The Sun.
London, England, 1855-12-25 00:00:00

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THE LORD ADVOCATE ON THE PARLIA
MENT AND THE WAR.

A soiree was held in the Assembly-rooms, Leith, on
Friday, which the Lord Advocate and several other gen-
tlemen attended, by invitation. The chair was occupied
by Provost Taylor, of Leith ; and there were also on
the platform several of the magistrates and councillors
of the burgh, the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, Mr.
Sheriff Loran, the Rev. Dr. Stevenson, the Rev. Dr.
Harper, and other clergymen, Mr. Gibson Thompson,
Mr. D. Thom, Mr. W. Lindsay, &c. The ball was
filled by a most respectable assemblage.
The LORD ADVOCATE said he bad been requested to
say a few words on the " Responsibilities of the British
Parliament," a topic which was somewhat grave and
weighty at a meeting like this, which bad beau convened
for social, and not for political or electioneering per-
poies. He did not mean to make a constitutional speech
on the privileges of Parliament. He would rather
look at the position of a representative in relation
to his constituents, as at the present day and the pre-
sent crisis of affairs. He had been four years in Parlia-
ment, and he could assure the audience that it was a very
peculiar and remarkable assemblage. It had many sin -
;ular and curious characteristics which no body of men
who ever met possessed in an equal degree. There was
in the atmosphere which pervaded the whole place that
before which meanness and hypocrisy could not stand ;
and there was in it a sense and instinct of honour which
withstood at once any attempt at double dealing or false-
hood. There was a touchstone there. One could not say
where it was ; but so sure as the false metal rung, so
surely was its resonance heard in that house. There was
no place wherepretension or hollowness was more speedily
detected than there. It was a place wbee comparatively
ability was second to honesty, and where a man who was
honest and earnest in his purpose, and had made himself
master of his subject, was always certain of a hearing,
where the more flashy, and probably more clever, man,
who intruded himself into matters with which lie was but
superficially acquainted, or with which he had nothing
to do, would not command an audience for a quarter of

