The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-23 00:00:00

OUR ARMY IN THE CRIMEA.

(From, a Special Correspondent of the Morning Herald.
BALAKLA.VA, Nov. 9.

Wednesday, the 7th instant, passed away without
the expected attack of the Russians being made,
though on that very day they were plainly seen in
great and unusual force opposite Inkerman, formed
in five divisions, each en grande tenue ; and, more-
•ver, some personage of very exalted rank was evi-
dently present—possibly, as it is rumoured, the
Emperor himself. The threatening news there-
fore, brought by the Russian picket, who some days
since deserted en masse to the Sardinians, seems to
have had some solid foundation ; but as so many
Muscovites then came over to the allies the enemy,
seeing that his secret must have been divulged
by them, and thus all likelihood of a surprise on
the 7th prevented, may at the last moment have
changed his mind, and prudently deferred the
day of battle originally fixed upon. The weather
is still fine, and very favourable for military opera-
tions, though daily becoming more chilly in the
morning and evening, while in mid-day we expe-
rience a heat and dust that remind us feelingly of
summer. Not a drop of rain has yet fallen here
since the week just after the evacuation of Sebas-
topol, to which rain attention was (in connection
with huts and roads) called at the time, and when,
indeed, the weather at any hour was far more cold
and zipping than it has ever proved since. But
our November sun is now the brightest of the
bright, and a cloud in the Crimea is yet a rarity.
This seems unseasonable.
Wednesday next will be the anniversary of the
great storm at Balaklava, when the Prince was un-
fortunately wrecked. It is now said that storm of
1854 was the worst experienced in the Crimea during
the last 40 years, so that it is fairly to be hoped
we shall now have no recurrence of so awful
a calamity. For the benefit of "anxious owners,"
I will subjoin to this letter a list of the vessels now
at Balaklava, so far as I can obtain their names by
a pull through the harbour. These vessels are so
closely packed in some of the tiers that passage be-
tween being impossible, I must necessarily fail to
obtain all theirnames. The transports are generally
reported, though too briefly, to the telegraph
office, but the movements of other merchant ship-
ping are often not obtainable without the greatest
difficulty. I am not aware that there is yet any
harbour-master's office ashore, where a list of ar-
rivals and sailings is publicly exhibited. Speaking
of offices, I may here incidentally touch upon that
of the post at Balaklava, although I have in one of
my recent despatches referred on other points to that
establishment. It seems the-e is yet no resident
postmaster at Balaklava, owing to that officer in
the Crimea (Mr. Mellish or Mr. Angell) being ne-
cessarily so much engaged in the chief office at
General Simpson's head-quarters, two leagues dis-
tant from Balaklava. But the Government ought
not to be niggardly, to be penny wise at d pound
foolish, in matters connected with letters, and, I
must add, with newspapers. The postal staff
must, by and bye, be increased. Cases are con-
tinually occurring where the postmaster himself is
asked for by over-punctilious parties, who seemed
dissatisfied, and sometimes very unreasonably,

with the explanv tions of any one, able as he may
of lower rank. Officers and men ride in from
the Allied camp, many miles, and not unfrequently
call on the very day the postmaster is fated to be
required elsewhere. In his absence, the correct-
ness of answers given from another mouth, if not
openly disputed, is, in too many instances, re-
ceived with incredulity. The Balaklava post-
office is certainly not too well or too soon provided
with the ever-varying postal regulations of the
Mediterranean, with the many ports of which offi-
cers here so frequently require to communicate by
letter. The points in this particular respect alone
upon which information is sought in Balaklava by
Englishmen as well as by foreigners, might often
puzzle Rowland Hill himself. While waiting for
letters I have often heard this observed. On the
despatch of the mail from Balaklava, one or two
of the hands, instead of " getting a rest," are
obliged immediately to go on to head-quarters to
assist in making up the mail there. This arises
from being short-handed. And still, month by
month, the mails, inward and outward, increase in
bulk. And they would still further increase did
not home-correspondents forget to pre-pay ls. on
every letter posted 0 a civilian sojourning at Ba-
laklava. A letter, however, when addressed to a
soldier, requires but three penny stamps. Many
newspapers miscarry from the same cause. Stamped
journals, for the Crimea, require two stamps, and
unstamped journals three. There may be other
causes for the non-arrival of newspapers, hut post-
offices, at home or abroad, can seldom explain what
these causes really are. Newspapers, however, be
the cause what it may, do not reach the Crimea
with anything like regularity or certainty. Ship-
masters especially complain of this, and the letters
addressea to foreigners here give an immensity of
trouble, displaying, as they do, directions in Greek,
Turkish, Russian, Armenian, Italian, French, and
other tongues, and in a style of calligraphy that
even Carstairs, the "Flying Pen" personified, would
certainly fail to discipline into legibility. These
foreign letters are likely to become more mime
rous than ever ; for it seems that if despatched
from Malta, for instance, by English mail or ship,
no postage whatever is charged on them (while, as
I have said, Englishmen at home pre-pay ls.) ;
but, if sent, still let us say for Malta, by French
mail, postage is charged, and, moreover, the aggre-
gate postage is paid iu advance by the English
office to the French office in Kamiesh, and after-
wards retaken in driblets at the English post-office,
Balaklava, or that at General Simpson's head-
quarters, on the letters being called for by the
parties to whom they are addressed. And " till
called for " letters sometimes lie months in the
pigeon-holes. Thus, the Maltese get their letters
for nothing, and may also answer them, free, if
they pass not beyond their own " tight little
island."

