The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-13 00:00:00

The Navy of the Confederate States.

The following extracts from the annual report of
the Secretary of the Confederate navy—a document
which has been briffly noticed in our columns—will
be read with interest in this country :

During the months of July and August I sent 27 com-
missioned officers and forty trustworthy petty officers to the
British Provinces, with orders to organise an expedition and
co-operate with army officers in an attempt to release the
Confederate prisoners confined on Johnson's Island, in Lake
Erie. From time to time I learned that the arrangements
made were such as to insure the most complete success. A
large amount of money had been expended, and just as our
gallant naval officers were about to set sail on this expedi-
tion, the English authorities gave information to the enemy
and thus prevented the execution of one of the best planned
enterprises of the present war. In accordance with the order
of the President, early in tho present year, I despatched
several agents to England and France, with orders to con-
tract for eight iron-clad vessels, suitable for ocean service,
and calculated to resist the ordinary armament of wooden
vessels of the enemy. These ships were to be provided with
rams, and designed expressly to break the blockade of such
of the ports as were not blockaded by the iron. clad moni-
tor's of the enemy. Five of these vessels were contracted for
in England, and three in France. Due precautions were
taken against contravening laws of England in the construc-
tion and equipment of these vessels. Three have been corn
frleted ; but owing to the unfriendly construction of her
neutrality laws, the Government of England stationed seve-
ral war vessels at the mouth of the Mersey, and prevented
their departure from England. Subsequently they were seized
by the British Government. Another end larger vessel
has since been completed ; but it is doubtful if she will be
allowed to leave the shores of England, although it is be-
lieved the precautions taken are sufficient to exempt her
from the fate of her consorts. The vessels being constructed
in France have been subjected to so many official visitations
that I have forwarded instructions to cease operations upon
them, until the result of negotiations now pending shall
permit our agent to resume work upon them. In this con-
nection, it is proper for me to state, that, the great revulsion
in popular sentiment, both in England and France, toward
the Conielderate Government, has rendered our efforts to ob-
tain supplies from those countries almost abortive. In view
of all possible contingencies, I have instructed the agents of
this department to wait a more favourable opportunity for
carrying out the instructions previously forwarded. By the
last I sent instructions that will shortly be made apparent
to our enemies nearer home. Ido not deem it advisable to
communicate any portion of these plans to your honourable
body at the present time. Although the operations of our
navy have not been extensive, I cannot overlook the services
of Captain Semmes in the Alabama. During the year he
has captured upwards of ninety vessels, seventy of which
wXe destroyed, the others being either bound or released.
On of the greatest drawbacks this officer reports having
experienced is the difficulty he now has in procuring full
supplies ot• (foals. The provincial English authorities have
hitherto affoCiecl him every faciiity, but recently they have
interpretated their neutrality laws so stringently that our
war-vessels and privateers are much embarrassed in obtain-
ing suitable 'supplies. I have instructed Captain Semmes
to purchase coal from neutral shipmasters wherever he'
found it, and give them every necessary document to pro-
tect them against the effect such sale may have upon their
vessels when they reteirn to their several countries. By this
means I anticipate a suffieient supply of coal will be ob-
tained to enable him to conti.:lll,o his operations during the
coming winter.

The other operations of this depaftment have been chiefly
confined to making such preparations
or naval operations
as circumstances might permit. From tiniq to time 1 have
caused surveys to be made upon steamers
~unning the
blockade, with a view of purchasing such as coulu he made
available as war vessels. Several have been bought, and
are now being transformed into ships of war. In conclusion,
I would recommend the immediate pa;sage of an act autho-
rising the construction of at least six turreted iron-dads for
harbour operations. The experience of the past year has
demonstrated that such vessels are absolutely necessary, if
we expect to break through and destroy the blockade at
present established by the enemy.

