The Sun.
London, England, 1855-08-28 00:00:00

BOMBA RDMENT OF SWEABORG.

EXTRACT OF A LETTER FROM A WARRINGTON ENGINEER.
To-day (Thursday, the 9th of August) we have
given the Russian bears hard and dry. At this
time, 9 p.m., Sweaborg is partially on fire. I will
as briefly as possible describe our ship's share in
these transactions. First, early in the morning we
up steam and went, in. company with the Cossack
and Arrogant, among some islands. We and the
Arrogant grounded for a short time, but the slow
speed we were going enabled us to get off with
comparatively little trouble. There was a body of
infantry belonging to the enemy about 800 yards
from us, under cover of a wood. We stopped about
four, and then got orders to open fire. The affair
was horrible—the whizzing of the rockets and shells
quite stunning. An officer on board told me he
watched the first shell from the Cossack. It fell
amongst a party of the enemy ; he thinks it killed
and wounded 10. They scampered under cover,
and had not the courage to fire a shot. In
the meantime the fleet commenced operations.
In the night the French had erected a bat•
tery of mortars on a rock. At a quarter to eight
bmg goes a large gun, as a signal I suppose, for
immediately it was followed by all the mortar-
vessels which had keen placed in position before.
Tile Russians spiritedly returned the fire. Our
gun-boats then steamed in, and two 60 gun-ships.
They set fire to a building about 10 o'clock ; in
half an hour after a magazine blew up. Attempts
to describe it fully would be sure to fail ; but about
seven this evening the fire got a firm hold of the
place, and the heavens are now illuminated by it.
We keep throwing a few shell in it, and it seem_ s con-
stantly to increase. Our ship has thrown 175 shells
to-day, beside shot and rockets. You may see the
shell burst in the air, and the cannon shot plough
tip the water. There is a large white building
on fire, supposed to be the governor's house.
The worst fur them is, that if once a fire is com-
menced, the shipping fire there so hotly that it is
next to impossible to stop near it. Our range is
longer than theirs. They must have lost a large
number of men. To-night they fire very seldom.
There is a considerable town, Helsingfors, about 5
miles from here. The admiral can harm it if he
likes. Ido not know yet whether he will. There
is a Russian liner about three miles away, under a
large battery—it will be destroyed if not unmoored.
I wish you were here and could see what is going
on. I had quite forgot to mention that about 12
o'clock I was loaking out of the ship, when sud-
denly I felt almost lifted off my feet by the windage
of our own shot—a large cannon being fired just
aboTe me. lam in capital spirits.—Warrington

Guardian.
The following is an extract from a letter received
fsorn Mr., John William, C. G. Officer on board
_H.M.S. Edinburgh :
" Nargen, off Revel, 13th August, 1855.
ci We commenced the bombardment on. Thur-
sday the 9th inst., at 7.30 a.m. It was chiefly car-
ried on by the mortar and gun vessels, in all about
31 or 32 in number. The shells thrown were 13
inch diameter, those •f the French 10-inch ; dis-
tance from the batteries three to four thousand
yards. The mortar vessels were moored with
cables of 480 fathoms long, in and out, so as to
enable them to haul out or in as circumstances re-
quired. By this means they baffled the Russian
gunners. The gun-boats kept up steam, stood
in within proper range, fired their bow guns, then
rounded ,their sterns and fired the stern guns,
stood out and re-loaded. There was most excel-
lent practice ; it was both rapid and precise. There
were several dreadful explosions of magazines, and
consequently hundreds of the Russians must have
been blown into the air. There was an awful de-
struction in the vicinage of the arsenal and dockyard,
in the
burnedwhich
on
the
stocks. The war ships of large
conflagra-
tiondi-
mensions
was terrificly grand, and when we came away
severalto-day the flames were still progressing. The boats
from the fleet, 22 in number, went in on the two
nights succeeding the bombardment, armed with
241 b. rockets, with which they plied the place,
doing a vast amount of damage. Our captain went
into action in our gun-boat, armed with a Lancas-
ter gun, the shots from which reached a three-
decker at the entrance of the harbour, but she was
too far inside and under the cover of very heavy
batteries to attempt to cut her out. During the
time that our gun-boats and mortar vessels were
engaged, two of our line-of-battle ships and one
frigate attacked another battery on the opposite
sid of the island, but they sustained such a
severe fire of red-hot shot from the enemy that
they were obliged to haul off different tiuiea