Not much can be learned here of the mail regu-
lations touching the lonian Islands. The post-
office at Balaklava is not kept sufficiently instructed
in the lonian charges and changes made from time
to time. And with Corfu, and the whole group,
military men require much correspondence.
Again, a man often wants to register a money
letter at the Balaklava post-office for England. He
can do this by paying 6d. ; but this does not insure
the safe transmission of the money such letter
contains. If lost or stolen, Government will not
refund the cash. Possibly the clerk into whose
hands it was last traced might, to save himself
from suspicion, pay down the amount. But then
it might be argued that this would not be fair to
the clerks. Balaklava has a polyglot, and, mo-
rally speaking, not over particular population, who
might register a quasi money letter, containing
in reality no money at all, and thus oocasionally
set up and make good false claims for compensa-
tion. Under these and other circumstances, all the
advantages of an office in England cannot yet
safely be also granted b Balaklava. It must never
be forgotten that we are here at war on the enemy's
soil ; that the post-office at Balaklava is really and
truly but an " Army and Navy Post-office," and
that civilians may be almost said to avail themselves
of it by sufferance only. For them or the army
either, it is not a " money-order office." The sol-
dier can send home his spare cash through his own
paymaster. And where the sum amounts to not
less than 50/., the civilian can generally arrange
to transmit it to the commissariat at Balaklava. I
repeat there is no regular " money-order office" at
Balaklava, and even postage to England (in money)
cannot be paid at the Balaklava post-office. Stamps
can, however, be attached to cover the postage
home. But stamps are very seldom obtaina-
ble out here, except by buying of the hawkers
through the camp "a. sheet of paper and a
stamped envelope for five pence." The fellow who
originated this trade among the soldiers is making
a little fortune. He gives, of course, three stamps
to each envelope ; but 2d. for an envelope and one
sheet of paper leaves him a comfortable profit.
" One-half of the world does not know how the
other half lives."

The Sardinians have now a sort of post-office at
Balaklava, although the French have not, but they
hare not yet entered into any satisfactory arrange-
ment with the English office as to the exchange of
letters. They object to take charge of any betters
for the Sardinian marir -, royal or mercantile, thus
the English aredelayed 'Areceiving the postage due;
but they pick out and pay for the military letters,
only leaving all the rest on the hands of the Eng-
lish postmaster. How these Sardinians get letters
first-hand for the English I know not, but the
instant they do they are very sharp in applying to
our postmaster for all the postage due to them.
Each packet of letters brought to them is like a
French republic—" one and indivisible ;" and the
poor English post-office must furnish funds for the
" tottle of the whole." But I have now scribbled
enough about post-offices, and may call attention
to a letter just received through that at Balaklava.
Nis signed by several of the Scots Fusilier Guards.
The London mail, due yesterday (Thursday), has
not arrived at the posting of this despatch (Friday
afternoon).
Mr. Matheson, the respected Scotch missionary,
known here as "the Sardinian's friend," has this
week sailed from Balaklava for England. Wishes
for his return hither are heard on every side.
A great number of invalids embarked at
Balaklava on the 9th of November (Friday) for
Scutari and England.

APPOINTMENT OF GENERAL CODRING-
TON AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE
CRIMEA, VICE GENERAL SIMPSON, RE-
SIGNED.
SEBASTOPOL, SATURDAY NOON,
Nov. 10.

