The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-24 00:00:00

4:001,111, sdi itlic

discussion on the more technical points of the proceed-
ings of the union then ensued. A lon -4 list of lecturer]
prepared on scientific and literary subjects, chiefly by
the clergy in the several districts, was produced. The
members and delegates. of the Institntioni dined toge-
ther, when the chef stilject of the discussion
farmed the prominent theme of the evening si e,!clies ;
in the course of which, Archrleac.m Wigram ex
pressed the gre,t pleasure which he felt as a mini:: ter
in
seeing the reception given to Mr. Chad wick's statements
by the meeting, and to- the confident :expectations held
out that,local patronage woull he 75ibandoned, for apart
irdin Fise higher educational interest's which -•were in
volved, it- held out the cheering. prostrilit of relief from
1,.,cal party feeling, and great moral and
.sncial improve-
ment. -
- Dr.
.Booth, the Chairman, and Mr. Chadwick were
loudly cheered.

SPIRIT OF T E PUBLIC ,ToURNALS.

(From the Times of this day.)
As we fully expected, the vmccessfull bombardment. of
Sweaborg has roused Sir Charles Napier into a species
of posthumous vitality, and he has sent us a long letter.
It is written in Sir Charles's usual spirit, and, as he

•
certainly has something to complain of, it makes one re-
gret that the man who can bombard the British Admi-
ralty with so touch effect ha.l not all the appliances
proper for the bombardment of Sweab ,rg. In good
hands we have little douht he would have done it, but

as it is, like the elephants used in Indian armies, he is
no sooner hurt than he loses self command, and rushes
lack into the racks •of his own army. With all
due respect for Sir Charles, and begging our readers'
p'irdon for using a long word, we regard the docu
nient as a peat psychological fact. It exhibits a
man with every other faculty but just that which
constitutes the master mind, and which is abso-
ktely necessary to a Cominam!er-in-Chief, whether by
sea or on land. As appears from the letter, Sir Charles
could do everything. He could make plans, discern de-
ffmencies, bold councils of war, offer opinions, discuss
propositions, find what could be done, with more or less
risk, what could riot be done at all, and what could be
done without risk, were the means only provi,led.
As we know from other source,, Sir Charles could
. .

handle a fleet, discipline his crews, teach his captain;
the use of signals, and, in fact, do everything necessary
to a great naval action. He could do anything that the
opportunity, the men. and the materials at his command.
permitted. • Then, why did n t Sir Charles do it? Now
comes the instructive a,d wonderful fact. Sir
Charles did not do it. . He wanted just that one
thin,:!— the faculty of giving the word of command. Had
Sir James Graham been in command of the fleet, and
Sir Charles second in command, and had Sir James sa:d

to Sir Charles, pointing with his band, " Sir Charles,
go in and attack S .veal.borg," we have no doubt Sir
Charles would have done it wimirabl,, and with respect-

able success. Nay, more, we have no doubt that it Sir
James had laid down an ingenious plan on paper, and
desired Sir Charles to stick to it, Sir Charles woukl

have set it at nought, and gone by a plan of his
own, p,rhans 11,1 so good, but most likely better.
Any how, we are sure that Sweaborg would have
been demolished, that there would be an angry corres-
pondence, or at eat a good deal of private wrangling ;
that Sir Cl Arles,
.with a great degree of justici, would
trtve claimed the cred4 of success ; but tha', as we have
said, the work would have been done with S:r Charles's
accu 'tuned daring and skill. Such, we are satisfied,
would have been the case if Sir Charles had been under
peremptory order:—that is if, instead of being tria4er,
he had been man ; but he did nothing for want of
body to say Go and do . it." He had no master but
the Admiralty, which was not a rna•ter, but only an
adviser ; ani.he felt himself unable to d anything with
out the full consent and co-,,peration of the allied com-
manders.

