The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-07 00:00:00

been content to balance between the several parties
into which it has been divided. But those parties have
" lapsed into a condition which, has lost them much of
the confidence of the people." The people of England
are rapidly becoming " Know-Nothings," too. They are
beginning to confine their attention to the one great
question—how to get adequately performed the great
work of Government. It is not that they are prepared
to'back anonymous agitators in any crusade against the
aristocracy as an institution. They have no desire to
make a revolution in order to thrust a few ambitious
and pretentious men into high positions. They will not,
like the Chinese peasant in- Lamb's tale, burn their
house in order to roast their pig. No ; they want men.
If they can get them, they will adopt them instantly.
Their being aristocrats would be rather in their favour
than otherwise. But men they will have, and that
speedily. They thought that they bad found what they
wanted in Lord Palmerston. Their disappointment' is
rapidly deepening into indignation ; and hence the dan-
ger lest they should confound the man with the system,
and, in angrily di§plOing the one, should sweep 'away
the other.
In France they have somewhat anticipated us and the
Americans in point.a time. The Emperor Napoleon the
Third is only a French " Know-nothing.'"' Think you
that he is so admired and respected because he is a Bo-
naparte Not at all. Bonapartism helped tq raise him
to eminence, because the people were tardily repentant
and grateful to their dead hero. But Bonapartism,; in a
dynastic sense, has not made him what he now is--the
Ruler 'of Franco, not in right of his descent, by rea-
son of his deeds. It is true that he ..represents Bona-
- parttneasids.unele-wisized-toltavid'elt-1-lArCia4bas
put on it a stamp-of his own. Bonapartism, as he inter-
prets it, " knows nothing" but the grandeur and prospe-
rity of the nation, the healthy administration of public
affairs, and the vigorous organisation and, supervision of
the civil and military services. Napoleon the Third
" knows nothing" of parties, dynastic or political. He
does not legislate for classes, and is magnanimously ab-
stinent from creating a new titled aristocracy. He is a
leveller, but it is to raise rather than to pull down.
It is because he has substituted a strong, healthy,
and vigorous system of government for the anarchi-
cal state cf parties preceding it—a state of parties
paralleled by that in England and America at the pre-
sent time—and has created a practical equality for the
benefit of all classes, that he is now growing to be re-
garded as the Man of his Time, and is rapidly becoming
the idol of his countrymen.
If our governing classes do not mind what they are
about, the English people will become " Know-No-
things ;" and that not merely in the sense to which we
have above referred. A quarter of a century has elapsed
since they thoroughly aroused themselves to a considera-
tion of their affairs. We deeply regret to express our
conviction that there are ready the elements of a National
Movement, very different from those Organised Shams
which have been got up since by religious or commercial
demagogues—a real upheaving of the national heart and
will—a something that will spring, not from passion or
interest, but from deep-rooted conviction. If this begins
—and it is never wise to go to sleep over a volcano—
where will it stop ? There are not wanting profligate
publicists, demagogues, anonymous or avowed, to turn
it to account. If a notion should sink into the na-
tional mind, that those who have hitherto been entrusted
with the work of Government have misinterpreted or
neglected their mission, might it not come to pass that
the English people, in their turn, would "know
nothing" of parties or privileges, of tradition or cus-
tom, and would rudely take up the neglected task ?
It is not impossible that a spirit of fairness might lead
to one cf those parties being permitted one more trial.
There is something in the present attitude of the Tories
which rather propitiates public feeling than otherwise.
But would they be equal to the work ? II they should
prove so, no party feeling would interfere with their un-
bounded popularity.
Lord Palmerston stands in the way. He has disap-
pointed every one. Samson dozes, or coquets with the
political charmers who will prove his ruin. Neither at
home nor abroad is the Ministry respected. We are stag-
nant as regards domestic legislation, yet precious time is
being wasted in negotiations which the public begin to
regard as delusive. The Do-Nothings may be succeeded
by the Know-Nothings ; and, bad as matters are at pre-
sent, England night find that such a change was for the
worse.

THE INQUIRY INTO THE STOWING OF
CARGOES ON BOARD TRANSPORTS.
( From the Times of this day.)
There lies before us the result of a commission of in-
quiry. It is such a commission as we were to have had
a dozen of, and have now, we believe several for inquir-
ing into the several services, instead of the Committee
of mitthteise
now sitting "upstairs." The particular matte
inquiry is the selection and the stowing of the cargoes of
the Manilla, the Prince, and some other transports ; for,
as it appears, one cannot go into the cargo of one ship
without finding oneself drawn into the cargo of another.