MR. TENNIEL'S PORTRAITS are something mar-
vellous, with just that exaggeration which is only
a certain kind of idealism; and he always gives character
without a spice of offensive personality. Mr. Disraeli, per-
haps, is somewhat lowered, and Lord Russell is almost
always caricatured ; but Lord Palmerston and Mr. Might,
who is evidently no favourite. are always admirably por-
trayed. Lord Jelin Russell—he was Lord John Ru-sell
then—as a little earnest, scraggy nurse-girl, ineffectually
toiling and pushing a perambulator heavly weighted with
a dull Reform Bill baby up the steps of Parliament, is only
less happy than the famous Page " not st ong enough for
the place." the exact political status of the noble lord could
not have been hit off in a score of written pages with the vivid
practical recognition of character which this single dr iwing
embodies. Mr. Bright, as the Quaker Cromwell, ordering
that bauble, the Constitution, off the table of the House, is
equally comprehensive. On the whole, Mr. Punch's—that
is, Mr. Tenniol's patriotism and right feeling may
be safely trusted. Unlike Gill ay, _Punch seldom swaggers
and brags. In the Look out for Squalls, John Bull, as a
burly foretop man of the Britannia, looks down with good-
humoured contempt on the melodramatic small Yankee
captain, who struts in all the blood-and-thunder savagery
of revolvers and buff-boots ; but John Bull is not an offen-
sive egotist. In this respect an English political artist has
the advantage of his Parisian rival. In the Chayivari
Franco is always a semi-nude female taken from the
cou/isses; it would not be permitted in Paris to draw the
Emperor in a pictorial feuilleten, But in ranch we can
symbolise Gdvernment either by the conventional Britannia,
or by the Queen, or by the abstract John Bull, or by the
Premier of the day. This gives great scope to variety.
And what is curious is, that Mr. Tenniel always contrives
to give the air and manners of a gentleman to all his
political characters, in whatever grotesque masque-
rade ho may think proper to draw them. If Lord
Palmerston is an ostler, or a cabinet-maker, or a policeman,
he is always a gentleman. Mr. Punch himself, in his,
various disguises, shows good breeding under his hump.
John Bull in the Windsor Uniform, though coarse and
burly in frame, yet shows blood and race, though it is a
mistake in this picture to make him present the Queen with
the Exhibition Building of 1862 after the abortive three-
domed design of Captain Fowke. It would perhaps be im-
possible with truth to give Earl Russell the marks of per •
sonal dignity; but with all his sourness and irritable pert-
ness of character, Mr. Tenniel does justice to the Foreign
Secretary's honesty and intellectual quickness.—Saturday
Review.

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5:2.12115.' cm TIM runic JOURNALS.

