The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-10 00:00:00

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LONDON, 'TUESDAY EVENING, APRIL 10, 1855.

SPIRIT OF THE. PUBLIC JOURNALS.

tnrally shared the surprise of the house at seeing
the three Right lion. ex-Ministers thus come down
among, them witli such unostentatious complacency;
but Mr. Bright,' being the boldest, perhaps, of the
three, extended his hand to one of the new corners
—we think Mr.' Sidney Herbert—and a general
laugh acknowledged the friendly greeting. ft was
doubtless at this moment that our contemporary
became inspired ! An instant afterwards, how-
. eVer,-Mr. Bright-LLwe doubt not in perfect uncon-
sciousness—deliberately wiped with his handker-
chief the hand which hid thus been grasped,
whereupon another titter ran round the house, of
the meaning of which the gentlemen concerned ap-
peared perfectly unconscious. This piece orunin-
tentional pantomime must have at once de-.
stroyed the vision of a Coalition, which had just
been conjured up in our contemporary's brain, or
we have no doubt that the revelation which he now
has made would have appeared in his columns on
I the following morning.
We regret to have to add, that something which
has appeared in this journal has led to a revival of
the first impression, and to its having been pro-
duced as a veritable piece of political information.
While affecting to doubt the truth of his own story,
our contemporary says :—" There is one circum-
stance which gives a colour to this report. There
is a daily journal which has devoted itself for the
last six or seven years to the advocacy of the claims
of the Peelites. This journal has undervalued
Lord John Russell, and bitterly assailed Mr. Dis-
raeli • but Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Sidney Herbert,
the Duke of Newcastle, and Lord Aberdeen have
been constantly upheld as mirrors of English states-
manship. Common rumour has often ascribed this
loyal attachment to the smallest party in the House
of Commons to a peCuliarly close connection—that
of proprietorshipl but of- As vrG know- nothing,
and therefore shall assert nothing.; nor does it
materially affect the. state of the .case.
" Now this journal, the Morning Chronicle,
which has lived for the last seven years with no
other apparent object than that of fighting' the
battles of the Peelites—this journal has within the
last few days commenced a series of vehement and
spleenful attacks upon Lord Palmerston. During
the first three weeks of his Government, after Mr.
Gladstone had left his Cabinet, the Peelite organ
was hopeful and courteous towards the Ministry.
But, on a sudden, and without assigning any
reason, it suddenly became a bitter opponent. That
bitter opposition has continued during the whole
of the last ten days ; and its commencement bears
date from the first circulation of the report that
Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone had come to
terms."

''ago, a novelty, and a dangerous novelty, in Europe.
Till nearly the middle of the last century even the
trade of the Russian merchants of the south was
carried on in Turkish vessels, and the waters of
the Euxino formed an undoubted portion of the
Ottoman empire. The conquests of Catherine
annexed the Crimea and a large extent of the
coast to the Russian empire ; but the Russian
fleets which fought the battles of Tchesme and
Navarino had both entered the Mediterranean by
the Strait of Gibraltar, and we believe that down
to the present 'hour no 'Russian squadron has ever
sailed through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles.
The Blacic Sea fleet has been created exclusively
for the purpose of menacing and attacking Turkey.
Its sole achievement in history is the massacre of
Sinope, and, far from attempting to offer any naval
resistance to the flags of England and France, the
next purpose to which it was devoted was to block
up the port of Sebastopol. In requiring from
Russia the limitation of this fleet we only require of
her the surrender of a weapon she has not long pos-
sessed, which she has never used for the purposes
of legitimate warfare, and which she'herself thought
it prudent to sink at the first appearance of danger:
It will not be seriously contended that Russia re- ,
quires a fleet of line-of-battle ships to protect her
from the maritime power of the Turks ; but if cir-
cumstances lead to the entry into the Black Sea of
toe fleets of the great maritime States, the experi-
ence of this war has already demonstrated that not
a Russian pennant can keep afloat. Russia is, in
fact, safer without a fleet in the Black Sea, provided
she has the certainty that English and French
squadrons ►ill not pass the Straits, than she can
be with a fleet which is utterly unable to cope with
either of those Powers. If, on the contrary, the
Straits were thrown open to all the naval Powers,
she acquires a reasonable pretext for maintaining
the largest fleet she can form, since she may have
to resist their united force.

