the pain only that a man
could judge of the remedies that were to be applied.
'I he jury ultimately returned a verdict to the
following etfect :
We find that the said Stafford Augustus O'Brien Stafford
died from natural causes, and that there is no blame to
be attached to Pr. tiriffiin for the treatment which de-
ceased received while at Limerick under his care.

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