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

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

THIS DAY—Morn. it min. aft. 7,—Evening 48 rain. aft. 7
To-Moaaow—Morn.37 Min. aft. B—Evening 24 min. aft. 9

THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, Sept. 20.
THERMOMETER, IN THE SHADE.

67 highest since noon yesterday.
B 5 —lowest this morning and during the night.
0 —this day, at noon.

BAROMETER, 30.25—rising.
WIND, W. to W.S.W.—Light, with very fine weather

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LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 18br,

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 Cronstaclt, 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 spared 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 !
Perhaps no persons throughout the United
Kingdom have more bitterly repined at ti: e
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 eafforded 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 boas d
the Baltic Fleet, and actually before Sweaborg,
which we copy in extenso, shows so clearly bow
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 m•re 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 Fitland, 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, -
" If he (Admiral Dundas) het wished to destroy gel.
singfors, he might have done so with impunity by placing
balf-a-dozen mo- '..ars behind an island a mile fro-ai tl town. No shot from g.urs'conld possibly have hit them,e
and mortars, if they retui_ied the fire, would have been
doing so in the dark, as our mortars would have been
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,"
opinion in the fleet is that it ought to be destroyed, as
it is little more 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 A zoff, 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 that
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 seziously injured every
Ministry with which he was connected.

It is said that Dr. EASTON 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
•ccomplioes 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 t• 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-

jetted 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. his 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
have just received a striking exemplification. That
wretched Bourbon. King BOMBA, whose subjects
have long been the sport of his police minister and
eut-throat myrmidons, who have so continually
clogged 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
response, but
, or, if it did, met with no merciful
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
thet hocefl
aemtxheoecurraTat iwooonf ssojcfilEi
revolu-
tionists, stayed in
rope. The an
his career
:Let
ee Kingrd
by
or the remonstrances of states seeking
the downfal or humiliation of his fast ally, Rus-
sia ! The notion was monstrous. They should
see what effect their clamour had on him ! and
of France insulted, and
Europe saw the flag
England outraged in the person of one of her am-
bassadorial staff, and both insult, and outrage,
en followed
an apology.
p bl
oyg
yw. h apt i
pwl was
and appeal for satisfaction
equivalent to a denial of ev
tuiriaacny—fleaent to boot—had hAadrenhoduckffeecetvoenn,Kainudg aßnomAßuAs:
Words, after all, were but words,
te
from
the lips of subjects or diplomatists, and h
Aus-
trian guns were only charged with blank
ncart-
ridge. King BOMBA was a greater King t
e
ever ! All at once, however, a rumour madeits, c
way through the intricacies of the royal
pala
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, N. 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 ?