THE MINISTRY AND 'THE CONFERENCE.
(From thelfor2ziu Herald of this dciy. )
" The right men in the right places " is the cry
which now rings from one end bf England to the
other—and certainly • Lord: Palmerston has given
many au instance of how very little he regards the
voice of the sovereign people, by the mode in which
he has filled up the situations in his Government.'
We need hardly mention in illustration the gouty
lord, now at the crisis of affairs, ten days absent
from his duty at the War-office ; or tie fact of the
ptesidency of the Adniiralty being handed over to
that heaven-born Chaneellor of the Exchequer,.
who has proved the apophthegm, "non quovis
ligno fit," to be very extensive indeed in its appli-
cation, for here we have a Wood out' of which you
can make absolutely nothing, being so dense that
we doubt if it would' even burn 'as a lute log.
Our intelligence from Paris of the 6th shows that
England has not yet fathomed the power of the
Premier. in making inappropriate appointments.
The cool self-complacency of Lord John Russell
was well known since the day that Sydney Smith
declared.him to be capable of attempting to build
.St. Paul's, perform the operation for the stone,
or command the Channel fleet, without ever at-
tempting to attain a vestige of knowledge in the
sciences of architecture, anatomy, or navigation.
But we doubt if even the facetious canon in question
would have seriously given him credit for the as-.
surance necessary to undertake the conduct of the
most complicated and important negotiation which
.has occupied the attention of the world since the
Congress of Vienna, and in competition with the
most astute and experienced diplomatists in Eu-
rope without as much knowledge of the French
langilogeitsl would qualify him for the-post of nur-
sery governess to the little darlings he has taken to
Vienna to solace the hours which he can abstract
from his multifarious duties for the enjoyment of
domestic felicity.
If it were necessary to Lord Palmerston's de-
signs that his colleague and rival should be removed
from England for a time, and, what perhaps the
wily Premier con,:ideresl of more importance, be
exposed and made ridiculous in the eyes of Europe
by the exhibition of gross incompetence and incapa-
city in the execution of the duties he had under-
taken, Lord John ought to have been too astute to
fall into so obvious a trap. Nothing, indeed, but
the overweening self-estimate of himseif, which
seems to constitute what logicians call the " essen-
tial difference" of such minute specimens of hu-
manity, could so have blinded him—or, if he did
see the pit-fall, nothing else could have prevented
him from taking some means to obviate the diffi-
culty. Surely the great plenipotentiary might have
takeia " six easy lessons," perused " French with-
out a master," or even taken a few private lessons
.from the afore alluded-to nursery governess. No
such thing ; Johnny was too proud ; and now we
have the hurried journey of M. Drouyn de Lhuys
explained by the fact that the representative of
England could not speak French sufficiently well
to prevent his committing the most egregious
blunders and making the most dangerous conces-
sions. Every one knows that diplomacy is a science
of words, and that the turn of a negotiation may be
made to depend upon the misplacing of a comma or
an accent • and here we have our destiny as a na-
tion depending upon the fact that my Lord John
Russell cannot understand French when he hears
ft, or make himself comprehensible when he at-
tempts to speak it.
Now, the sending of this ignorant and presuming
person was by no means a necessity, for Lord
Clarendon as a linguist and a statesman is quite
sufficiently double-tongued to maintain a decent
reputation amongst even the batch of ruse tricksters
and word-spinners now assembled at Vienna; while,
if a precedent were wanting, every one knows that
Lord Castlereagh was both Foreign Minister of
England and her representative at Vienna during
the great congress. .
" Nil habit infelix paupertas, duties in se
Quam quod ridicules homines facit."
So says the mighty satirist Juvenal ; and cer-
tainly if we substitute incapacity and feebleness for
poverty, the sentiment may well be applied to Eng-
land at present, in the position of measureless con-
tempt to which she has been Teduced by the utter
incapacity and treasonable machinations of the
Aberdeen Coalition, and its ghastly revenant, the
Palmerston abortion.
In what light must England now appear in the
eyes of Europe, with a compromised and immove-
able army at Sebastopol, a dissolved constitutional
force at home, and an imbecile, ignorant, and fa-
tuous representative at Vienna ?
Lord Palmerston reckons without his host if he
fancies that the People of England will either for-
got or forgive these things ; the " Palmerston de-
lusion" is fast coming to an end ; he will find that
both his connivance under the Coalition, and his
direct mal-administration as Premier, will be re-
membered when the day of reckoning comes, and
not even his newly-born sympathy with the inde-
pendent kingdom 'of Poland, whose national exist-
ence he twice sacrificed, will save him from the just
wrath which his delinquencies have excited. To
this question we must return. More serious than
all is the fact announced in our private letters, that
the public feeling in Paris is highly excited, nay,
exasperated, at the prospects of a dishonourable
peace ; and should such take place, we, for the
hundredth time,•warn our readers that " France
will not take her share in the disgrace—that the
whole onus will be thrown upon England, and the
designs of Russia advanced a century towards
their completion by the virtual dissolution of the
great Western alliance. This terrible, but inevit-
able result will, without doubt, be a debt due to
the nation by Lord Palmerston and his speechless
Vienna plenipotentiary.

