The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-09 00:00:00

THE FRENCH BLACK SEA FLEET.

A letter from the Bay of Kamiesh, 23d ult., in
the Moniteur de la Flotte, says :—" Nothing of
importance has taken place in the siege operations
since my last letter. New batteries are being
raised ; the 70 heavy guns landed from the fleet
are in position, and supplied with ammunition for
a well-continued fire. The Napoleon arrived on
the, 16th with troops and artillery materiel. She
has completely repaired all the damages she sus-
tained in the heavy gale ; she is a wonderful vessel,
and now looks better than ever. The construction
of the aqueduct which is to furnish us with spring
water is going on rapidly, and in about a fortnight
our boats will be able toget an abundant supply. The
Veloce has brought us good news from Eupatoria.
The small garrison of that place has been reinforced,
and on the south side the road which was formerly
open to the Cossacks is now closed to them, as it is
under range of the guns of the Henry IV., which has
become a complete citadel. Admiral Hamelinon the
21st received the account of his promotion. On the
23d he handed over the command to Vice-Admiral
Bruat, who published the following order of the
day :

" Officers and seamen—We are about to lose our
worthy chief ; his illustrious services have received their
reward. After having called on me to second him, the
Emperor has called on me to replace him. Faithful to
the traditions bequeathed to us by a glorious past, we
shall continue to lend to our valiant army and to our
brave Allies that warm co-operatioh to which he has
already rendered such flattering and cordial justice. On
the day of combat the same patriotic cry wilt still rally
us round the flag of France—Vive l'Etupereur ! '
" There are now stationed before Sebastopol the
French ships of the line Napoleon and Jean-Bart,
the Panama steam-frigate, and the Primauguet
steam-corvette, and the English ships of the line
Agamemnon, Hannibal, and Algiers, as well as
two frigates of the English nation. In the interior
of the Bay of Kamiesh, there are the French ships
of the line Montebello, Marengo, and Alger, as
well as several frigates and corvettes. In the Bay
of Streletska, (the nearest point to the entrance of
Sebastopol), which is placed under the command
of Captain d'Herbinghem, there are the Vauban
steam-frigate, the Caton steam-corvette, and the
bomb-vessel Vautour. There are several English
L line-of-battle ship, and other vooselts in tile Day Qg

r PRICE SD.

Ka:zatch. These forces are sufficient to meet an
eventualities. The Russians have just disarmed
five more of their ships ; they have now only two
line-of-battle ships fully armed. Since the hurri-
cane of the 14th November there has been no more
bad weather in the Black Sea, and the condition
of our ships of war is excellent. The greatest pre-
cautions have been taken, and whatever may be the
state of the weather and sea the communications
are secured for the whole winter between Constan-
tinople and the Crimea. All the coast from the
mouth of the Bay of Streletska to the extremity of
Cape Chersonesus has been fortified by the navy
in a very remarkable mauuer ; lighthouses have
been placed there, and the service of the roadsted
is carried on in the most regular manner."

ACCEPTAACE BY RUSSIA OF THE
FOUR POINTS.

(From the Times.)
We have no doubt that the statement forwarded
to us yesterday morning by our Vienna corre-
spondent is strictly correct, and that a conference
was held on the 7th inst. between the Plenipoten-
tiaries of the allied Courts and the Russian Mi-
nister, at which Prince Gortschakoff at length de-
clared that he was authorised to tender the uncon-
ditional acceptance by the Emperor of Russia of the
Four Points, with the interpretation affixed to them
by France, England, and Austria, as preliminaries
for the negotiation of peace. Whatever may be the
result of this negotiation, on which we do not place
any undue reliance, the submission of the Russian
Government to the terms which it rejected -with so
much indignation about four months ago is an
indisputable proof of the progress made by the
Allied Powers, and of the ascendancy their policy
has already acquired over their powerful adver-
sary. We pointed out yesterday in some detail,
the occurrences which have marked the successful
progress of last year's campaign, and the gradual
but constant retreat of Russia from the terri-
torial encroachments she had attempted to
grasp, and the political pretensions she had
attempted to maintain. Of these, as they were
put forward by Prince Menschikoffi n the spring
of 1853, not one remains. But it is a far more
important and significant step for the Emperor of
Russia to authorise his Minister to declare, not
only that he surrenders his protectorate of the
Moldo-Wallachian provinces—not only that the
navigation of the Danube shall be free—not only
that the rights of the Christian subjects of the
Porte shall become part of the common law of
Europe—but that his own preponderance in the
Black Sea shall cease by the means contemplated
by those Powers which have invaded his territory
and besieged Sebastopol. Fourteen days had been
allowed by the Allies for this communication to be
made to St. Petersburg, and for an answer to ar-
rive at Vienna, but scarcely half that time had
elapsed when a telegraphic order was forwarded to
Prince Gortschakoff to negociate at once upon the
required basis. This order is therefore at least a
distinct admission on the part of the Russian Ge-
vernment that the claims and conditions of the
Allied Powereare just, and that peace may be re-
stored upon the principles for which they have
uniformly contended.
We do not lose sight of the fact that we have to
deal with an antagonist versed in all the artifices of
diplomacy, and unscrupulous in the use of them,
and that the real object of the Emperor of Russia
may be, not so much the re-establishment of peace
on equitable terms, as the dissolution of the power-
ful coalition, which is prepared, after a short inter-
val, to wrest it from him. Whatever may have
been said elsewhere of the treaty of the 2d of De-
cember, it is evident that this alliance of Austria
with the Western Powers has produced the most
powerful effect at St. Petersburg ; that the Czar
has acknowledged without delay the imminent
peril of a rupture with Germany, to which that
treaty exposed him, and that he has hastened with
unexpected alacrity to conform, at least osten-
sibly, to the provisions of the sth article. The
Austrian Government had given every mark of
a resolute determination to adhere to the great
objects of the alliance, and to employ the means
necessary to obtain them. In addition to its own
vast military preparations, it has recently called
upon Prussia to act upon the military convention
of the 20th of April, and it has moved the Ger-
manic Diet to call out half the military contingents
of the Confe leration. - Every mark of confidence
and courtesy is shown to France, even to giving a
regiment in the Impetial service to the Emperor
Louis Napoleon ; and in the same spirit of cordial
assent to the triple alliance the highest military
honours were paid the other day in Vienna to the
remains of the lamented British Military Commis-
sioner General Duplat. The Emperor of Austria
has thus testified his conviction and his settled
policy, whether for peace or for war, to abide by
those securities which the alliance of France and
England can alone afford him ; and, if the imme-
diate effect of the treaty of the 2d of December has
been to extort from Russia the concessions she
has already made, it may reasonably be expected
that afirm adhesion to the principles of that alliance
will accomplish all that it proposes to effect. If,
therefore, this acceptance of the conditions of peace
by the Emperor Nicholas is a mere artifice to
weaken the league which is opposed to him, we be-
lieve that he will fail in that object, and that his
sincerity will speedily be brought to some de-
cisive test.

