The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-20 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 185 r.

While everything goes on satisfactorily in the
Crimea, the Baltic fleet maintains the same de-
plorable inactivity for which, with one brief excep-
tion, it has achieved so unhappy a notoriety during
the present season. It is true that it keeps the
Russian navy skulking under the guns and bat-
teries of Cronstadt, afraid to display its blood-
stained flag in the waters of what was once a
Russian lake. But a much smaller force would
have been quite sufficient for that purpose, and if
that was all that was intended a very consider-
able expense might have been !Tared to the coun-
try. The partial bombardment of Sweaborg, and
• the destruction of Government stores, merely
proved how much more might have been accom-
plished with suitable preparation, and agreater
display of zeal and energy. As it was, the
work was only half done. Helsingfors, which
lay completely at our mercy, was altogether spared.
The Russian Government was thus enabled to
publish mendacious accounts respecting the alleged
failure of our enterprise, and, thereby, to cast a
certain amount of discredit on a branch of the
public service, on which Britons have especially
prided themselves, and, until the present War,
with great reason ; for although the honour of
the Union Jack has not been in any degree tar-
nished, it has not been at all advanced during the
present conflict. The capture of Bomarsund was,
unquestionably, a brilliant operation ; but a large
portion of the laurels were justly earned by the
land troops of our Imperial Ally ! The triumph
did not by any means belong exclusively to the
Navy.

We do not by any means desire to cast any
censure on the officers or men actually engaged I
Perhaps no persons throughout the United
Kingdom have more bitterly repined at the
compulsory inaction, or been more earnestly de-
sirous of affording incontrovertible evidence that
British sailors have not in any degree degenerated.
Whenever an opportunity was!afforded they did
their work bravely and efficiently. There was no
falling off perceptible. And, if they were kept at
a safe distance from the batteries, it was not from
any lack of an anxious desire to be let at them.
All the deficiencies may be accounted for by orders
from Whitehall, or the lack of the materials for
carrying their bombardments to a successful ter-
mination ; and it is by no means improbable that
the falling off may be more correctly attributed
to the former than to the latter. This opinion
is powerfully corroborated by the otherwise un-
accountable sparing of Helsingfors—a matter even
less justifiable than the similar leniency to Odessa,
which has already been so severely criticised in
this country. A letter from an officer on board
the Baltic Fleet, and actually before Sweaborg,
which we copy in extenso, shows so clearly how
this great work might have been accomplished as
to carry with it complete conviction to every un-
prejudiced mind. There would have been but
little, if any danger in the attempt—a matter
which seems to enter more seriously into the cal-
culations of the present race of British Admirals
than of those of " the good old times" when
GEORGE the Third was King. The chance was.,
however, disregarded ; and the " gigan-
tic barrack" for forty thousand Russian sol-
diers, the capital of Fijand, still remains
unscathed by hostile fire. We commend this docu-
ment to the notice of the community. It is well
well worthy of perusal :
" Her Majesty's steamer , off Sweaborg,
Set
" If he (Admiral Dundas) had
wished
to destroy Hel. 1
singfors, he might have done so with impunity byf placing
half-a-dozen mortars behind an isladhit them,
the
town. No shot from guns could possiblya milea
and mortars, if they returned the fire, woauvlcei havel been
doing so in the dark, as our mortars would have beenea
screened from them by the trees of the island, which we
should have fired right over and could scarcely miss a
town about a mile each way," The
opinion in the fleet is that it ought to be destroyed, as
it is little mcre than a gigantic barrack for about 40,000
men."
At the Black Sea, too, the squadron has not
participated as largely in the honours arising from
the destruction of Sebastopol as we had antici-
pated. Nothing could have been better than

the operations in the Sea of Azoff, so far as they
went. But why has Odessa still escaped with
impunity ? Why has Nicolaieff remained unvi-
sited ? New vessels are, it appears, in course of
construction to replace those voluntarily sunk
in the bay of Sebastopol, and yet nothing
has been done. The CZAR, it is said, is
to pass from Moscow to the South, and to visit
Odessa, Nicolaieff, and other towns on the Dnies-
ter, the Bug, and the Dnieper. Why should not
Sir E. LYONS be in attendance to give 'him a
warm reception, with a guard of honour of British
seamen and marines, and with an illumination,
consisting of the burning of arsenals and stores of
the stronghold on the Bug, which, now the.t
Sebastopol has fallen, may be made another
" standing menace against Constantinople." Once
mole, then, we earnestly and emphatically
demand that the British Navy may be permitted
to do its duty ; and we strongly recommend to
Lord PALMERSTON a searching inquiry into the
instructions communicated by the First Lord of
the Admiralty—the brother-in-law of the pro-
Muscovite Earl GREY, the henchman of the
advocate for the adoption of the Vienna propo-
sitions—the Sir CHARLES WOOD who has botched
and mismanaged every department over which he
had any control, and seriously injured every
Ministry with which he was connected.