It may, however, be doubted whether the Rus•
sian Plenipotentiaries will be instructed to treat at
all on this point, or, if so instructed, whether they
will have sufficient powers to settle it. In tran-
sactions of this nature, which are generally dis-
tasteful to one party in exactly the same proportion
as they may be advantageous and satisfactory to
the other, it must be borne in mind that we have,
after all, nothing more sacred or binding to depend
upon than the articles of the treaty itself. Those
articles may be broken, and war may again ensue ;
but war is the only positive sanction of treaties,
beyond the mere moral obligation of good faith,
and it is not easy to bindUver a great empire either
to fulfil its obligations or to keep the peace. We.
may make it the interest of our adversary to avoid
a renewal of this contest ; we may render fresh
breaches of these covenants a violation of the pub-
lic law of Europe, which it may be dangerous and
inconvenient to commit ; but we must at last rely
on the faith of an engagement, unless we are pre-
pared permanently to watch over the entire fulfil-
ment of that engagement by naval and military
means, which may be as burdensome to the country
as war itself. The armies of occupation left in France
by the allied Powers for some years after 1815, and
the fortresses erected on the Belgian frontier,
were guarantees of this last-mentioned character ;
but Europe was then in a condition absolutely to
dictate terms to its antagonist, which we are not at
present able to do to Russia ; and, after all, it may
be doubted whether these supposed securities were
worth the expense and irritation they- caused.
With sincerity, a peace concluded on moderate
terms may be a safe and lasting one ; without sin-
cerity, all the conditions and covenants that diplo-
macy can frame will not bind a powerful Sovereign.
If the spirit of concord and of honest dealing has
once more returned to our adversaries, and if the
reverses and trials of the past year have been felt
by Russia au they deserve to be, there is nothing in
the intentions or demands of the allied Powers to
prevent the termination of this contest ; but, unless
the policy of the Russian empire has undergone a
change as well as a check, peace would only suspend
a struggle which must ere long be renewed under
circumstances less favourable to the general interests
of Europe.

Our contemporary is prudent in not asserting
that which he does not lino v : he would have been
more delicate had he made no allusion whatever
to a subject wholly beyond his province, and of
but little interest to the public. This is not all,
however. It. appears th.t we are "artful tacti-
cians," who " adopt a line of argument in
order to prove that Lord Palmerston is destroying
the old system of Government in England, and
making some kind of a revolution inevitable." We
have a tolerably clear recollection that something of
the kind has of late appeared in the not very revo-
lutionary columns of our contemporary, 1-ut, until
he told us.of it, we certainly were not aware that
we were doing the political work of a new coalition !
All such speculations spring from a false view of
the true mission of journalism. -Unless a newspaper
be independent,' it is worthless as a public guide.
A journal set up, or maintained, to further the
views of particular statesmen, loses general influ-
ence in proportion to this its particular devotion.
A public journal should have but one object—the
public good. It should deal with public men ac-
cording to their merits—in other words, according
to the extent to which they devote themselves to
advancing the interests of the public. Tory jour-
nals often praise Tory statesmen—do we therefore
jump to the conclusion that their praise is not
voluntary and independent ? If in this journal the
abilities or the measures of different Ministers of
State have been noticed with approval, it was be-
cause its conductors believed that those statesmen
were worthy of such support. In like man-
ner, when Lord Palmerston was called, almost
by acclamation, to take the helm, full credit was
given to him in advance for a resolve to perform
the work demanded by the nation. He received
all the assistance from this journal to which he was
entitled from his past career. If we now share in
a feeling of universal disappointment, that Lord
Palmerston should so have fallen short of the ex-
pectations formed on his advent to power, we give
expression to our feelings without any secret pur-
poses whatsoever, and least of all in order to !orm
or to further an " Oxford-Manchester coalition."
As to the feasibility of such an arrangement, we
are disposed to concur thus far with the Ministerial
evening organ—that there would be no little diffi-
culty in amalgamating natures so opposite as those
of Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Fright. Beyond this
our Mission does not lead us. It will be time
enough to deal with such a
te Coalition ' when it is
attempted ; and, in the meantime—although every
hour may bring conclusive news from Vienna-_we
would recommend the public to be on their guard,
as the quarter from which the evil
may COlllO may
not be exactly that whence it is apprehended.

