The Sun.
London, England, 1855-11-15 00:00:00

THE BRITISH ARMY.

RETURN OF THE KINBOURN EXPEDI-
TIONARY FORCE.
(From the Times Special Oorrespondent.)

Nov. 3.
For the last four days it has been blowing a
sirocco, which painfully affects one just returned
from nearly a month's trip at sea. The air is hot,
heavy, and impregnated with most offensive and
irritating dust, which attacks nearly every sense at
once. The thermometer has ranged from 75 deg.
to 80 deg. from Wednesday up to this date. Late
on Wednesday evening the Triton, Odin, and Fire-
brand, the latter two with mortar and gun-boats in
tow, arrived, after rather a rough passage, at
Kazatch. The Triton went round to Balaklava
next morning, and in the course of Thursday a
number of French and English vessels, with troops
and stores on board, arrived, one after the other,
and anchored off Kamiesh and Kazatch. It blew
so hard that it was considered inexpedient to land
the troops. Yesterday the whole of the fleets ar-
rived at their anchorage, but the wind still blew
strongly on shore, and no disembarkation took
place that I am aware of, nor has the brigade
under Brigadier-General Spencer rejoined the
Fourth Division up to the time at which I am now
writing. The weather was too rough to permit
composition at sea, and I am consequently able to
send you only a very brief summary of our pro-
ceedings since the despatch of my last letter.
No regular mail left the fleet last Tuesday, and
the Admiral's letters were sent late in the day
by a French man-of-war, which would probably
fail to reach Constantinople in time for last Thurs-
day's mail.
Kinbourn is quite seemed against any forces the
enemy can bring against it, covered completely as
it is by the guns of the formidable flotilla we have
left behind to protect it. The garrison is strong ;
it is well to keep the exact force secret, but the
Russians must know as well as we can how many
men the fort will contain with convenience: The
French troops will occupy the fort, but a small
body of English will be left to guard the
flag which waves along with the tricolour from
its ramparts, and the task of its defence will be
shared by a powerful English squadron with our
allies. They have worked with extraordinary
energy to repair the place. All the curtains are re-
built, the ruins cleared away, the damaged guns
removed, and fine ships' guns put in their place ;
the fosse cleared out and deepened, the palisades
repaired, the south-eastern gateway filled up, and
its approaches covered tay a strong ravelin ; the
crest of the parapets repaired solidly and well with
fascines and earthwork, the Russian guns rendered
efficient, the casemates cle aced out and filled with
stores oradapted as barracks, and the interior build-
ings in course of reconstruction and renovation.
The batteries on the Spit are to be destroyed, and
that process is easily effected by removing the mas-
sive beams which support tke sand and few gabions
used in their construction. The reconnaissance
which started the week before last did very little,
except burn all the stores and houses which could
render service to the enemy for seven or eight miles
towards Kherson, and therefore I the less regret
being in the mouth of the Boug at the time it
started, and being unable to accompany it. The
total strength of the expedition was 4,541 men
and 279 horses. On the first day they only
marched to a village two miles beyond the place of
disembarkation on the Spit, the French being in
another village a mile in advance. On the second
day the men remained inactive. On the third slay
the force marched to another village three miles
further down the Spit, which was completely
deserted, except by an old man and his wife,
and by a peasant, who was found up a chimney.
Two of the Cossack douaniers came in and surren-
dered themselves to the troops. On the fourth day
the force returned, having still another day's sup-
plies, and having laid waste the country and cap-
tured and slain immense quantities of poultry,
geese, pigs, arc. The French were about 2,200
strong. One drummer was shot in the leg by an
unskilful pig-shooter, and bullets were flying in all
directions in search of geese, pigs, or cocks and hens,
whenever the force came to a halt. None of the
enemy molested them, but a body of 200 horse
watched them closely, retreating before them as
they advanced, and following them up on their re-
turn, not without some shots from a French gun-
boat, which accompanied the expedition as closely
as possible, but was still a long way from the
shore. The rafts are all safe off Kinbourn, and
they are no insignificant prize just at this
moment, when such efforts are being made to put
the Boug in a state of defence.
The dockyards of Nicolaie ff are supplied with
timber and wood from the government of Lig-