But, on the other hand, the very arguments we
have ourselves used during the whole course of
these transactions are still in full force to urge
the Emperor Nicholas to terminate this contest.
He is fighting in a cause in which success is hope,.
less, and all he can expect to obtain by the greatest
sacrifices is the honour of a stubborn defence.
He has already isolated himself from Europe, and
stands alone against a host of enemies, who were
once his friends ; from the champion of order and
of peace he has become its most wanton disturber,
and he has annihilated the public engagements
he professed to uphold. Till now each successive
concession which has been wrung from him came too
late. His position has gone on from bad to worse ;
and at the present moment, if peace be not re-
stored in the East, other questions are about to
arise, other Powers will ere long be engaged, and
all Europe will be involved in the conflagration.
At this solemn moment, therefore, when this tre-
mendous responsibility rests upon him, and an
obstinate persistence in war would justly expose
him to the execration of the world, it is not im-
possible that the experience of the past year, the
defeat of his armies, the blockade of his fleets, the
defection of his former allies, the sufferings of his
subjects, and the darker gloom which broods over
the future, may have bent the stern will and the
proud heart of the Czar, and taught him that the
most absolute sovereigns are still bound by the law
of nations and the rights of other States. At any
rate, it would ill become us, who have engaged in
this contest for a definite and limited purpose, to
attempt to persist in it for one hour after the
essential objects of the war have been obtained,
and, as the British Government has hitherto deter-
mined, in conjunction with it allies, what were to
be the limits of its intervention, so it will neces-
sarily participate in the resolutions they may adopt
when those limits have been attained. We cannot
too strongly repudiate the assumption, in which
none of the Governments of Europe have ever
shared, that this war is to bring about what is called
a revision of the map of Europe, by means of con-
quests or revolutions in which this country, at
least, has no sort of interest. On the contrary, it
is the pride of the English and French Govern-
ments that this war has been undertaken for po-
litical purposes only ; that it has been conducted
for no selfish objects, and stimulated by no pas-
sions of ambition or resentment, and that it may
be concluded when those political objects are de-
finitively secured.
At the same time, while we receive with satis-
faction the assurance of the Russian Government
that a negotiation for the re-establishment of peace
may now be commenced on the basis and interpre-
tation laid down by the Western Powers them-
selves, it is essential, while this negotiation is
going on,
to continue, with, if possible, increased
rigour and promptitude, the military operations in
which the Allied armies are now engaged. It has
been repeatedly declared by the Allies that they
will entertain no proposal for a suspension of hos-
tilities until the preliminaries of a definitive treaty
of peace have been actually signed ; and one of the
articles of the treaty of the 2d of December in-
cluded a somewhat similar provision. At the point
at which the campaign in the Crimea has now ar-
rived, a strong hope may be entertained that, be-
fore the transactions to which we now refer can be
known there at all, some decisive success will have
been obtained by the Allied forces. The advan-
tage of such a victory would be incalculable, not
only for the glory it would shed over the Anglo-
French army by the accomplishment of one of the
greatest enterprises of modern warfare, but also
for the positive effect of the fall of Sebastopol in
the future independence of the East. When the
result of the campaign is achieved, it would be a
fOrtltAte event for this If oxlcl if this contest 'to*,

e___-e-e-/V.