TlMEs.—Soite years ego the elder members acne
of our Universities wren ecenstomed to spend much
sympathy and some coin upon a celebreted Jehu
who had been deposed and rained by the then re-
cent railway. his' calling was gone, and he was in
miserable plight. Suddenly, however, his penury
seemed to cease, and, although many believed that
he had lost his wits, all agreed that he must have
found a fortune. Our friend might every day be
seen upon a branch turnpike road in the neigh-
bourhood of Camiord, driving sometimes a gig and
sometimes a cart up and down from 500 yards on
one side of the turnpike gate to 500 yards on the
other side, but always keeping himself to this short
bit of road, and always as ho went through the gate
paying the toll and taking a ticket. 0:c1 Splinter-
bar was very close upon the object of his drives
and payments at that time, and perhaps it was lucky
for him De. Forbes Winslow did not happen to
pass that way, but somehow it was that there was
method and profit also in his apparent madness.
Months later he did not mind showing his friends
how he was engaged all that time in "making
traffic for the new brunch line." There was a traffic
taker inside the tollhouse who marked him down
every time he passed, and the traffic-taker proved
his figures, the toll-collector proved his receipts,
and the ticket vouchers proved the tickets, and all
went before the House of Commons' Committee ;
and by this simple means one' of the most solitary
cross-roads in those parts became statistically one
of the most frequented communications in the
kingdom. Recalling to mind these and many other
stories of the same kind, we are not disposed to put
implicit faith in the estimates recently put forth by
the promoters of the new metropolitan schemes as
to the numbers of men who daily come in by rail
and omnibus from the environs of London to keep
business hours in the metropolis. The suggestion
made is that 700,00 persons come into London
every morning and go out of London every night.
This may be, and probably is, a great exaggera-
tion ; but there can be no doubt that the real
figures, if they could be obtained, must also be very
large and far beyond the control of any such agency
as that of our friend in the gig. Perhaps eveshould
not be far beyond the mark in estimating that half
a million of persons engaged in business transac-
tions in London during the day sleep out of town
in habitations within a radius of five-and-twenty
miles. This is a fact which deserves much more
careful attention than it has hitherto obtained. It
marks an epoch in the habits of our people, it disc
covers a new want scarcely known to the last gene-
ration, end it indicates a mine of wealth as yet very
imperfectly worked by the railway companies. It
is under every discouragement that all this vast
population migrates morning and evening. These
people do not appear in the metropolitan Census,
they form no portion of the estimated three millions
of the metropolis, and no doubt their number would
be doubled if the facilities of transport were what
they ought to be. If we look beyond the smoke,
we may see that the railway traffic-master can dis.
tribute them as a magician can conjure his spirits.
Where there are trains every quarter of an hour,
villages of villas and little towns of cottages lightly
cover the landscape. The Crystal Palace, despite
its clayey soil, will soon be in the very midst of
suburban London. Again, where the trains are
numerous in the morning, with a late train at night
for the playgoers, and the London diners-out, and
the late workers, the larger houses rise and the
railway residential revenue increases. The South-
Eastern bids very fairly for a large traffic of this
kind, and is getting it—the landowners down the
line and the public sharing the gain with the Com-
pany. The South-Western is rather niggard of
conveniences, and with, perhaps, the finest oppor-
tunities of converting some 40 miles of valueless
line into, a highly paying district, stops short in
its resident accommodation at Weybridge. The
Great Western is far too prowl, though by no means
too prosperous,to attend to such small matters, With
he best line and perhaps the most unskilful staff
in England, it utterly neglects the mine of revenue
which lies in the beautiful country about Marlow,
and, indeed, all down to Pangbourne. The lines of
the Great Northern and of the Great Eastern are
not laid in pleasant places, and there is something
about the traditions of the latter line which does
not invite the confidence necessary to habitual
travel, The change of name and even the estab-
lishment of several Accidental Death Insurance
Companies have not yet succeeded in rendering the
Eastern Counties popular as a place for cockney
ruralising. The North Western, with many disad-
vantages of soil and climate, and a distant London
station, have by liberality in trains and residents'
tickets begirt Harrow with first-class houses, and
gathered a population on their line. But none of
these traffic-masters have studied the habits of the
fish it is their business to catch, Any traffic-master
who considered the matter for a moment must know
that the great London deliveries of suburban resi-
dents ought to be at 8 45, 9 45, and 10 45. The
junior clerk, the junior partner in the retail busi-
ness, and all the active, youthful, and subordinate
little wheels of London commerce begin to revolve
exactly at nine,—not a moment later, for punctu-
ality is the soul of business. The junior partners,
managing clerks, and people of second-rate autho-
rity, arrive with equal exactitude at ten. The
magnates, when the letters are opened and docketed,
the orders registered, the Stock Exchange open,
and the world well aired, come in, to the moment,
at eleven. All the world of London knows this,
and every one acts upon it except the traffic-mas-
ters. In stupid indifference to the wants of their
customers and the pockets of their shareholders,
they not only make their lines inconvenient for re-
sidential purposes, but they circumscribe the area
available for habitations and neske the available
places crowded and uncomfortable. Any of our
readers who will glance at the " Map of Metropo-
litan Railways and Miscellaneous Improiements
deposited at the Private Bilboffice,"just published,
will readily discern the state of things which has
„, egeoted the observations we are making. Before
the I\e:tropolitan Railways are intrusted with new
l "
powers
st the;
they ought to show that they are making
the
eau of the facilities they now have.
l? use .
Ali these new London nrejects can be for no other
-e
Purpose than to catch the me. evening re-
sidential truffle. The occasional ~`welter, encum-
bered by his luggage, must take his cab e.? his rest.ing place at all events. It is the habitual, unialee,
daily customer who wants to be set down within
five or ten minutes of his shop, or his counting
house, or his office. It is for this custom the fight
is to be made. But the fight should be made not
only in the London streets, but in the country. The
customers will grow up upon the lines that have the
most frequent trains and the most liberal system of
yearly tickets. There can be no doubt that the most
paying thing at this moment would be a series of
short residential lines, restricted to reside ntial traffic,
going 25 miles into the country round London, but
converging into two or three lines near London, and
with trains every quarter of an hour. Far be it
from us to propose anything of the sort in the pre-
sect state of affairs, but the object should be to get
as near to this as we can with the least possible in-
terference with present arrangements, and, above
all, without unnecessarily disturbing the streets of
London. If the shareholders of the present lines
would spur their directors, and the directors would
take the traffic masters rather energetically by the
collar and shake them into a consciousness of the
present state of the wants of the metropolis, a great
deal might be done without costly Parliamentary
contests or pulling down London.