There is nothing like letting people tell their own tale,
and we will endeavour to let the Government tell
its own tale of the hapless Prince. Mr. Reade, acting
as
Apothecary-in-Chief at Scutari, having . been
requested to state officially " why the medicines,
materials, &c., embarked in the Prince were not
landed on the arrival of that vessel," wrote on Novem-
ber 7, two days after the said arrival, that, " on apply-
ing to the captain of the Prince to have the medical
stores immediately lauded, he replied that it was per-
fectly impossible to do so, as when these stores were em-
barked they were put onboard in such a way that they
were in different parts of the vessel, and that shot, shell,
and gunpowder were over them, which must be landed
for the fleet, and his orders were positive from the ad-
miral to proceed immediately to the fleet on landing the
specie which he had on board." Such was the origin
of a rumour which derived a melancholy interest from
the fact that the stores which the captain could not land
at Scutari he was not permitted to take into the harbour
at Balaklava, and shortly after was wrecked with them
on the outside, when all went to the bottom. The re-
sult was that the sick and wounded of Alma, Balaklava,
and Inkerman—the last battle fought on the very day
the Prince arrived at Scutari suffered the want
of those stores, and no doubt many died in conse-
quence. The expression that the shot, shell, and
powder were " over" the medical stores put all th e
departments on their defence, and the papers before ,
us contain the process of expurgation. No doubt',
this is one of the instances_ to which Sir Charles
Wood alludes when he says that no specific charge
had been made which had not been wholly disproved.
The rather numerous officials employed in the lading of
the Prince assert more or less confidently—one or two
as a matter of fact within their knowledge, others as an
undoubted inference from the routine, or from the suc-
cessive places of lading—that the medical stores were
not, or could not possibly be, placed at the very bottom
of the Prince's hold. In fact, Captain Goodall himself
ascribed the rolling of the Prince to the shot-at the bot-
tom of the hold ; and, as there could not be two things
at the bottom, the medical stores were not there.
But what if the stores were not at the very bottom of
the Prince ? The charge was rather a serious one, but
it has only been disproved to burst like a 13-inch s hell
and scatter destruction on everybody concerned in the
Prince, for never did we read such a mass of confusion,
carelessness, stupidity, and blundering as comes out in
the evidence and letters before us. The captain, it will
be remembered, was retained by the Admiralty in
command of the ship, notwithstanding a serious corn•
plaint of his conduct in the Baltic, and a distinct warn-
ing that he would bring the ship to disaster. Well,
peace to his manes ; he is now given up with the utmost
alacrity. The Woolwich people had to compel him to
turn out more than a hundred tons of stores, rum, wine,
&c., which they found he had introduced into the hold
for the use of his company's transports or on private
speculation. They don't tell us how, and where, and
when this operation took place, or how they know the
captain did not smuggle his private stores back into the
ship before he got out of the river. The captain, baffled
in his private ventures, appears, on the evidence, to
have almost entirely given up all concern about the load-
ing of his ship ; he just called now and then, not more
than an hour each day, while she lay in the river. His
officers, with a single exception, were equally indifferent.
The crew kept out of the way, and, even when some of
them were got to the ship, would do nothing. One poor
middy was at his post, and we trust is now rewarded
for his solitary faithfulness with something better than
Admiralty promises. It is believed, with good reason,
that the captain had not the least idea where the dif-
ferent parts of the cargo were stowed ; the Admiralty
agent, the first officer, and, as it appears to us, some
other officer of the ship, left her before the ship was out
of the river. It is only assumed, rather doubtingly,
that there must have been a cargo-book, though we
are not told who made one, or could have made one.
It was the business of the "chief officer"—that is,
the mate —to make one, and the bills of lading were
given to him ; but, as he was asleep or reading a book
all the time the cargo was shipped, and was removed be-
fore the Prince left the river, we feel very sure there was
no cargo-book. In the document before us there are
numerous references to certain diagrams of the ship
and its cargo, but, as the diagrams, like the stores
themselves, have not come to hand, we are left to our
imagination on this point. The surviving midshipman
of the Prince can say nothing from his own knowledge,
but, from subsequent information, he has every reason
to believe that the medical stores were stored in the
upper part of the forehold, and were readily accessible
"by the removal of a number of sma'l painted bags
from the hatchway." Another witness states that the
gradual consumption of the ship's provisions would
bring them to light ; another admits that a great quan-
tity of warm clothing, which the lighters were bringing
to the ship's sides to the last moment, would probably
lie upon them. Under all circumstances, considering
the absence of anybody on board really cognisant of the
cargo—the uncertainty about any book of the cargo—
the fact that the cargo had been stowed just a; the
lighters arrived at the ship, and they had arrived hap-
hazard—the fact of a great deal of stuffing and pack-
ing at the last moment, we are not surprised to see va-
rious estimates by equally competent authorities as to
the time it might take the captain to extricate the me-
dical stores—one witness allowing two hours, another
eight. 'We are not giving a tithe of what is stated to
the prejudice of the captain, whom, at the first report
of his disaster,.Government were only too anxious to de-