I wrote you yesterday. I had scarcely posted
my letter when two " bits of information" reached
me of much local, if not national, importance.
First of all, destiny had then decided that the
Coldstream Guards should be officially declared in
the ascendant. Yes, General Codrington is Com-
mander-in-Chief.
The second " bit of information " I have to com-
municate is the bodilyappearance of the "Alliance"
locomotive on the Balaklava line of railway. I
saw it thereon an hour since. It is as pretty a
piece of puffing, snorting, clicking, vapouring ma-
chinery as ever traversed a line of rail. Last
night, and with success, it was tried for the first
time. A second locomotive is already at Balaklava,
but for the present we must not quite expect to
rival the Blackwall or Greenwich Railway. The
Crimean Tartars cannot at all understand these
locomotives • and their extraordinary and almost
obsolete exclamations of wonder strike our sleek
and smiling interpreters perfectly aghast. The
Flying Horse in the " Arabian Nights' Entertain-
ments" is now more firmly believed in than ever
by all Mussulmans who have gazed on our green
and gold-painted engine " Alliance," to which I
shall soon again have occasion to refer.
The expedition to Kaffa looks very much like a
" mare's nest." The rumour this morning is that
it is definitively postponed. So much the worse.
Several attacks ou the highway have recently
occurred near Balaklava and Kadi-Keny. Among
those who bravely beat off their assailants were
Dr. Palding and Mr. Compton, the latter of the
42d Highlanders.
(71st) died not
Major Hunter many days since
at Kertch.

The firing from the north side of Sebastopol, and
from new earthworks more to the east, and near
the Spur, has somewhat increased since my last.
I have no close fighting of any sort to report, if
I except a " tournament" between two oxen, in
the hilly road before the camp of the 89th Regi-
ment, yesterday afternoon, when one so fiercely
gored the other that the defeated animal had imme-
diately to be slaughtered. The spacious plains
below these heights—the scene of Lord Cardigan's
charge—are daily studded with immense herds of
buffalo and droves of oxen, which the timid and
the stranger often, " in the mist of the morning,"
magnifies into Muscovite cavalry formed in battle
array, and advancing to destroy us. I am afraid,
however, we old hands are not so easily terrified,
but are preparing for a long and comfortable stay.
One glance at the busy harbour of Balaklava will
prove our preparation for a long tenantcy ; and no.w
Admiral Fremantle, Major Mackenzie, and Captam
Heath are, with others, taking for good " long
I:
pull, a strong pull, and pull altogether," Isl3l
pose soon to devote a paper to the numeroi
Go-
vernment works, hospitals, and naval and military.ll
and other stores, factories, foundries,,,w-m,,i s,
bakeries, parcel offices, and divers lions of
Balaklava Harbour. amiesh cannot equal these.
Fuel, chopped straw, flour bags, coal sacks, hut
frames, bricks, iron work of all descriptions,
horses, mules, 'and cattle here at Balaklava form
altogether such an unprecedented scene for the

perplexe(l eye to rest on that none perhaps but the
author of " Little Dorrit "could paint in word. an
adequate description of it.

FRANCE.

PARIS, THURSDAY EVENING.

It is confidently affirmed in diplomatic circles
that pacific measures, based on the endeavours now
making by Prussia to obtain concessions from
Russia, ar© in favourable train. Russia, it is said,
has consented to make the first advances. The
Western Courts, though considering them inade-
quate, do not discourage Prussia's endeavours, and
appear disposed to entertain her overtures at me-
diation.

The Moniteur gives the nominations to various
offices in the magistracy, and a second decree, ad-
mitting prohibited goods taken on board enemy's
ships, at a rate of duty of 20 per cent.
Tho Three per Cents. closed to-day at 65f. 95c.
for the end of the month ; the Four-and-a-Half
per Cents. at 911; and the New Loan at 66f. 80c.;
Orleans Railway Shares, 1,120 f.; Great Northern,
895 f.; Strasburg, 892 f. 50c.; New Shares, 760 f.;
Paris and Lyons, 1,137 f. 50c.; Lyons to the Medi-
terranean, 1,250 f.; Western of France, 760 f.; Bor-
deaux and Cetta, 707 f. 50c.; Great Central of
'France, 592 f. 50c.; Lyons and Geneva, 670 f.;
Bank of Credit Mobilier, 1,245 E; Austrian Rail-
ways, 7 20f.