infiu-

enee of theifouse of Commons, or rather, herateWase the
true reflex and reverberation of the free -Feelience:c
this country. It showed how trury there percolated
through the constituencies of the true genuine ore. of
free constitutional government, and as long as that tem-
perament belonged to that house, though it might fluc-
tuate in men of talent and thought, having the genius
of Pitt and Fox in one generation, and comparatively
little ability in another, yet as long as there were these
true instincts in the representatives of the people, so
long, they might &Teed upon it, free institutions and
free goys rnrnents would flourish in this land. The Lord
Advocate then proceeded to characterise various classes
of members, as for instance, those that spoke to the re-
porters, the members who spoke on everything (and he
he had only known one man who spoke on every thing
with a knowledge of everything, namely, Joseph Hume),
and the members who feared their constituencies, of
whom he hoped he was net one. His lordship then re-
ferred to the suljsct of the war. He said a bear had
passed einco last he had been among his constituents at
any public demonstration. t this time last year, Alma,
leislaklava, and Inkerman were past, and on the back of
these glorious but still calamitous days there came that
long dreary winter where was beard from time to time o
those gallant troops wasting under an enemy more inglo-
rious but mere disastrous than Russia ever was. A year
had passed since then—a year of great events. Our army-
then stood before Sebastopol (it was now within it), and
in the prospect of a second visit from the icy hand of a
Crimean winter. He believed they did not congratulate
herneelvee too soon in saying that, in every essential
respect, the position of the army would be entirely re-
versed, and that our countrymen in tho Crimea would
spend their Christmas in comparative plenty. He did
not think, though a member of the Government, that
he claimed too much for Lord Palmer ten and Lord
Panmure when he said that the state in which the troops
now found themselves wns such as to entitle these
noble lords to the gratitude of the country. (Renewed
applause ) There were some men of talent and respect:),
hility—but constituting a very small minority—in the
country, who thought there were no reasons for ourgoing
to war, and that we might have allowed Turkey and
Russia to fight the battle out, and they have pointed,
tot without reason, to the horrors of war and to the de-
solation it carried into malty happy homes. This was all
very true ; but might not this war be the very means of
keeping the invader from our own shores ! For years no
foreign foe had planted his foot upon this land, just be-
cause the world knew we were able to protect ourselves;
but were we to throw away our means of self-protection
on mere speculation as to the pacific inclinations of the
world, we should rue the risk of horrors too dreadful to
contemplate. He believed we wore not a day too soon
in/entering upon the war, for if we had allowed Russia
to take Constantinople, to augment her fleet within the
Black Sea (of which the would then have been the un-
controlled mistress, to improve her navy as the hest im-
proved her artillery), and to strengthen her fleets
as she bed done her fortresses—and if the one should be
as unknown in this country as the other was—and if then
at some convenient time when, perhaps, our relations
with the Continent were not so agreeable as they wore
now, she had come down upon our shores, where would
me have been if we had reduced our war establishments
to the level which some pacificators some years ago
would have wished ? When he heard men speaking of
this war as of a bootless expenditure of human life, he,
on the other hand, felt that we were now fighting on
more advantageous terms to ourselves the very battle we
should have had to fight if we had waited till the Rus-
sians had landed in the Forth or Thames, And though
no statesman, no lover of his country could for a mo-
ment wish that war should continue, for it was fraught
with many evils, still he would say this, that if we
had not struck the blow when we did it would soon
have been too late. He wished no evil to Russia, for Russia
contained many valiant, many eminent, many well in-
formed and educated men ; but he believed we were new
fighting for all that was near and dear to us, for our own
liberty, and for the liberties of Europe. Therefore,
dreadful as the struggle might be, and the shorter the
less dreadful, the more we put forth our strength now
the lets we should have to do it hereafter. He rejoiced
to think that, though we had sustained many hardships,
and thoueli many hardships might be to come, the na-
tional spirit of the people had not flinched an inch, or
given way one jot. He believed the feeling of the
people was still more intensely now than at the first
that we must carry on the war with vigour and effect.
He had spoken of the responsibilities of Parliament, and
when be looked back on the past session, he was free
to say that he did not regard it with any great amount
nE complacency. His feeling was that the people of this
country had shown a ()tearer and better discernment in
some respects than their representatives. He quite agree,
that Parliament should always be jealous of Government,
and more especially when they were engaged in carrying
on a great war ; but, on the whole, it appeared to him
that Parliament had not raised this country, in the estima-
tion of Europe by the way in which it had dealt with this grat
question of the war. That was not a subject ou which he
liked to speak ; but, as he was called to speak upon it
among 1.4.;9 constituency, he thought the best way was to
sty plainly what he thought about it. This time last year
there was a very great outcry made as to the state of our
troops in the Crimea, and there was, unhappily, too great
reason for the representations given of their condition,
which first, he believed, had transpired through the chan-
nels of the press, but he had always thought that a most
unworthy and most disingenuous use was made of these
unfortunate facts. There was, no doubt, a great deal to
require amendments in the various departments, every
one knew that before the war began ; but was it possible
to imagine that we could transport such an enormous
number of men to an unknown region, without find-
ing that a great deal of the most necessary things had
been unforeseen and unprovided fort Hear, hear.)
Lord Aberdeen went out of office. Lord Aberdeen
was thus no longer the Minister under whom he
served ; but he should do great violence to his
own feelings did he not say that he believed Lord
Aberdeen to have been.as honest and straightforward a
'Minister as hail ever served his country. (Hears) He
had had in some matters a great deal of intercourse with
that noble lord, particularly in business connected with
Scotland ; and in all his dealings with him
he had found
in him nothing but the most open, straightforward, and
candid conduct ; and he (the Lord Advocate) was satis-
fied that, whatever went wrong with the administration
of the war during his Government, his only anxiety and
wish was to carry on the war with vigour and effect.ut
(Cheers.) No doubt great disasters came upon
of
sid but
what he called the ungenerous and unjust
political
these facts was this—that there was
o ‘f
the country. Its l
trading carried on in the misfortunes
was, he thought, ungenerous and
bead of affairs with the and unjust to load the men
who happened to be at the
blame of misfortunes which must, to any dispassionate
onlooker, have
red to a great extent inevitable.
For, he would
atupsteaask
how had our allies fared
If those men who would insist that it was nothing
nd not having the right
I dministration, a
but ma a thatgave rise to all those scenes
men in the right places,g
of misery, could have shown that our allies, who had the
good fortune not to be subjected to those particular
causes of maladmin nitration, had come better off, that
would have gone a far way to show that their statements
were well founded ; but he did not believe that there
was the slightest difference between the two armies in
that respect. He believed that the Crimean winter had
overtaken both unprepared, and unprepared because there
were no means of making preparation. It seemed to him
unworthy of a great nation, and not the spirit in which a
great contest should be conducted, that on the first re-
verse we were not only to lose heart, but to turn round
and accuse those who had the conduct of affairs with im-
becility, weakness, or connivance with the enemy. He
did not think the people generally went along with that
feeling, and he thought nothing could be more disastrous
to a great enterprise than that, before wo had planted
our standard on the enemy's citadel, we should fall out
as to who was to blame for this or that reverse. The
Lord Advocate then referred to the power and influence
of the press, and to the responsibility that rested on
those who wielded its power. He said he could not
help regretting to think how much individual character
had been assailed—how much the very character of the
nation itself for some time bad been lowered—by writ-
ings in the public press on the subject of this war. The
instance of Lord Raglan was sufficient in itself to justify