towski, which contains several largo forests of fine
trees. These are chiefly in the neighbourhood of
Mohilev, and Vitebsk. The wood is floated
down the Dnieper to Kherson iu rafts firmly
clamped and bound. together with strong and sub-
stantial huts upon them for the navigators. Each
raft is geueraliy composed of 4,000 large trunks of
oak tree 7, which aro covered with knees and
smaller pieces roughly shaped after drawings and
instructions sent to the cutters, so as to require
little trouble in being made available at once for
use in the dockyards. They are floated as. far as
the current will take them down the Dnieper,
and are met by the Government steamers out-
side or inside the bar off the mouths of that
river, and are by them towed up to Nicolaieff.
There must be at Nicholaieff some small steamers
at all events at this moment, but they have never
stirred, nor have we seen any traces of them in the
Boug. Kherson was the great ship-building and
maritime yard for the Black Sea fleet in former
clays, but the difficulty of building large ships there,
or rather of getting them away thence when once
they were built, owing to the shallow water on the
bar of the Dnieper forced the Russian Government
to remove their establishments to Nicolaieff, on the
confluence of the Boug and of the Ingul. The bar of
the Boug has a depth of 18 or 19 feet ; the bar of the
Dnieper has only 8 feet water on it in ordinary sea-
sons. The ships of the line are built at Nicholaieff,
but it is not improbable that small vesselsand frigates
of light draught may still be constructed at Kherson.
The arsenal at Nicolaieff is very extensive, but its
principal supplies of timber came from the Dnieper,
and the loss of these two rafts will be no inconsi-
derable injury, for fine oak timber such as they
contain is very dear and scarce in Russia. The
timber in the casemated Spit Battery, and the ex-
pense of erecting it, came to no less a sum than
45,000 silver roubles, or 7,5001. English currency.
It remains to be seen if Austria can supply Russia
with wood, as she already furnishes her with sup-
plies of oil, groceries, and manufactures of all
kinds ; that is, they are brought to Southern Russia
through the Austrian provinces.
Sir Edmund Lyons has presented one of the rafts
to the French—an act of courtesy and consideration
which our polite allies, no doubt, estimate at its
full value. Their dimensions are as follows :
The first is 420 feet long by 63 feet wide, and is 6
feet deep. The second is nearly the same length as
the first, is 54 feet broad, and grounded in 8 feet
water. At a rough calculation the two rafts con-
tain 90,000 cubic feet of the finest timber, and the
present made by the English fleet to the French,
through our Commander-in-Chief, cannot be esti-
mated at a lower value than 20,0001. ; at least, if
the timber was in England, it would be well worth
the money, for the majority of the balks, spars, and
centre pieces composing it are of the very finest
white oak.

The English journals contain, I perceive, many
comments on a statement published in my corm
spondence describing the ill-fated attack on the
Redan on the Bth Sept., in which the Commander-
in-Chief, the Quartermaster-General, and the Ge-
neral of Engineers were represented as being in the
second parallel, sheltering themselves as well as
they could from the effects of the dust and of the
bitter cold wind which blew throughout the day.
Now it is very far from my intention to expose
the Generals to ridicule. General Simpson came
out here as chief of the staff to ease Lord Rag-
lan of a load of duties which pressed but too
heavily upon him, and to neutralise the acids in
the Quartermaster-General and the Adjutant-
General's Departments. When Lord Raglan died
the command was thrust on General Simpson,
and he who had served for many anxious years,
feeling be was no longer the stout soldier who had
won renown for his unaristocratic name in the Pen-
insula, or who, as an experienced General, had been
regarded as the only successor to a Napier in India,
made representations to the Government at home
which did credit to his modesty and humility, if
not to his judgment, and begged of them to place
the command in other hands. Well, the Govern-
ment refused to do so. They left General Simpson
Commander-in-Chief of our army in spite of him-
self, and in defiance of his own diffident remon-
strances. Left ; no, but forced him—the round
peg, as he declared himself to be—into the square
hole ; and now they are astonished forsooth that
the peg did not ht Again, is there any good
ground for attacking one whose business it is to
tell all that is interesting to the British public for
saying what the Generals did, how they were placed
and appeared ? I cannot answer the question, but
it strikes me, if it be answered in the affirmative,
the respondent must be the last of the Protection-
ists—that he must be the Don Quixote of " sham,"
the champion of humbug, and the high priest of
national delusiOn. Why is this writer to be at-
tacked Because he exposed these distinguished
officers to ridicule and calumny. What, is not
a General a human being ? If he is cold, must he
alone not wear a cloak ? if sick, must he alone not
avail himself of a litter ? if storm-driven, must he
alone bear its peltings with uncovered ears ? Are
" distinguished officers" to be always in full uni-
form—in cocked hats, epaulettes, orders, and jack-
boots, shouting, " Follow me !" to their legions,
or taking snuff d la Gomersall and Napoleon in ex-
treme military crises in front of their battalions
If they are, they ought not to be ; surely, if they
ought to be, they are not.