It is said that Dr. EssroN and Mr. SULLIVAN,
who were captured under such atrocious circum-
stances, at the time of the too notorious Hango
Massacre, have just been liberated in an exchange
effected at Odessa. We may, therefore, speedily
hope for full and trustworthy information respect-
ing that infamous outrage against the law of na-
tions and humanity. Hitherto we have only re-
ceived the testimony of interested witnesses, of the
accomplices and participators in the crime, of men
who were anxious to get rid of its worst features,
and to find some shadow of an excuse for their
own unmitigated guilt. The letter of Lieutenant
GENESTE was too carefully revised to render it
perfectly acceptable. That the gallant and greatly
ill-used officer told " the truth" we are perfectly
convinced—we at least cast no imputation on his
veracity. But, unfortunately, he could not tell
the " whole truth," and the stubborn pertinacity
with which the demand for his liberation was re-
jected by the Russian Government went far to
show that the revelations that might be made
were greatly dreaded. Russia has in many re-
spects greatly disgraced herself since the com-
mencement of her unwarranted aggression on her
inoffensive neighbour. The brutal massacre at
Sinope will remain an indelible blot on her
escutcheon ; but no act in which she has
ever been engaged during the whole of her
dark career, since the inauguration of the policy
of PETER and of CATHERINE, merits deeper execra-
tion than the murder of a number of unarmed
sailors while engaged in an act of mercy to the
countrymen of the bloodthirsty assassins, and
under the sacred protection of a flag of truce,
which the greatest barbarians had previously re-
spected. It is not merely the parties actually present
who are implicated. The Government, by sanc-
tioning and justifying the crime, have made it
their own. The blood of the murdered men
stains the ermine of the AUTOCRAT, as well as the
hands of his Ministers and the wretched mis-
creants who hoped to acquire rewards for
their exceeding infamy. None can be exonerated
from the consequences of the direful offence, and
an avenging Nemesis will exact heavy retribu-
tion for the frightful tragedy, which must not be
forgotten, when the accessories after the fact come
as humble suppliants for the mercy which they so
wholly disregarded, and for the restoration of the
Peace which they so wantonly and recklessly
violated.

Great is the power of great guns. Music,
right, humanity with their varied eloquence, and
diplomacy with all its subtle wiles, are not to be
compared with them in persuasive might. Music
will charm the venomous serpent, and soothe the
excited passions of savages. At the voice of right
the wrong-doer has been known to cease from his
career of wrong and endeavour to make restitution.
The groans wrung by torture from his victim have
moved the oppressor to pity, and diplomacy counts
among its triumphs what none of these agencies
could effect. But neither music, right, humanity,
nor diplomatic wiles can turn a bilious despot
from his purpose. None of them, nor all of them
together, with blue pill to boot, is the peristaltic
persuader for him. He turns from them in dis-
dain and goes on as before. His charmer, his
peristaltic persuader, is to be found in great
guns.

Of the truth of this fact in natural history we
hsve just received a striking exemplification. That
wretched Bourbon. King BOMBA, whose subjects
have long been the sport of his police minister and
out-throat myrmidons, who have so continually
dogged the steps of every honest man in Naples,
and hung upon his lips for occasion to pounce
upon and deal with him that life became a bur-
den, and who have imprisoned and administered
the bastinado to whom they listed, until Naples
became a hell, had no ears for the complaints of
his outraged subjects. Vainly might they attempt
an appeal to his tender mercies, or invoke the arm
of justice on their behalf. Shut up in his palace
brooding over his own thoughts, no cry however
pitiful, no appeal however heart-wrung, could
reach him, or, if it did, met with no merciful
response, but rather incited him to fresh wrong.
What were justice and humanity to a King by
Divine right ? What charm was there in their
eloquence for him ? Better Naples were decimated
than that his will should fail to be supreme,
Russia to be beloved, and his Throne secure.
Equally powerless were the execrations of Eue
rope. The anointed King of the Two Sicilies,
his career by the clamours of revolu-
tionists, or the remonstrances of states seeking
the downfal or humiliation of his fast ally, Ras_
sia The notion was monstrous. They should
see what effect their clamour had
insulted,
ionnhlime!,and and
Europe saw the flag of
bEnassg
al adnodr
aolu t
srtaagfre,d in
an thed b personoth ins
no
Ift na en
do f
ohuetrr
aagme:
and appeal for satisfaction followaepdobloygy. whatwa
was
equivalent to a denial of oven
an
and aB
Diplo-
macy—an Austrian Archduke even, n Aus-
trian fleet to boot—had no effect on King BomA.
Words, after all, were but words, whether from
the lips of subjects or diplomatists, and the
taAus-
trian guns were only charged with blank cart-
ridge.ha King BOMBA was a greater King
ever ! All at once, however, a rumour made its
way through the intricacies of the royal palace,
and reached King BOMBA'S ear. France and
England were not so hard put to it in blockading
and bombarding the Russian ports but they had
a captain and a ship or two to spare for Naples,
and these powers to whose forbearance he owed
his ability to play the tyrant had determined to
send them. The valiant despot was seized as
with an ague--the great guns, as they sped to
Naples, began to operate, and King BoMBA, that
had set justice, humanity, counsel, and appeal at
nought, had turned with derision from the exe-
crationS'of Europe, and bearded in insolent defi-
ance her greatest powers, was persuaded to be

gracious. France and England were offended-
-were they ? France and England should have

ample apologies and satisfaction made to them.
His Minister of Police, he was a good, useful ser-
vant, to be sure, and stuck at nothing to serve
him—if they required it, why even he should
pack. The apologies were promptly framed, and
the satisfaction eagerly offered, and the Ambassa-
dors being inexorable, M. MAZZA, Director of the
Secret Police to his Majesty of the Two Sicilies,
has been dismissed, chattering and grinning spite-
fully, like the baboon he is, to his native haunts,
there to crack the nuts of disappointment. King
BOMBA can now listen to reason, and is prepared
to join the Cruelty to Animals and Peace Socie-
ties. Great is the power of great guns—on the
seas as at Sebastopol ! Why were they not tried
before ?