Teflon. Sir Colin Campbell had but .
.he subject of a disparaging article in one of
the public prints, and in a very few days the impute•
tions there made had to be unreservedly retracted„
The general now commanding in the Crimea had the
one day been the subject of disparaging remarks, an
the other the subject of an elaborate enlogium coming
from the same quarter. When he remembered all these
things, be thought this country should keep the even
tenour of its way undisturbed by these eternal flue
tuations of sentiment and opinion. They were usefu
guides to show how the wind blew, but it would neve
do if the character and reputation of our officers and
soldiers were to denend on the voice of so very fluctu-
ating, a tribunal. He read the other day that Kars had
been taken owing to the supineness of our War Minister.
Our War Minister could not, he thought, be accused of
supineness. He ' bet. at his post from day to day,
and he had borne up .g.i. the crushing anxieties of his
position with a spirit the de thought deserved well of
his country ; and it was most unjust for any writer to
make this statement, in total ignorance, as we yet were,
of the circumstances in which Kars fell, or as to whether
it could have been relieved or not, or who was the party
that could have relieved it. But so it was, the moment
that there was any chance of a little public rumour run-
ning in the direction against the War-office because of
some little disaster, up came this straw to see how the wind
blew, the chance being, however, that in a short time all
this would have to be unsaid. This was not the way to
manage a great war, to begin at the first reverse to abuse
our generals and statesmen ; neither was this the spirit
of the people, for he did not think that among the great
body of the people there was the slightest sympathy
with those fluctuating and preLature expressions of
opinion. Passing from this subject he might have ale
luded to many questions of domestic interest, were not
these all absorbed in the greater topic of the war. In
regard to education, he bad had a long battle to fight.
He would not say who had been right and who wrong
in this matter; he would only say this— that in the edu-
cation of the people, which was but a corner of the
great social subjects which were pressing on out atten•
tion, the enemy he found the most difficult to seccelnter
was indifference. If ho could only arouse his country-
men to a sense of the absolute necessity of doing some-
thing in this great work, we should soon have an educa-
tion .scheme, whether more in favour of the established
church or of the dissenters but few would care, could we
only secure to every child in the country a common
education. (Applause.)
The proceedings then terminated.

THE MEMORY OP THE BRA YE.

