The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-20 00:00:00

We have now been for many weeks engaged in
the thankless and miserable task of communicating
a "lie aublic the melancholy and disgraceful in- _
tt.
cidents which accompany the decline and decay of -.1-*Zz.-,- .
our great expedition to the Crimea. The shadow: t''''''t-• r
that has been cast over our prospects has not beezi— , ieie
.V*..--e-e-
that of a passing cloud intercepting one burst of i Nte,:t.
sunshine, and shortly to be followed tby another,
but rather that of a gradually deepening twilight,
settling steadily down into night and darkness.
The public may be assured that what we have
communicated to them has been fortified by an
amount and concurrence of testimony such as to
leave no doubt whatever as to its truth. When
we have been accused of exaggerating the hard-
ships and distresses of our troops we have disre-
garded the accusation, because we have been too
well aware that we did not do full justice either to
the impressions of our own correspondents, or to
the convictions produced on our own mind
by such a mass of concurrent and irresistible
testimony. We have hoped to the last that
the magnitude of the evil would have roused,
however late, our Government to exertions of
corresponding magnitude ; but nothing effectua
is done. Affairs are left in the same incompe-
tent hands tinder which they have gone so rapidly
and uninterruptedly to ruin, and while the tremen-
dous crisis at which we aro arrived calls for speedy,
vigorous, and decisive action, the Cabinet is engaged
in endless discussions, which lead to no result, and
waste day by day the short remnant.of time which
yet divides us from the coming catastrophe. A
torpor and lethargy seems to have fallen on the
spirit of our rulers ; they go on mechanically send-
ing out men and stores to the fatal harbour of
Balakla.va, without seeming to advert to the fact
that men and stores under the present circum-
stances
of the British army are only sent, one to
perish, the other to be wasted. Things therefore
have arrived at a point at which any further re-
serve would bo ceiminal. If the partial glimpses
of truth which they have obtained have not been
enough to spur the nation and those who are at
the head of its councils to decisive action we must
see if a further and fuller disclosure may prove a
more effectual stimulus. . .
We have no doubt, then, frofti the „information
which we receive - from varidaik, most trust-
worthy quarter., not mereikthat the state of things
in the Crimea is very bad, which the most incre-
dulous now must be ready to admit, but that the
British army is menacod with a disaster .to which
there can be found fe w parallels in the dreary
annals of war. Without adverting for the moment
to the loss which we m ay incur by the sword of an
active and numerous e nervy--merely considering
our prospects with reference to the position we
occupy, the resources we possess, the climate with
which we have to contend,. and the sanitary condi-
tion of our troops—we aro forced to the terrible,
but irresistible conclusion, that in a very few weeks,
and even before offensive operations can be re-
ne wed, the remnant of our g,Allant and victorious
army will have been so weakenad and worn out as
to be unavailable for any effectave purpose. Our
reinforcements have nearly all been brought up,
and stores, we believe, are accumulated at Balallava
enough to feed, clothe, and shelter a larger force
than we now possess ; but there is no prospect that
for many weeks the calms which cut off the army
from its stores and its Atelier, and wear it out by
incessant fatigue and lyatching, will lose their
power. The railroad mu -it be some time in con-
structing, and we shall show only too clearly that
any numerical increase of our forces, and conse-
quent alleviation of their l'abour, is not to be
thought of for a moment.
Let us, then, calmly and dispassionately, casting
aside all self-delusion, and risiftg superior to the
folly which makes men think they cau conquer or
exercise difficulties and dangers by avoiding
plain language, examine the actual state and pro-
spects of our Crimean army. We believe, from
the best information we are able to get, ths.t our
army at the beginning of this month could only
muster 14,000 bayonets, that the artillery
and engineers have been reduced in a similar
degree, and that the cavalry no longer exists as a
force, the whole of the surviving horses having
been taken up for the carriage of previsions. The
deaths cannot be estimated at less than sixty a-day,
and those disabled by fatigue and sickness are said
to be no fewer than a thousand a week. Will this
fearful ratio of sickness to health remain constant
—will it diminish, or will it increase 7 On the
answer which fact and experience—not vain hopes
and self delusions—shall give to this, question de-
pends the existence or destruction of the English
army. It would be mere trifling to suppose that
any answer but one can be given to this question.