THE VIENNA CONFERENCE.
(From the Times of this dal.)
The point at which the Vienna Confer ences are
now stationary, and on which a reference for fur-
ther instructions has been made to St. Petersburg
and to the Cabinets of Western Europe, is known
to be that third condition of the proposed terms of
peace which is to limit the preponderance of Russia
in the Black Sea. A variety of statements have
schemesth hale
is difficulty,been
dbeeevisenn fore, thea purposeavari
but the reports of the proceedings of the Confer-
ence published by the foreign press are so contra-
dictorycaution only
e variety
Yf
solving of
and inaccurate that we can _
our readers against placing any reliance whatever
on intelligence of this nature. Even with refer-
ence to the visit of M. Drouyn de Lhuys to this
country, on his way to Vienna, the rumours cur-
rent in Paris are totally unfounded. The fact is,
that the French Minister, on his arrival here, ap-
peared
disposed to fake a somewhat lower tone
than the leading members of the British Cabinet
conceive to be essential to the interests and the I
dignity of the Western Powers ; but before he left
London M. Drouyn de Lhuys had expressed his
entire concurrence in the policy which Lord Pal-
merstou and Lord Clarendon have uniformly pur
sued, and the Allied Governments are perfectly
agreed as to the terms on which alone the negotia-
tion can be carried on. The precise nature and
extent of these terms is, however, still the secret
of the Plenipotentiaries themselves, and we can
only relate the different versions that have been
assigned to them.
One of these versions, and we think the nearest
to the truth, is a stipulation that Russia shall bind
herself by treaty not to maintain more than a
certain prescribed naval force in the Black Sea.
Another is, that Turkey and the Western Powers
shall create on the shores of Asia Minor a naval
establishment in the Black Sea to counterbalance
the ships and forts of Sebastopol ; but this project
can scarcely have been seriously entertained, as it
would impoSe on us a permanent and onerous obli-
gation, and rather augment than remove the causes
of future hostilities. The French Government had
at one time adopted A plan for what they termed
the " neutralisation of the Black Sea," by which all
the States having dominion over any part of its
coasts should agree to the suppression of their for-
tifications and naval establishments ; but this pro-
posal would have the effect of altogether weakening
and disarming Turkey, whose existence depends on
the strength of the passage of the Bosphorus and
on the possession of a certain amount of naval
power. All these suggestions are further compli-
cated by the important question whether the prin-
ciple of the. Convention of 1841 is to be abrogated
or maintained—that is, whether the Dardanelles
and the Bosphorus are to be opened or closed against
the ships-of-war of all nations. On this last point
the Russian Government appears to bo not only
willing to accede to the proposal for opening the
Straits, but anxious to promote this arrangement,
although in 1.841 the Cabinet of St. Petersburg
showed an equal anxiety to bring about the con-
trary result. We are not surprised at this change
in the language of the Russian Ministers, for it is
obvious that whatever advantage might accrue to
the other Powers from the right of sending their
vessels-of-war into' the Black Sea would be more
than compensated to Russia by the power of send-
ing her Black Sea fleet into the Mediterranean; and
that the passage of ships of the line under the walls
of the Sultan's Palace and the forts of the Bos-
phorus would be a fatal blow to the independence
of the Ottoman Government. The abrogation of
the old law of the empire, though acceded to by
the Russians, is therefore strenuously resisted by
the Turks, and we do not know on what grounds
the Allied Powers can, if they considerthe interest
of the Sultan, overrule that opinion.
The existence of a Russian fleet in the Black
Sea is, as we showed in some detail a short time