( From the Manchester Examiner.)
There will by this time be few men in Manchester
who csu afford a shilling at noonday, or a sixpence at
eventide' Who. wiltenaliteerilrepetT,. Mil -Oat of war at
rfit:cet;aiig. e ROO/liV:lit ' hett"Wist-seeister_Clsy, the 4ee t.
belligerent qeelities of Mr. tierge-'S;;ltee. 'it Messrs. -.-
Agnew and Son. After having read about the Crimea
for the last 18 months, and had it served up in all sorts
of ways by all sorts of writer=, from the dashing plume
of Mr. Russell to the little drummer-boy writing un-
graniniatically to his mother ; after having beheld it in
the gross en every description of map, from the exact
scale of Mr. Wyld, who for some time seems to have
been poised in the air like an intelligent roe, and sent
off slips of the peninsula, like copy for the press—to
those extemporised productions which have left it du-
bioui which was the land and which was the sea ; which
have!made a scrawl of the land and a spraw of the ocean,
and put in the corner a make-pretence scale, like an in-
fault piece of music—after all those efforts, praiseworthy
some of them, let us hope remunerative all of them, is it
not a relief to turn to pictures which no eloquent Rus-
sell can gild or distort, hut which recommend them-
selves at once as the true delineations of nature, aided
by the delicate attentions of art ? The winter of our dis-
content—and who will ever forget that last fearful win-
ter, when " England's dear boys" were all supposed is
be dechying-iiii those deathly hill sides—has now been
replaced by more genial times. Sunshine has c nue
again, and whilst it has gladdened the hearts of the heroes
themselves, it has been enlisted by Mr. Fenton and Mr.
Agnew to give the scenes of the great drama, and to
picture fur England and France seme groups of men;whose
memory shall be green when artist, and heroes, and
writers are gone, and only the great crb himself remains
shining over our graves. It is a wonderful exhibition. The
pictures, notwithstanding their unerring exactness, ere
to us, at least, far more suggestive than those which, com-
ing front the simple imagining of ordinary artists, would
seemto draw inure large:y on the conception. That " Val-
ley of the Shadow of Death," far instance, with its grim
outlines of hills, and interlying pavement oriron missiles,
what an angry, vengeful, remorseless, and yet tranquil
lecture is that ! Those cannon balls lying there in all sorts
of ugly heaps, were they all harmless, or, after hissing and
chirping with merry and bloody intent down the valley,
did they heat a victim flat, and so have lived not in vain I
Several of those dead rotundities wore to us the sem•
blanee of disappointed messengers. They seemed huddled
together, like men in di'grace as faithless servants.
()theirs looked more hopeful, as much as t i say, "Give
us attother chance, send us back home, we are h'relinge
that love not home—but give us another chance, and
we'll go with a smash. This valley is cold—oh for a
rush at stone walls." Then the dim light between the
hills 1 it looks as if the wing of death had caused the
dimness, and was brooding and flapping there still. This
valley, with its marvellous suggestiveness, seems to us
far more glohtny than that memorable Cathcart's Hill,
on which are groped the tumuli of the unfortunate brave,
with their eloquent columns and sacred symbols, solemn,
I but cheerful, in their noble repose. We think of bins
whose nettle has made a history of that hill, and who fell
amongst the brushwood of Inkerman. We rejoice that
this scene is one of the best in the collection, and that
when, in after times, the great fight of the sth of No-
vember is talked ever, Mr. Fenton will have the honour
of illuminating and vivifying the narrative. We antici-
pate the still unbosomed years, and the time when the
boy, whose bright face was turned up but yesterday to
the rowe of Crimean photographs, will have donned con-
siderable spectacles, and become the oracle of his circle.
For did he not participate in the primal grief and subse-
quent triumphs of the Crimean struggle ? Does he not
remember hearing the guns fired when Sebastopol fell ?
Can he not recall his feelings when he read in the Times
of the cool courage of General Windham, who walked
about unscathed at the Redan amidst a storm of shot 'I
His head is bent over a portefeaille of prints—and such
a nosegay of a girl is bending over both, with other
boys and girls around listening to the story of the
groat Russian war. Then will the illustrated lecture
commence ; and at the prints are turned up, papa will
become an enthusiastic Tacitue. And will the audience
be simply listeners ? Will that nosegay of a girl fail to
observe what a dear good old man Lord Raglan looks ?
and wont she think how she should like to have worked
him a pair of slippers, which is the young lady's tribute
to aged worth ? Is it quite impossible that an inquisitive
urchin may ask whether Marshal Pelissier was in the
habit of biting anybody, or why he Glowed his barber
to mitt his hair so short ? Can we quite ensure ourselves
that the same urchin will not confound the Zeuaves
with warlike females, until his ideas be properly sup-
pressed and classified by Tacitue I We may conceive of
groups of this sort many a Christmas hence, and we
think in Exchange-street at present we could pick out
the preei.e pictures which will form the centre of those
groups. For these are things which risen feel inclined_
to have for themselves, that they may be looked at often,
and talked about frequently. It was formerly difficult te
enter a licensed victriller's establishment without being
"entreated" to a representation of the battle of Water-
loo, a representation which had arisen from the teeming
brain of some spirited artist, to whom, given guns,
ground, aul cautions, and a dead private in the fore-
ground, and the Duke on horseback, apparently sitting
for a statue, forthwith sprung up Waterloo-ea fine
work
of imagination truly, but as much like Waterloo, as
Peterloo, or hullabaloo, or any other of that class of
events. It will be a delightful reform in the interior.ii ofof
village inns to find Mr. Fenton usurping the funcbtie
lauds
imaginative artists, and giving to all who travelo
od re
sbi yrnewaterd.
Tail
etrrou ea
ro s
o ipresentmentfaces
o inf theho persons or
or ilaa
tcei places
collection
not
would do a man good to look at,
.eoven
Wew haveyassociated with deeds of hifohtehmepgrriosup
of the " Council
men-
tioned Lord Raglan,
who, in
old squire in the society of
of War," looks
ill
e.delights to honour. Let everyone
British chief. We stopped for some moments
fnoorteeigwn'eelrlstlwiehrortrait of Gen. Estcourt, as that of a well
descended
before Gen. Sir De Lacy Evans, who looks as if he meant
mischief, and if mischief were to be done it must be
I'ne, nd he would see that it was done well. Close by
(Sir Richard England, with a martial moustache and
handsome face, confronts the visitor, and says, physiog-
nomically, "Am I the man the Times would make me
out, or do you think I shall white-feather it in the hour
of danger ?" Then there are the groups of minor cele-
brities, and yet scarcely minor, for some of the colonels,
with their attendant boys, have names already high in
the roll of fame—some of them too already on that black
list which terminates all earthly endeavour. As to the
pith and manliness of Englishmen being on the wane,
look at them, gentlemen, as they are grouped before
you, and tell the maligning theorist who writes such
stuff that lie is—well, then, a theorist. Why there are
shoulder and limb and muscle, all strong and active, and
piloted by a will-as strong and muscular, which leaves
doubt to the newspapers, and has lc) doubt before the
enemy. What man may dare, they will dare—they eat
and drink round that jovial camp table, aud to-morrow
they die. To-morrow, in that group, one drinking born
the less will be held up for Queen and country, and the
girl he left behind him. A. few months hence, in that
pretty village church, in that dear old English shire, a
little tablet will appear—and so requieB"4/

