The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-03 00:00:00

This afternoon the shores of the Solent will witness
one of those spectacles in which England is once mere
at home. A portion of the fleet, consisting of more
than thirty vessels of war, and including a dozen sail of
the Ike, will start to occupy the Baltic, to blockade
every inlet and port of the Czar, and if possible find
some vulnerable point of his triple granite and iron. At
any time the sight of so many huge machines, sent out
with the message to kill and destroy, may well subdue
the most frivolous. Even a naval review, with its mi-
mic thunders, and its programme of triumphs, becomes
a scene of horror exactly in proportion as we realise its
true import. What we may see to-day, however, is
ambitiously and industriously grander, sterner, grimmer,
more real, and more deadly, than any like spectacle on
on these or any seas. The Baltic fleet of this year is in
all respects much stronger than the last ; it has more
steam power, more guns, a new class of gun-boats and
floating batteries, adapted for creeks and shoals, and,
what more than anything marks a resolution to do
something—a new commander. Sir Charles Napier
has ceased to command the Baltic fleet, not from any
deficiency in skill, in courage, or temper, but simply
because he did less than the British people expected to
see done. We have ourselves been ever ready to do
justice to his actual achievements, which are net to be
denied or depreciated ; but, when we send out the finest
fleet in the world, we naturally expect it to do more
than shut in a third-rate naval power, and assist "an
army to destroy an unfinished fort. Tile new com-
mander, Admiral Dundas, has before him the services
of Admiral Napier, and, whatever his instructions, if
any, no doubt he knows that he has to do more than
Admiral Napier. If he does not accomplish more,
he will certainly find himself next November under
()niers to lower his flag, with email prospect of ever
boisting.it again. Suchleethoeeetission of the „fleet the
Queen sends this day on its fatal errand. It is to at-
tempt more, to run more risk, to follow further and
clover, to care rather less for losing ships and men, and
rather more for inflicting losses and disgraces on the
enemy. In a word, the force is stronger and the duty
more terrible than last year; and if the scene to-day
should attract a smaller crowd of gazers than last year,
they will doubtless see-it less as a holiday spectacle, and
more as an operation of war.
• We certainly hal wished that after hat year's experi-
ence we should have less of such floating castles as the
Duke of Wellington and the Royal George, and rather
more of the gun-boats and other small craft, on which we
must mainly rely in our offensive operations. For f a-ty
years we have been introducing a new power into naval
warfare, and by its aid, together with continual improve-
ments in gunnery, we have brought the old man-of-war
to a perfection that Nelson never imagined. We have
given it twice the size, twice the weight of metal, and
infinitely more manageableness and security, Could wo
suppose one of Nelson's fleets developed by a law of its
own, to grow, to become more active, powerful, and
docile ; to arrive at a sort of intelligence, volition, and
harmonious action, till it could defy the storm and beast
the current, bent and resolved on its way, faithful to its
mission, and not to be denied by any vulgar element,
there we have the fleet that this day leaves our
shores. Yet in this pride and might seems to
consist - the very weakness of our naval under-
takings. The British man-of-war has been developed
rather by an internal law than by any law of adap-
tation, It is, indeed, the grandest work of human
hands, but it does not answer its purpose, if it has •
not actually outgrown it. Without inquiry, and as a
matter of course, we have been making our ships larger
and larger, when inquiry might have suggested that they
should be smaller and smaller. Were it, indeed, the
waves alone we had to deal with, could we fight out
every quarrel on the wide ocean, had we always to chase
huge fleets from one hemisphere to another, and fight
over again for ever, as in the old mythology, every bat-
tle ever fought with American frigate or Spanish three-
decker, there is no doubt as to the excellence of the type
we seem to have adopted. But the actual state of things
is far otherwise. Like some strong impetuous animal,
we seem to miss our object by running ahead of it. We
have to deal with shallow waters and granite walls, and
find ourselves too gigantic for the petty warfare, and,
giants though we are, we are so far baffled. No doubt
we have improved on last year ; but, unless there is a
large supply of the smaller craft, adapted for the shallow
waters of the Baltic, we shall only reiterate an inglorious
campaign with even less glory than before.
For anything we know, the departure of the Baltic
fleet may be an annual ceremony for many a year to
come. Up to this time everything indicates a very pro-
tracted war. At the chief point of collision there is on
both sides an indefinite power of reinforcements and sup-
plies, and we go on pouring in men and material for ever
without decisive issue. But, if our army is thwarted by
earthworks, our navy is not less at fault with granite,
and, whether by sea or by land, the same endless warfare
is before us, till genius or accident shall suggest some so-
lution. Therefore it is that we still urge the necessity of
adapting our means of warfare to the nature of the war.
Great men have always been remarkable for adapting
the means to the end. To do so politically argues a
singleness and straightness of aim, a disregard of
minor objects, and a contempt of mere material, never
found in the common order of minds, howeyer accom-
plished. No doubt, it does cost a painful effort to con-
demn a majestic structure to vulgar uses, to break to
pieces We work of one's own industry and skill, to ac
knowledge a life half wasted, and a thousand oppor-
tunities thrown away ; but, if experience should estab-
lish that our magnificent ships are little better than use-
less lumber, or, at best, huge storeships, floating bar-
racks, and naval depots, we hope and trust that no false
thrift or professional pride will interfere to save them
from their proper fate. Let them be kept in their plaCe,
but let us not multiply them, or attempt to use them,
simply because we have them, where they do not answer
the purpose. The First Lord of the Admiralty has not
given us any very recent account of the peculiar prepa-
rations made fir the Baltic warfare. If they are on a
scale for the occasion, and if from under the shadow of
our huge three-deckers fleets of gun-boats and batteries
we
finourtd,
as
theare rßztlyic,towsetlal rateadlid penetrate
a dozen boats here, and half-a-dozen there, are all the
that may still be in time for this season, and may pro-
public have heard of, it is not amiss to urge preparations
bably be wanted the next.

