The Express.
London, England, 1847-12-29 00:00:00

OUR NATIONAL DEFENCES.

81r,—The state of our national defences has for
Mae time put engaged the public attention, thanks to the
untiring activity of the preen; and presently it will occupy
the attention of both houses of parlisment. lam no alarm-
ist, having too high an opinion of British bravery and skill
to dread the ultimate success of any invader of our shores;
but I am anxious to establish England's defences as much as
parable upon the deep, to prevent, so tar as may be, the cau-
tion of English blood on Engliali soil, and to husband the
action's treasure as well as her blood. I therefore beg your
punission to address the public through your columns,
as the subject of the much-derided, but in my deli-
berate judgment u a naval othcer fearfully eft:cations
and comparatively cheap means of defence offered the
sentry in the Warner inventions. Were they fully and
birly brought before that finally just tribunal, public opi-
nion, I am satisfied that unbelief and division would give
place to thankfulness that such weapons were ready for our
use and protection.
There are some who will cry out in impatience, and
others in ignorance of the foots of the Warner case, that his
'aerations have already been tried and condemned.
mars such impatient or ignorant objectors that the fact is
not so. The subject has indeed been successively forced
apes unwilling governments, who have seized upon the
incomplete and partial reports of °Seers not over-anxious
that these inventions should prove succenful so an excuse
fre 'Udine them. True it is that the " long range," after
tea imperfect trial, was pronounced a failure, though the
arifamitnioners actually never maw where the shells fell, and
mould not, though earnestly and repeatedly invited so to do,
listen to an 7 explanations, which I- can pledge myself were
tendered with every regard to their own convenience. But
bad the " long range" proved • failure, which I here pub-
licly deny it to have been in the tree acceptation of that
term, would that furniih any argument for condemning the
" invisible shells," whose power and manageability was so
satisfactorily demonstrated in the destruction of the ship off
Brighton ? All sort* of idle tales were circulated at the time
about minuend internal contrivance, being accessory to the
destruction of this ship, and they are perhaps still believed
by the uninformed. Bat Commissioner Chalmers's report
to the then Maeter.Oeneral of the Ordnance completel7
negatives this nonsenee, and shows how dmply Mr. Warner
destructive powers an, by the properly Instructed, be called
into action.

.
"Mr. Warner dropped his shell and a buoy into the
water. The steamer on which Mr. Warner was aboard was
then about one hundred yards a head of the John O'Guant,
towing her, and directing her carefully between the buoy
and the shell. The shell came in contact with the ship on
her starboard side, about midahips, and under her bilge.
The explosion took place about three minutes after Mr.
Warner had dropped his shell. The explosion was very
violent: the main and misen masts were lilted, as it were,
and snapped, and the ship sunk in little more than a minute.
I do not think the agent made l
ava of by Mr. Warner was
ired powder. The noise was not great, very little smoke ;"
thent
was no smoke at all—what wide its appearance was
water ; ) " it resembled a violent shock and lift,
an the damage done to the side must have been great."
The above is an extr.ct from the report of an unwilling
witness, and may be read at length among the papers printed
bj order of the House of Commons, and entitled " Warner's
utfrespondenae." A perusal of those papers will show that
Mr. Warner and I, hie bumble advocate, have always
conned the fullest inquiry, and still invite it. But let that
till be conducted before some impartial tribunal, on
and lammed by either Treasury, Admiralty, Ord-
nance, or Horse Guards. The country is deeply concerned iu
the solution of this question, which the interested seek to
stifle and the prejudiced refuse to examine ; for, if the
Warner problem is proved, then may millions upon millions
st ll* Public money be saved. Surely this is not a subject
lobe left unexplored at any time, and, least of all, at a crisis
*lee the national mind is fastened upon warlike matters
Ind is startled at their expensiveness. Certainty and cheap.
6011 ere, in ay judgment, combined in the Warner weapons
sLwari and it will not be my fault if their advantages are
▪ ay and Mr. Warner's native country and kw out.
tg• hr-spread colonies, now so accessible to any foe. To
tenantry I appeal, on Mr. Warner's behalf, for fair play.

To that every Englishman is entitled, and I ask no
ZOAM—Your obedient servant, INOUTRIL [ln giving inser-
tion to this letter we feel it expedient to retry our readers
to the reports of experiments with the Warner inventions,
and our own opinions regarding them, already recorded in
this paper.—Ed.]