Second-class Staff-Surgeon Daniel J. Doherty, on
being relieved from duty, will proceed to Portsmouth to
embark on board the Thames on IVednesday, in medical
charge of detachments.
THE COAL TEADE.—SHIELDS, Thursday Afternoon.
—A. large fleet of light colliers, several hundred sail,
during
have arrived in the northern coal ports the past
two days. Many of them have been five and six weeks
on their
passage down, and the arrival in port of so large
a number of seamen will materially add to the comfort
of many a home during Christmas time. In consequence
of the heavy sea breaking on the coast several disaster,
have octuirred to the vessels attempting to run for the
harbour. Five vessels, two brigs, and three schooners,
are ashore at the mouth of the Tyne. The crews were
rescued without say great difficulty, and at Sunderland
the Lovely Nelly, of Lyme, the Exchange Moor), of Yar-
mouth, the brig Edward and Sarah, from London, the
brig Ford, of London, the brig Bolt, from London—all
drove northward of the harbour and came ashore. It is
reported that four lives have been lost, Several light
vessels, seeing the heavy sea on the coas t and the crowd-
ing in of the fleet, ran to the north, whe re they will seek
shelter in some of the bays. A very heavy gale has
been experienced to the southward of th e Humber, and
several vessels have been telegraphed a.* ashore.

* "On the Use of .Artillery In the Field with a view to
Certain Improvements in the system of Modern Tactics.
Translated from the Preach of the Russian Major-General
N. Okonneff." By Captain W. H. Weaver and Liont.
E. M. Jones, H.M. 86th Regiment. 12ru0., pp. 52. Lou-
don ; W. Clowee a t Sons. 1855.