The ratio of sickness will not diminish—will not
remain constant. It will—it must—fearfully and
rapidly increase. We have said we have 14,000
bayonets, and corresponding numbers of other ser-
vices. But in what state. are these survivors ? The ,
diseases of the sick inform us only too plainly that
they are not men whose health has been suddenly
overpowered by acute disease, but are suffering
under the effects of- chronic) maladies brought on
by protracted exhaustion and exposure, the seeds
of which they must long have carried about
with them while they were yet numbered among
the healthy and effective part of the army. This,
we have every reason to fear, is the case of the
survivors. Weary, Wasted, famished, and- ex-
posed, they still drag themselves up to the trenches
and back again to their miserable lairs ; but it
would be as absurd to count on them as men in
health as to call a ship with 5 feet of water in £he
hold seaworthy. It is computed that of these
14,000 men there are hardly 2,000 in good health
—in fact, it was at the beginning of this month an
dm.obnatihtattoh
de, Carnidmmeainndwsinthteurs hdaedj
ecntoedt
,sevrtiitnh
army of invalids, and at the beginning of this
.outWithscanty food, insufficient clothing, with frames thus
ade-
quate shelter from ordinary weather, and without
the leisure or possibility to construct it, the army
has to undergo cold at least as severe as that which
we now experience. The same duties are to be
discharged by continually decreasing numbers, and
the labour will grow constantly greater in propor-
tion as fewer hands are left to perform it. The
most sanguine do not now speak of an attack till
the end of this month, and at the end of this
month hog amany of the 53,000 men who have left
these shores will survive to make that attack ? We
are about to lose, unless some extraordinary stroke
of fortune intervenes, our one, our only, army, the
object of so much pride, of so much' deep affection,
of so much tender solioitude, the terror of our
enemies in the field, and the defence and bulwark
of our liberties and independence. Is the nation
prepared for the disaster ? Is it prepared to
say, " Our brave men have perished, not
because we sent them on an enterprise which
was above their strength, not because we
have refused to grant them anything that was ne-
cessary for their support, nor because our allies
have failed us in any point, but because we have
chosen to make our army one vast job—the play-
thing of our aristocracy—a mart in which promo-
tion, which should be the reward of merit, is bought
and sold for money_ because we have been content
to trust to the valour of our private soldiers, and
neglected to train up officers possessing any of the
attributes which fit men for coinmand, except the
universal quail 4 of personal courage ?" Are we
prepared to say that what the sword of the enemy
could not accomplish the incompetency of the Heads
of our Departments and our Generals has achieved I
Will it console us to reflect that we have lost our
army, have compromised our influence and reputa-
tion among foreign nations, but have not tarnished
the honour nor irritated the sensibility of a single
noble family, or done anything to weaken existing
party connexions by removing incompetent men
from positions they are proved to be unworty to
fill, or by providing our troops with leaders of such
intelligence and experience as might have pre-
served them from destruction, in defiance of all the
traditions of Downing-street and the Horse Guards?,
If we are not prepared to accept such a consolation
for such a disaster, we ought even now to demand
that merit should obtain those positions which have
been lavished on interest and connexion, and that
if we have passed the period of remedy we do not
even yet deem it too-late for repentance.—Times.

MAILS FOR BUSICOS AIRES AND THE RIVER PLATY.—•
A letter bag wars sent by the Rosario for Buenos
Ayres and Monte Video, from the agent's office (Messrs'
H. C. Smith and Co.), Q, New Quay, at 10 o'clock 1,11116
forenoon (Saturday). The next opportunity will be by
the Portuguese steamer Donna Maria 11., from Lisbon,
to catch which letters, must be posted in Liverpool on
the evening of the 26th inst.—Liverpool Chroticli.
CANADA.—The mercantile advices from Canada con-
tinue to be looked for with much anxiety owing to
the reaction from hale recent inflation in that colony,
and the injurious effects of the usury l,
which
have caused much. of the available capital of the
country to be attracted to the United State. at the
time wken its retention was most needed. The letters
received yesterday state that many failures continued
to occur, and that the affairs of several firms which
had been placed ender committees of inspection pre.
Rented miserable Imsults. This condition of things
is
attributed ~principally to the indiscriminate credits
granted to Canadians by English houses direct consign-
ments having beer, made to persons who we
tire formerly
obliged to buy t hrough the regular imporog houses,
by whom they c ould be watched and kept within bounds.
In this way, i t is observed, those who were moderately
good custom( Jrs to the importer in the province have be.
come very b: la ones to the English shipper. "Respon.
Bible middle 7,nen," it is added, " are especially essential
in the prese• at state of Canadian law, since its whole
tendency i' 3 to protect (screen, perhaps, were the better
A word) tla' e debtor against the creditor."