LORD RAGLAN'S DESPATCHES.
(Front the Daily News of this day.)
The nonchalance of Lord Raglan's despatches is, we
will be bound to say, unprecedented in the annals of
war. He not long ago began one of them by telling the
Minister of War he ha 1 " really nothing to report."
And in that of the 20th of March, wliich we publish to-
day, he says of the affair of the 17th, between the Rus-
sians and French—" Considerable loss must have been
sustained by our Allies, I fear, as well as by the enemy."
Three days after the action took place, Lord Raglan
can only fear that our Allies had suffered considerable
loss : it would have been too much trouble to ascertain
whether they had or not. Ministers complain that the
newspapers publish letters calculated to produce mis-
chievous impressions on the public mind. Can anything
produce a more mischievous impression than .the
lackadaisical communications of the Commander-in-
Chief. Good-natured souls, who are reluctant to
find fault with any one, especially with any one
in place, try to extenuate the faults of Lord
Raglan's correspondence by alleging that, along with
the slip-shod epistles which appear in the Gazette,
he must transmit others which enter more into
detail, but which Ministers deem it inexpedient to pub-
lish. If Ministers deem it inexpedient to publish the
whole of Lord Raglan's correspondence—if they select
for publication certain portions that may safely be in-
trusted to the profane vulgar—then surely, were it only
to save Lord Raglan's character, they ought to select
portions which can better bear the light. It is not the
curtness of the letters, or their awkward phraseology,
that is complained of. A man may be a good general
and a desperately bad writer. If Lord Raglan would
do, the public would forgive his being unable to tell what
he had done. It is the heartlessness which his poco-
curante epistles appear to indicate that excites indigna-
nation. There is scarcely a family circle in England—.
from the peer's to the pauper's—but bas to bewail a
member reft from it by the scandalous mismangement in
the Crimea ; and yet Lord Raglan writes as if he had
not mte compunctious visiting—as if this soul were as
serene and untroubled as it might be had he no more
serious oversight to reproaoh himself with than a revoke
at whist.

True, he has plenty to keep him in countenance. All
the directors of the war.--himself included—act 23 he
writes. Dr. Andrew Smith confesses, with edifying im-
perturbability, that his signature is affixed to documents
of the contents of which he had no knowledge. Dr.
Menzies cannot tell whether he was under Dr. Cumming
or Dr. Cumming under him. Mr. Ward, purveyor, is
found to be inefficient from age ; but the old dotard
grumbled at being sent back to England, and Lord
Raglan, "good-naturedly," allowed him to remain.
How that word "good-nature" is misused ! It might
be " good-natured" in so far as Mr. Ward was concerned,
but was it good-natured to our gallant soldiers, who
were dying of inanition in the trenches, or tossing
in feverish agony on their pallets in ie hospital I
And without condescending to notice the crowd of
minor pococuranti, is there not our Premier himself ?
Lord Palmerston is astonished that there should be ex-
citement and indignation in the country. "Have we,"
ho asks, " been worsted in battle ?" No ; but, far worse
than that, our army for months was dying off piecemeal,
in face of an enemy who only assailed it to be repulsed
with disgrace. Our resources are infinitely greater than
those of the foe—our men are braver than his ; and yet
at one time our army was visibly wasting away through
the mismanagement tof our rulers and commanders.
This is a deeper disgrace than losing many battles ; but
Lord Palmerston feels it not--he jokes at the expense of
those who feel it.