TELEGRAPIL—Mercy weeps, and Justice herself
takes part with her dismayed sister in protesting
against the deed which wasdonaewyfuelsteehradraayeatetrHisotireseis-
mongerlane Gaol. Its most
that it stands irrevocable; for the appeal of pity
made by the people on behalf of Samuel Wright
has been carried ere now by his own sad spirit to a
tribunal beyond the purview of earthly rulers.
Adjudged upon compassionately there—as we may
think it will be—the ruling of that sublime and
faultless Court of Error cannot set right again the
wrong done here. It remains an injustice irrever-
sible, an eternally petrified mistake, a piece of cold
officialism and Ministerial stiff-neckedness stereo-
typed for bad, and all by the gallows. The man
whose life might yesterday have been saved by one
stroke of the Secretary's pen—by one generous and
observant impulse rising above the dead level of
routine—lies now in a felon's grave, with a prison
passage for his cemetery and a shroud of qpicklime
for his funeral cerements. No ghost evoked with in-
genious optical methods, or imagined by a diseased
brain, could possess the power and the horror of that
corpse. From the grave it accuses its executioners of
an unmerited death, which the crowd—hardly re-
strained at the scaffold by respect for law—hooted
"as a murder." From the grave it raises that most
perilous and catching cry of" one law for the rich
and another for the poor," which can hardly be con-
tradicted while Victor Townley lives and Samuel
Wright moulders. From the grave, too, it reminds,
and will long remind the country, of that strange
and distressing scene enacted yesterday, when the
homicide on the scaffold bowed with his darkened
face to the people crying " Shame !" on his han-
man. When and while the choked lungs
fluttered,
and the heart's throb paused, and the poor brain
dulled to all thingi, in this life except to that one
terrible and slow agony tedious'y fading off from
nerve and organ, Wright must still have heard his
countrymen crying against the infliction of that
supreme penalty. What did it mean, thi-! sympathy
for the man ? Was he not a murderer? Had he
not slain with his own hand the woman who was
his companion ?
By
his own immediate and
wretched confession
he had done so; and the Eng-
lish people have no maudlin pity for the shedder of
blood. But the feeling grows stronger every day .