THE OXFORD-MANCHESTER COALITION.
( From the Morning Chronicle of this day. )

The exclusive right to Manufacture political
" canards," which was supposed to be the special
privilege of ono of our daily contemporaries, is now
being invaded by the Tory prints. The weekly
organ of the party, by some of his recent astound-
ing announcements, appears to have excited the
jealowy or the emulation of his morning rival, who
now seeks to transact a little of this business on his
own account. We congratulate him on the bold-
ness and even the originality of his hypothesis, as
also• on his having avoided a certain wildness dis-
cernible in the mystic utterings of his juvenile and
presumptuous weekly friend—a tone scarcely digni-
fied enough for such an oracle.
Our inventive contemporary—towatds whom
we' feel all the respect due for his consistent and
earnest advocacy of " Tory" or " Conservative"
principles under the most discouraging circumstances
—has discovered that a new political combination
is about to be formed, which, to him, appears pecu-
liarly shocking. It is nothing less than an
" Oxford-Manchester Coalition I" Mr. Bright
and Mr. • Gladstone, it seems,, are about to
join their forces, and to ruin the country to-
gether ! Our readers, we feel assured, will sympa-
thise with us in the horror which such an announce-
ment was calculated to produce in all well-regu-
lated minds, and they will moreover, we do not
-doubt, cordially concur in the doubts expressed by
our contemporary as to the truth of his own story.
Novi the great art of manufacturing these pieces
of political gossip is to conceal that art. It is iu
this that the weekly organ of the Tories excels.
Out of ever so homcepathic a quantity of specific
truth he will vamp you up an awful revelation,
quite enough to make the hair of all the quid-
nuncs stand on end. But he hides the process,
and allows no one to know of how much actual
fact he is in possession. Not so his daily rival,
eager to appropriate his laurels. The origin of our
worthy contemporary's story is obvious enough ;
and, for the enlightenment of such of our readers
as may have met with it, we will dissect his hastily
woven fabric.
When Sir J. Graham, Mr. Gladstone, and Mr.
S. Herbert seceded from the Palmerston Ministry,
all men were curious to see what positions they
would assume in the House of Commons. On the
first night of their entering that assembly after
their resignation, they took their seats at the head
of the second bench below the gangway on the
Ministerial side. It happened, that one or two of
those seats thus assumed by the seceding Ministers
had previously been occupied by Messrs. Cobden-,
Bright, Milner Gibson, or one or other of their po-
.litical friends. The wise men—among whom may be
ranked our contemporary—at once came to the con-
cltsion that the gentlemen who had been spoken of
as "Peelites" had made up their minds to became
the leaders of what is often called the " Manches-
ter" party ! As we do not profess to be so deep in
political secrets as some people, we will not under-
take to say whether our contemporary at the mo-
ment was visited by one of those sudden inspira-
striueomerhiesmawsbhhei aol
irrt et
that
nai
tlnycovouchsafedillyt
coarupi
rival
eal idlt ilsCoa imieffuen
atn
wieures.
r a
e
riment at the moment, and which, we doubt not,
had its influence on our contemporary.
Messrs. Bright, Cobden, and Milner Gibson na-

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r PRICE SD.