• It is this frivolity of our rulers, and of those whom
they employ, that is the most galling part of what we
have at pr..sent to endure. The nation is high of hsart
and earnest of purpose ; its meanF., are great, and it is
willing to exhaust them all for the attainment of the
great object it has in view; our soldiers are the bravest

It is singular that the public discontent at the
attitude assumed by the British representative at
Vienna should have followed so closely on the detec-
tion of certain political and Parliamentary intrigues
here in London. A man who has passed his life in the
House of Commons always lives there in the spirit, even
if be be away in the body. Lord John Russell, too, has
for some time past seen the Leadership of the Whig
party slipping from his grasp—nay, the very party itself
was not long since in danger of dwindling away—of
being absorbed. Lord Palmerston was assuredly
quizzed by the late Sir Robert Peel when he twitted
him with being a " pure 011 Whig! " We strongly
suspect that Lord John Russell looks upon his newly-
reconciled colleague as little better than an interloper
and usurper. What, then, can be more natural than
that the noble lord, while "walking arm in arm with
Prince Gortschakoff on the glacis," or assisting with
becoming gravity at that solemnly fircical Conference
Board at Vienna, should have one eye on Dciwn-
ing-street, or St. James's-square, or Grosvenor-gate,
or the SpeF.ker's chair? Now, he might think to
himself, is the chance of restoration for the " great
Whig party," or never. A menaced Coalition, on a
cry for " Peace," might destroy so tempting an
opportunity ! Heavy
taxes, stagnation of trade, a more
than Pilule war, are strong arguments for peace, in the
long run, with a commercial people, who had been
taught to believe in a political millennium and universal
free trado. What more natural than that Lord John
Russell—who, of course, gets the English papers, and
is keenly alive to what is going on at home—should
detect. the growing conspiracy against resuscitated
Wht?;gisirt ? It is not difficult to suppose him cursing
in his heart that war policy which might provoke a
coalition, with an adverse vote in the House of Com-
mons, which would push aside once more the revived
Whig party, and bar himself from the renewed leader-
ship of the House of Commons, the expected reward of
his magnanimous consent to serve under Lord Pal-
merston !

If, however, Lord John Russell be disposed to huddle
up a peace as quickly as possible—whether for such
reasons as these, or for others leis personal and more
patriotic—all men concerned are not of his mind. It is
not very flattering to the pride of this country the pod-
tion
in which England stands towares France. In an
ill starred
bottle-holding r, He little anticipated the day
when he red
would—whether
Lord
" bottle-holder" himself I We can imagine the Emperor
-st moment,
_ether he liked it or no—have a
Palmerston babbled of " judi-
wh
Napoleon mingling a little malice with his public spirit
in performing this function. It is bad enough that the
military renown of England should pale beside that of
governmental genius of the Chosen,
should have raised his corm-
T try eerity and glory. But to think
that our " Palmerston, our man of
" vigour"par excel-
lence—he whose very name alone was to settle the East-
ern question—to think that he, too, should shrink and
France,Cr
h t
fo o theanheight
h a t
of th
r peopleo
become dwarfed in the proportions of his fame by this
monopolising Monarch —this inscrutable man of glowing
words and sterling deeds, who not only excels the talk-
ing statesman in eloquence, but caps his eloquence by
action ! Three years ago, who would have dared to
prophesy that the reputation of Lord Palmerston would
so soon have yielded place to the superior energy and
rectitude of the personage, to whom then to have ex-
tended his patronage was deemed almost a magnani-
mous condescension ? Yet such is unhappily the case
at the present day. The people of England have now
so much more confidence in Napoleon the Third than
they have in the statesman whom they chose as a dicta-
tor, that when the Tories wish to embroil matters and
create confusion for factious purposes, they only think
it worth their while to throw out insinuations against
the former, passing over the latter as if he were insig-
nificant !

Monsieur Drouyn de Muys did not come here to
amuse himself, or to talk diplomatic platitudes with the
Ministerial trio who were specially selected from the
Cabinet to treat with him. The Emperor of the French
never wastes time or opportunity. Sending his Foreign
Minister here, before despatching him to Vienna to spur
the flagging energy of the British Plenipotentiary, was
a strong measure, but, if all reports be-true, not more
strong than necessary. This much is clear—that since
the French Statesman's visit a more decided tone is per-
ceptible in high quarters. It has oven transpired that
his mission has so far been successful, that the peaceful
aspirations of Lord John Russell have been officially
frustrated, and that our " man of vigour" has assented
to an ultimatum which Russia, in her arrogance, is likely
to reject with disdain.

THE CONDUCT OF THE WAR.
( From the Morning Herald of yesterday. ) •
Everything which is now passing serves to coniince
us that Lord Palmerston is faithfully carrying out his
pledge to Sir James Graham, that he would continue t)
persevere in the policy of Lord Aberdeen. Not with-
otfinding thy failure of that policy, And the dimotreuo