The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-27 00:00:00

every battery to lay a gun upon them. A number of
very capacious dockyard lumps and rowboats were also
secured in these cresks or hung on by the steamers.
In the course of the afternoon of the 11th (Tuesday)
some of the Russian guns in the ruined battery below
the Redan were turned on these steamers, and in a few
rounds, not more than 12 I think, succeeded in hulling
them eight times. The range was, however, rather
great, and it became expedient to move a little nearer,
in order to afford them the full advantage of our shot
and shell. On Tuesday evening, when Lieutenant
Gough, of the London, who commanded in the Naval
Batteries on the left attack, came down with his men,
he was ordered to take his relief over to the right
attack, and to accompany Lieutenant Anderson, R.E.,
down t) the town, in order to erect a battery for two
95 cwt. gu'is on the right of St. Paul's Battery.
The site of this battery was about 700 yards from
Fort Catherine, on the oppcisite side. The men, although
deprived of the quiet night and undisturbed repose they
anticipated, set to work with will, and began throw-
ing up the parapet, and filling gahions, and, as it was
possible that some interruption of the work might take
place from the other side, a covering party of 120 men
was ordered down from the trenches. There were French
sentries in charge of this portion of the place, and the
little party found that their allies were on the qui vice,
and were keeping a sharp look-out on all sides. The
men had been working some time when it was observed
that one of the enemy's steamers had left the north side,
and was slowly and noiselessly drooping down on the
very spot where the sailors and the covering party were
at their labours. The night was dark, but they could
clearly make out the steamer edging down upon them,
and coming closer and closer. Every moment they ex-
pecte I her guns to open on them with grape and canis-
ter. The men therefore lay down on their faces, and
kept as near to the ground as they could, and the
steamer came over gently till she was within about 100
yards of the very spot where they had been working.
They heard her anchor splash into the water, and then
the rattle of her cable as it ran through the hawsehole.
Now, certainly, they were " going to catch it ;" but,
no, the Russian opened no port and showed no light,
but seemed to be making himself comfortable in his
new quarters. Captain Villiers, of the 47th, who com-
mented the covering party, ordered his men to observe
the utmost silence, and the same injunction was given
to the seamen. About 2.30 in the morning, when
she had been an hour or so in her novel berth, a bright
light was perceived in her fore hatchway. The leading
steamer on the opposite side in a second afterwards ex-
hibited gleams of equal brightness, and then one ! two !
three ! four ! five !—as though from signal guns, the re-
maining steamers, with one exception, emitted jets of
fire from their bows. The jets soon became columns of
flame and smoke—the wind blew fresh and strong, and
the night was dark, SO that the fire spread with rapidity
along the vessels, and soon lighted up the whole of the
northern heavens. The masts were speedily licked and
warmed into a fiery glow, and the rigging burst out into
fitful wavering lines of light struggling with the wind
for life ; the yards shed lambent showers of sparks and
burning splinters upon the water. The northern works
could be readily traced by the light of the conflagration,
and the faces of the Russian soldiers and sailors who were
scattered about on the face of the cliff shone out now
and then and justified Rembrandt. The work of de-
struct. on spread rapidly. The vessels were soon nothing
bet huge arks of blinding light, which hissed and
crackled fiercely, and threw up clouds of sparks and
embers, and the guns, as they became hot, exploded,
and shook the crazy bulls to atoms. One after another
they went down into the seething waters. The cavalry
out on the plains wondered what great conflagration
had broken out anew in the town. At daybreak only
one steamer remained. A boat pushed alongside her
from the shore. They boarded her, and, after re-
maining below about 10 minutes, returned to their
boat and regaLied the shore. Very speedily the
vessel began to be seized with a sort of in-
ternal convulsion—first she dipped her bows, then her
stern, then gave a few uneasy shakes, and at length,
after a short shiver, went down bodily, cleverly scuttled.
Tnus was Sinope avenged. Of the men who planned,
the sailors who executed, and the ships which were en-
gaged on that memorable expedition, scarcely one trace
remains. Kornileff, Nachimoff, Istoinine, and their
crews have disappeared : their vessels now rest at the
bottom of the roadstead of Sebastopol. The Russians
prefer being agents of their own destruction, and do not
give the conqueror a chance of parading the fruits of
his victory. We cinnot delight the good people of
Plymouth or Portsmouth by the sight of Russian liners
and steamers. We can only drive the enemy to the up-
tion of destroying or of doing the work for him, and he
invariably prefers the former.
The Russians are fortifying themselves on the north
side. The French are gone towards Baidar.
Our Naval Brigade, after long, brilliant, and ill-re-
quited services, is to be broken up at once.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 14.
It is just one year this day since we landed at Kale-
mita Bay. In that time we have stormed the heights of
the Alma, sustained the glorious disaster of Balaklava,
fought the great fight of lakerman, swept the Sea
of Azoff and its seaboard, wasted Kertch, and seized
upon Yenikale—have witnessed the battle of the
Tchernaya--have opened seven bombardments upon
Sebastopol—have held in check every General and
every soldier that Russia could spare ; and, now,
after the endurance of every ill that an enemy at
home and abroad could inflict upon us—after passing
through the summer's heat and winter's frost—after being
purged in the fire of sickness and death, repulse and
disaster, and above all in the fiery glow of victory, the
British standard floats over Sebastopol. But our army
is not the same. Physiologists tell us that we undergo
perpetual change, and that not a bit of the John Smith
of 1854 goes into the composition of the same respected
individual in 1864,tbut we have managed to work up
tens of hundreda of atoms in our British army between
1854 and 1855; and there are very few indeed to be
found in the present body corporate who landed in the
Crimea a twelvemonth ago. Some regiments have been
thrice renewed, others have been changed twice over.
The change is not for the better—the old stuff was bet-
ter than the new.