to allure the • most competent men of the middle
class into public life.
There can be no more egregious fallacy than that
by which the English public is deluded into acqui-
escence in exclusive aristocratic rule—the pretext
that it is served gratuitously. No man gives his
services for nothing, unless those services are so
utterly worthless as to make it worth nobody's
while to pay for them. If a servanteither public
or private--is not paid directly, he will pay himself
indirectly. A man who pays himself indirectly and
clandestinely is pretty sure to overpay himself.
There is no balancing accounts
.with him ; for it is
impossible to say how much he gets; and then—the
assumption being that he serves gratuitously—he
gives himself airs whenever the quality of his work
is called in question. Unpaid services are the dearest
of all. The aristocracy profess to serve their coun-
try gratuitously as ministers of State: if all the jobs
they are enabled by their official positions to perpe-
trate in behalf of themselves, their relations, and
dependents were counted up, it would be found
that they are exorbitantly overpaid. The landed
nobility and gentry profess to servo their country
gratuitously as justices of the peace ; and they pay
themselves by perverting the administration of
justice to subserve the pride and self-will of their
class, and to quarter their hangers-on upon the pub-
lic purse. The purchasers of commissions would
have us believe that as their professionalpay rarely
equals in amount the interest they might obtain by
lending their money, they, too, servo their country .
gratuitously. But looking back upon our national
history, and seeing how many colonial governor-
ships, tailoring colonelcies, diplomatic appointments,
&c.; have been obtained by the high-born traffickers
in military rank, we are driven to the conclusion
that here also unpaid services are the dearest of all.
Let an end be put to this delusive system. Let all
who servo The publi rin -civil or military capacities
be fairly paid ; let such men only be employed as
can work efficiently ; and let no more men be em-
ployed than are necessary. Such a reform would
give us a better army ; a better local administra-
tion of justice ; a better executive Government.
The beginningmust be made with the central admi-
nistrative Government, forso long as it is conducted
on the sham gratuitous system, officials will uphold
that system in all other departments, if it were
only to keep themselves in countenance. To look
for this reform at the hands of those who have
been brought up in the system, and who profit by
it, is folly. The middle classes—the educated and
politically powerful section of the people—must
take the task in hand if it is ever to be acccom-
plished. They can do it if they will ; they have
carried Parliamentary and Municipal Reform, the
Abolition of Slavery, and the Abolition of the Corn
Law, and they can also carry Administrative Re-
form. The wretches war mismanagement shows
that they have not a moment to lose in setting to
work. They must shake off their excessive love of
lords ; and they can do so. Humorists and fo-
reigners laugh, not without reason, at the peerage-
worship of the English middle classes ; but when
Peers outrage the feelings, or encroach on the pro-
prietary rights of Englishmen, the insult of en-
croachment is resented with au energy of which
every other European people is incapable. Admi-
nistrative reform means, in the first place, free
access to the high offices of State for competent
men, whatever their birth or connections. It does

not mean exclusion of worthy Peers, but it means
admission of worthy commoners. It is for the
House of Commons to effect the reform ; and it is
for the electors, ou the first opportunity, to return
a House of Commons that will set earnestly and.
energetically about it.

NAVAL AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE.

THE BALTIC FLEET.

THE DOWNS, MONDAT.
At 5 a.m. the signal was made to the fleet to get
steam up, and shorten in their cables, which was at once
obeyed, and at ten minutes to six the signal to weigh
was made ; the Nile led the van, and the other ships in
succession followed in two lines ; the weather was rainy,
and we could not discern the fleet very far, but I now
trust that they have left this year to add more glories to
the annals of English history. The correct and service-
like manner in which every signal has been made since
the departure of Admiral Dundas from Portsmouth
shows the determination with which he intends carrying
out his orders.

NYBORG, APRIL 3.
Yesterday the Belt was full of ice. A large steam-
frigate, supposed to be her Majesty's steamer Imperie-
use, was seen to the north of Romsoe yesterday ; she
subsequently stood to the North, and has probably
anchored off Refsnaesset.

The French fleet, destined for service in the Baltic,
and consisting of three line-of-battle ships, with the pro-
per complement of frigates, corvettes, and smaller craft,
will leave Cherbourg in two or three days. Rear-Admi-
ral Penaud, who commands, was with Admiral Desche-
nes last year.

The screw steam-ship Sanspareil, 71, Captain Wood-
ford J. Williams, will be placed in the basin dock at
Beyhana, Plymouth, to-morrow. Her repairs and altera-
tions will occupy some time. Her crew were to be paid
down yesterday, and granted 14 days' leave, when they
may join either of the guardships, and be permitted
afterwards to choose their own ships.
The steam block-ship Cornwallis, having taken her
stares And guns on board, was warped on Saturday to
the receiving hulk Vigo, in Hamoaze, Plymouth, pre-
paratory to her crew being turned over to her. It was
intended for her to make a trial trip in the Channel yes-
terday.

The store-ship Tyne, Master-Commander Peter 'Wel-
lington, is ordered to call at Plymouth on her way to
Ascension and Rio Janeiro, to embark Commander Has-
well, appointed to the screw-steamer Plumper, 8, on the
coast of Africa.