There was not a man in this empire who did not sup-
po,e that when Sir C larks was sent out with a magni-
fieent fleet in the spring of last year he wat to do the
hest he could with that fleet, and to tied out for himself
what best could be done. It is till- there was a misgiv-
ing in some quarters that the fleet was not well adapted
for the purpose, but it was all the fleet we had, and it
was impossible to conjure -up another fleet simply by
wishing it. There is ae old Greek saying, that he is the
best shoemaker who makes the best shoe with the mate-
rials given hint; and there is another saying, that a bad
workman always quarrels with his tools. No doubt Sir
matetials, a-d tools, a!id servants were all had.
But, if they were so bad that he could do nothing at all
with them in the Baltic, why in the world did he take
them, and tell us about the great things he was going
to do ? Why did he sail into the Baltic, and is std a series
of grand naval reviews, if it was only t ) prove that
nothing ceuld be done.? As for Bomai sued, Sir Charles
did not do that. It was done by French soldiers and a
few British marines. But after it was done, which was
rather late in the sea- on, Sweahortt vas again exa.nined,
and Sir Charle,, the French Field-Marshal and Admirals,
were most delightfully unanimous in the opinion that no-
thing could he one, as they had not the proper meat's.
Teey badneither gun nor mortar boat,. But Sir Charles
knew perfectly what so, t of a sea, and what sort of a c,,ast,
arid what sort of harbours and ports those of the Baltic
were when he took the command, and when he klazed
aaay at the Reform Club. Why, then, did he tell us
what he was going to do, or why did he not instantly
make a requisiton for a score or two of gun and mortar
boats to be got rea ly as soon as possible t If be made '
the, requisition, and it was denied, why did he not at
once throw up the command?, He WAS quite aware—
at least, if he was not, he was the only British subject
who was not aware—that something more was expected
than keeping the Russian ships in harbour. Not having
insisted as a sine qua non on a proper rupply of gun ant
mortar boats, not having resigned his command, but
still retaining an immense fleet, and representing the
British naval supremacy in the Baltic, he was hound to
do what he could with his fl-et, —to do something or
other, and not fritter away his time and opportunities
in councils-of .war, in correspondence with the Admi-
ralty, and in' di:Coii.rieg objections to the plans put
bef,re him. Trek d, it is quite evident to us that all he
wa,,t,d was the word of command. Tuis he could not
give himself, and t mete was nobody is give it, so Sir
Charles r..anied about the Baltic waiting for orders,
which unfortunately never came in a firm so specific as
to he a postive command.
When it was considered that much of the execution at

the late bo ,bardin,nt was done from a battery con-
structed on an island, that other islands were available
for the purpose, that the ships of the line took part in
tie affair, and that after forty-five hours' bombardment
the aides were wholly untouched; we really cannot see
why something could not have been done with the
means at Sir Charles's disposal. We don't see why
General Jones's plan or General Niel's plan should have
been utiaeititously rejected. We see nothing nt all ri-
diculous in the Admiralty sending nut orders succes-
sively for sornething or other to be done—if nothing
eise, at least that Genera. Jones's or General Niel's
plan should be taken itoo con4leration. When the
delicate susceptibilities of the French Admirals and
Generals had led to their withdraw's', we do not see
why a man of Sir Charles Napier's great name and au-
therAy need hav6'cOnStiltecl his own Admirals at all,
except to escape respoesinility.. Instead of doing what
he could with the means at his command, which Eng-
land expected him to do, he sends two plans to the
Admir dty, one to be executed by his fleet as it was, the
other with gun and mortar boats, if they could be
procured. With regard to the first of these, we
cannot understand why Sir Charles did not try it
at once, without any more ado, and without wait-
ing I.r the opinion of the Admiralty or his own
Adinira's upon it. As to the second plan—that of
gun and mortar birs, described in a so-called "re-
port," that of course is what all the world were calling
fr. and there is no originality in the suggestion. Iu
some way or other Sir Charle+ has persuaded him-
self that in respect of gun aad mortar b 'ate he put out
an original plan, and that the plan so put out is that
which Admirals Dundas and Penaud actually pro-
ceeded upon, excepting only that, instead of 100 gun
and mortar boats, which he thought necessary, they
had only 43. With 100 they could have worked by
reliefs, given the mortars time to cool, kept up a
longer bombardment, gone in neater and destroyed
the Russian batteries. So says Sr Charles. But
what avails it ie,w t ) Say what might have been done
with mor.3 means ? There is neither originality nor
common sense in perpetually asking for more and more
means to do more arid more work, but actually doing
notoing meanwhile. It is better to bum Sweaberi as
much as we have than to wait for 100 gun-boats and
100 13-inch mortars i.ext year. It is plain that in these
continual hesi-atione, alit examinations, and consul-
tations, ate! exaggerations of the work to be 'lone,
and the means required, Sr Charles simply shows that
he did not possess the decision necessary to a com-
mander... He never knew when to give the word. Tne
deficiency is no uncommon one,--nay, it is the com-
monest of all, for it is the very deficiency that maker
sa many men servants, and so few men masters. For
a hundred men who can obey exact orders, and do
work very well when they must do it. there is hardly
one who can take the lea!, decide, point his fin.;er, and
say, "There is your work ;do it." I, quite evident
that Sir Charles, though a capital sailor and a good
fighting man, is one of the hundred, and not the one
master man.