The silence in camp is aimost alarming ; were it not
for a gun now and then between the town and the north
side, and across the Tchernaya, it would be appalling.
There is an English• French Commission sitting in the
town. Colonel Windham is Commandant of the British
portion of it. The 3d Buffs have received orders to oc-
cupy it, and the French garrison is strengthened. The
enemy work all day at new batteries. The Guards are
to make the roads between Balaklava and the camp.
The Army Works Corps, like all bodies of men who
come out from England to this climate, have suffered
severely from disease and death, and np to the pre-
sent time not less than 16 per cent. of the navvies and
artiacers have died from different forms of malady. One
ship, which sailed some time ago from home with a con-
siderable number of them, has not reached Balaklava,
though she is considerably beyond her time. The corps at
present hem does not exceed 540 men, and, they are prin-
cipally employed in trenching and repairing the railway,
which is a vital and all-iinportant work. Sir H. Jones
made' an application to Mr. Doyne to send a portion of
his men into the trenches to assist in the siege approaches,
but the latter very prudently urged on the General the
necessity of getting the railway into proper order, and
the bad economy of placing skilled labourers in a posi-
tion which would certainly not conduce to the satisfac-
tory development of their capabilities, as no untrained
and undisciplined men without arms or military habits
and experience could be expected to pursue their work
calmly and energetically with round shot and grape tear-
ing through them, and shell bursting amid their ranks.
At the same time Mr. Doyne and the gentlemen em-
ployed as officers of the corps expressed their readiness to
lead their men into the trenches, if the General of Engi-
neers required them to do so. The reasons urged against
such a mode of employing the corps prevailed, and they
are now engaged in the more safe and peaceful works for
which they are peculiarly fitted. Locomotives and sta-
tionary engines have been applied for, and will speedily
be sent out to prepare the railway more adequately for
its herculean task in the winter, and Mr. Doyne expects
an augmentation of 500 men to the corps under his com-
mand. The sickness which harassed the first corners is
now of a milder type, and diminishes daily in virulence.
Many of the men have suffered from their own reckless-
ness in eating and drinking ; but it is also a fact that
some of the steadiest and most sober men in the corps
shared the fate of their imprudent and thoughtless com-
rades. In the hour of their illness these men, in common
with many others, have found a kind and successful
physician. Close to the railway, half-way between the
Col de Balaklava and Badikoi, Mrs. Seacole, formerly of
Kingston and of several other parts of the world, such
as Panama and thiagres, has pitched her abode —an iron
storehouse, with wooden sheds and outlying tributaries,
and here she doctors and cures all manner of men with
extraordinary success. She is always in attendance near
the battle-field to aid the wounded, and has earned
many a poor fellow's blessings.
The Diamond, Wasp, and Leander go home at once.
SATURDAY, SEPT. 15, 10 A.M.
No news. The Russians are still fortifying the north
side.

As any particulars must be interesting, I have
no hesitation in trespassing on your space with
some additional details of the events of the Bth of
September, with which I have been favoured :

"The Second Brigade, Light Division, stormed at noon
of the Bth. The 97th and 90th, 300 of each, commanded—
the former by Major Welsford (whose head was blown off
as he was mounting an embrasure—the gun was fired by
a Russian officer, who immediately gave himself up as
a prisoner to a serjeant of the 97th, who entered
the moment after, throwing down his sword and saying
' I am a prisoner of war'); the latter by Captain Grove,
the senior officer of the regiment, present with the ser-
vice companies. The salient was carried at once, and
the men entered the stronghold, which is a work traced
on a most obtuse angle, requiring a large mass of
men to assault it, not only at the salient, but at
the same moment on both flanks, so as to turn
them, and to enable the salient storming party to
advance down the interior space of the works at once,
taking the defenders in front and flank, and indeed in
rear, at the same moment. In consequence of attacking
the salient only, no front could be formed, on account
of the small interior space at that point ; the men were
forced to advance by dribblets, and at the same moment
fired on from traverses on either flank where they could
not see their assailants, an evil at once obviated hal
the attack on the flanks and salient been simultaneous.
The handful of men who assaulted and took the salient
most gallantly held it against far superior numbers for a
considerable time, until their ammunition being nearly
expended and receiving no flank support, which could
alone assist them to any purpose, and being rushed on
from these flanks by a vastly superior force, they re-
treated to the extreme side of the parapet, where they
remained, and, being reinforced by some fresh men, kept
up a heavy and continuous fire on the Russians in