The hired transport Wide-awake, Captain Moon, was
towed on Saturday from Plymouth to the jetty at the
Devonport dockyard, where she will embark to-day 10
officers, 56 men, and the same number of horses, be-
longing to the 15th Hussars.

Additional policemen are to be appointed at the Royal
William Victualling-yard, Plymouth. The duty there
has increased so much in consequence of the activity in
the war department, that the Russian prisoners in Mill-
bay are no longer to be supplied with meat from this
yard, but through the medium of private contractors.
The emigrant ship Santarang, which was repaired in
Keyham dock, sailed from Plymouth for Adelaide on
Saturday.

Off Plymouth on Saturday—The ship Ocean Queen,
Capt. A. Spencer, from New York ; the American ship
George Kaynes, Capt. Bachelder, three days from Cork
for London ; and the ship Barham ; she left the Sand-
heads December 20th, Madras the 31st, and St. Helena
February 24th.

The transport ship Wilson Kennedy, •Capt. Simpson,
67 days from Constantinople, arrived at Plymouth yester-
day morning. Spoke, March 19, off Malaga, tl-e Otto-
man. Captain Bailey, from Constantinople for Hull, arid
on the 28th, off Cape St. Vincent, the bark Mary Nixon,
of and from Liverpool, for Tarragona.
The transport North Fleet is hourly expected at Ply-
mouth to embark the divisions of the Land Transport
Corps now at that port.
The Fairy Royal yacht, Captain Crispin, went out of
Portsmouth harbour yesterday, to make an experimental
trial of a new screw, patented by Mr. John Fisher, of
Liverpool, called the " Venetian screw." She made
eight runs along the measured mile at Stokes-bay, with
and against tide ; force of wind about 7. The following
were the runs :

Time.
First, with tide, revolutions of engines 40 —4 min. 3S sec.
Second, against tide „ 394-4 min. 55 sec.
Third, with tide If 39-4 min. 32 sec.
Fourth, against tide , f 40 —5 min.
Fifth, with tide
Pf 40 —4 min. 17 sec.
Sixth, against tide ~ 40 —5 Min. 14 sec.
Seventh, with tide If 404-1 min 9 sec.
Eighth, against tide 40 —5 min. 28 sec.
This yielded an average of 12.643 knots per hour.
- -

Rear-Admiral Martin, Superintendent of Portsmouth
dockyard, changed his flag from blue to white yesterday
morning, on board the St. Vincent.

The Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Corn-
pany'S new ship Alma, Capt. R. W. Evans, arrived at
Portsmouth on Sunday evening from Liverpool, to em-
bark upwards of 1,000 of the brigade of Guards, a large
detachment of Royal Sappers End Miners, and sundry
officers and men for passage to the seat of war in the
Crimea. She is a splendid ship, 2,500 tans' register, 500-
horse power, 317 feet over.all, 40 feet beam, and 30 feet
depth in hold ; has cabin • accommodation for 60 officers
in the saloons, besides the officers of the ship. She can
berth 1,050 troops on the maindeck in hammocks and
bunks (900 in the former, and 150 in the latter) ; on the
after orlop, 300 ; and en the fore orlop, 100 ; making a
total of accommodation for 1,450 troops, besides the
ship's company, &c. Her engines are by Fawcett ' • she
made 11 knots with 25 revolutions on the passage from
Liverpool, although her full speed is at 30 revolutions ;
she is very dry, stiff, and weatherly, and fitted with
every modern improyement, draws 19 feet 6 inches now,
will carry 20 horses, for which they have fittings. The
height between decks is 8 feet 6 inches. She is numbered
`l." She conveyed to Portsmouth Captains Ward and
Graves, Lieutenants Pocklington and Ring, Ensign Cot-
tee, and 127 non-commissioned officers and meh of the
18th (Royal Irish), who landed yesterday and took up
quarters in Clarence barracks. She also conveyed a
draught of the 50th Regiment, consisting of Captains
Tillbrook, Baines, and Blackall, Lieutenant Bunbury,
and 130 non-commissioned officers and men, who go out
to Malta in this ship.

Government has purchased the Granville, of 800 tons,
for 14,5001. The Granville was built in 1854 at Moul-