3

.Imengit ;,,,- T 1 It ft: 1)1001a
ctrl It ba ani c-42 the' rct
list of " mui•cletti" this rot stand the Weirs
class. It was an set of vie:, and of pa,sion, hot dev°
wit-I,ov premeditation, and unon starting up frtil,
sleep; it wsis swiftly made known, readily fickev"d
legged, briefly tried, and hurriedly adjudgi,d• I°d
could not sell a house or buy a bit lof gurden-grel,l3,
so quickly as Samuel Wright was arrestea:
arraigned, and cast for death; and while the pro
securing counsel himself therefore pressed for delay(
justcircumstances, produce palliating circustancss, the people had
witnessed a most doubtful act of clemencY9B"„o
demanded, with a wise and humane logic, that the
dopartmcnt which had seen insanity in jealous
should not see wilful murder in the frenzy of a hasty
quarrel, completed and repented of within the
seconds. They demanded it, as all know too scei
in vain, and now the dangerous experlen.co
has passed upon the public of an execution
hooted by its spectators, If anything could
lend gravity to such an event, it would
be the self-restraint shown by the indignant erow,.,;
Five. hundred policemen and a few barriers of else
timber could not yesterday have kept the that-18,4110
who shouted " Shame !" from tearing Wright frog
the gallows, if their sympathy for him had net "
its basis in love of law and justice. This become
then, no common incident—no mock-heroic deli
annals—no Jack Sheppard or rollicking Mach
kissing hands to the mob, and cheered out of :11
in return, as a bold, light-hearted rogue• st
leaving the crowd out of the question as the leefa
important portion of the tragedy, those who Veco
have gone, but who stayed away in order to bs ,
no hand or part in the business, must be rerilerj3„
tiered. For every hundred spectators at the bahe
ing there would have been thousands, but that thosd
who usually bear to look on such things leer
sternly denied themselves the spectacle, rsiatuo
than seem to warrant a judicial murder. IY2/I,eb;
again, behind all these absentees, we think of "„d
thousands who actively protested, by argument %,
meeting. and petition against the execution oat
eluding men of mark and character, and alfl3°,,
all the London press with its million readers
the terrible thought is more and more impresser
upon us that at Horsemonger-lane gaol the cefi
try was on this occasion one way be and the Geverr
ment another, as to whether the life should ,
strangled out of the poor bricklayer. The Gayer:4
meet, however, is a shadowy term, and we 113-„,0
bring closer home the responsibility of the 0111.4
blood. Solemnly feeling, then, how grave a tu,,/,er
we say, and how good a gift it is that a Nfinl'ild
should have the courage to disregard clamour to
follow law, we cannot avoid the duty of laying
misery. and mistake of this deed upon the hea're.
Sir George Grey. We would do the Home SEe're
tary j.ustice—and we are sure we do him no 00e4
than. justice in believing that he would have /35f/old
Wright if, in his own official opinion, "be c°„- s
ha.ve. saved him." It would be absurd to bolieliwoot
Minister obstinately bent upon exacting the
el
penalty from such a criminal, and Sir George
rgel
neither the character nor the bearing of a' I; 0
man. His error was not of the heart so roue" na
of the head, and has been bred of that cold so,
dull official blood which routine and foolscap engAed
der. He would have drawn the blunted es'l.,,,er
Mercy from its sheath, instead of the pointed tb
pon of Justice, but that his own fingers had tied of
blade to the scabbard with Gordian targiefloe
rest tape. Had he been less ministerial and ""fis0
of a Minister he would have perceived that 110%00
precisely a case where the instincts of the Pelie.
were a great deal more weighty than such conite...
rations as that there had been a reprieve boo' el.
that. there mustn't be too many—that poptilarlibe
mon was encroaching upon the sacred carpet ° „eft
Home-office—that Government was Urovern111"00
and must be maintained. These, we say, artier&
kind of thoughts which haunted Sir George 'OO
and which—proving him far more foolish and co
oio
~ monplace than cruel or haughty--sustained io
the unfortunate business to its bloody ends nsibl'
then that horror comes in, and that the reePeridel,
lay which we lay upon the Minister's eb°"4icisl
stains our hands with crimson and soils his 0740
dress with the same colour. The obstinacy t11,11"celi
ministerial in the office was homicidal in ti.,11,
bleak air of. the winter morning when Wrigis","ocilia'
forth to die for having committed manslauke'tose;
judiciously close after a murder elsewhere. ,un",b oa
not take the weight of " the bricklayer's" deal,
the head that nodded assent so easily when
gentleman".. was pronounced mad. And 1/131'ileie
nislerial responsibility is a reality and not a 1100'
it is not only jest that we should refer thole ate
ters to the right man, but he himself must be, and
pared to accept the reference. It is a gret ,
even a sublime authority to stand before the 1-7,00ri
the official " master of life," the incarnate otei
of Final Appeal ; and if heart or head eelcicale
for that cffice
brained,. we must say so, for life and death 0,51 orge
public weal are
question. On Sir ve, ot
be too cold or too Wild tbe
Grey lies the load of-this event, if shameful/ae
we think it was . with him remains all tyr
credit of his firmness if Wright's net was a inrall
der, and Victor Toeera4/, was not.
is the adviser of the Crown in these matters;.
those who placed a petition on this subject I.ll_,Per•
Majesty's hands asked of her tender heart an
ference which her wise and experienced mind.. s_e,:e"-a,
to have refused to her strong inclinations..ll3ecY
He, and he 0ti..1
eo
plo's instinct, striking the balance of Jus.lle
fairly in these perplexed cases, has fixed eeit!iteooo
same acumen on him who is to blame in the PI bey
business. It is the Home Secretary, and Olt jot
and now but one hope is left, namely, that tblscepe
chance of mercy—with the dreadful scaffold 04
lately enacted when Alice Holt died, and the
~0 it)
inconsistence of logic or law which Psrd%ther
Derbyshire to hang in Middlesex—may together
work upon public opinion so as speedily to rood
the power of life and death out of the nece
erring hands of parliamentary officiels.