The Sun.
London, England, 1852-03-04 00:00:00

;ceeded to the representation of the East Riding of
Yorkshire.
" The Hon. Arthur Duncomber, born March, 24, 1306,
is fourth son of the first Lord Feversham, by Charlotte,
only, daughter of Willism second Earl of Dartmouth,
and brother of the present peer. He is also brother of
Hon. Octavius. Duneombe, M.L'., an officer in the let
Regiment of Life Guards; and brother-in-law both of
the present Earl of Eldon and of Sir Thos. i)igby Le-
gut], Bart. This °Meer entered the navy Ist April,
1819, and ataincd a lieutenancy 2Gth January, 1323, in
rife Sringapafam, 43, Captain Chas, Sotheby. After
serving some time in the Challenger, 23, he was awureed
a commander's commission Bat August, 1828. Ile
subsequently joined, 6th August, 1830, the Princa Re-
gent,
120, bearing the flag at the Nore of Hoe. Sir
Henry Blackwood, and 27th June, 1332, the Champion,
18, in which sloop he appears to have been employed for
two years on the Mediterranean station. Since the date
of his post-promotion, 21th October, 1834, he hl-ks not
been afloat. Ho married, 14th July, 1836, Delia,
youngest daughter and co-heir of John Wilmer Field,
Esq., of Heaton Hull, county cf York, and has lane
three sons and one daughter."
Captain A. Milne (1839), as we have stated, was
a member of Sir F. Baring's Board of Admiralty.
We have already given his services ; but we may
remark that since his first entry into the service in
1817 he bas been out of full-pay only eight years.
The second secretary, Captain W. A. B. Hamilton
(1828), every one knows, as one of the most coin..
tends, affable, and excellent of official men. He
served mist actively afloat for 13 years; but on shore
he 'has always been employed in some official ser-
vies. O'Byrne does him only bare justice. We may
add that previously to his appointment as private se-
cretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty he was
private secretary to the Earl of Haddington when
Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. Perhaps ,no man cf his
age has so much official experience as Captain Ha-
milton ; no man is more ready, apt, and able ;
nd
altogether he is one of the most permanent}
acquisitions to the navy of the present day. We be-
lieve his afloat-services have never yet been published
in a newspaper, and on that account we deem the
present a good opportunity for printing the following
in our columns :

" William Alexander Baillie Hamilton, born June 6
1803, at Normanbv, county York, is third son of the late
Yen. Charles Baillie Hamilton, Archdeacon of Cleve-
land, by Lady Charlotte Home, youngest daughter of
the ninth, and aunt to the present Earl of Home; brother
of Sir George Baillie Hamilton, K.C.H., her Majesty's
Minister at the Court of Tuscany, and of Commander
Cospatriek Baillie Hamilton, R.N.; first cousin of Capt.
Thomas Baillie, R.N., and second cousin cf the late Earl
of Haddington, late Lord Privy Seal. This officer en-
tered the navy August 21, 1816, as first-class volunteer,
on board the Rochfort, 80, commanded at Portsmouth
by Captain Sir A. Collingwood Dickson, with whom he
served until his removal, in April, 1817, to the Royal
Naval College. In October, 1819, he again embarked
on board the Vigo, 75, Captain Thomas Brown, fitting
for the flag of Rear-Admiral Robert Lambert, but was
soon afterwards transferred to the Active, 46, Captain
Sir James Alexander Gordon, in which we find him
visiting the Mediterranean, and in August, 1821, at-
tending George IV. to Ireland. After a further
attachment of nearly two years to the Euryalus,
42, Captain A. W. J. Clifford, and Revenge, 78,
flag ship of Sir Harry Burrard Neale, both on the
Mediterranean station, Mr. Hamilton was promoted, Dec.
1, 1823, to a lieutenancy in his old frigate, the Active,
Captain Andrew King, then off Lisbon. He was subse-
quently appointed, Jan. 26, 1824, to the Blanche, 46,
Captain William Bowen Mends, in which ship he con-
veyed Vice Admiral Lord Amtlius Beauclerk to the
Tagus, and next proceeded to South America; Dec. 2,
1824, to the Windsor Castle, 74, Captain Hugh Down-
man, lying at Plymouth; July 26, 1825, to the Druid,
46, Captain S. Chambers, forming part of an experi-
mental squadron; Much 1, 1826, to the Ganges, 84,
fitting for the flag of Rear Admiral R. W. Otway; and
lastly to the Blonde, 46. In that frigate he immediately
proceeded to Bermuda with dispatches for the Com-
mrnder-in-Chief, Rear Admiral Willoughby Thomas
Lake, by whom, on his arrival, he was placed in
command of the Doterel, sloop. His promotion meeting
with official sanction, Nov. 17, 1826, Captain Hamilton
was next, July 2, 1827, appointed to the Pelican, 18,
in the Mediterranean; previously, however, to joining,
which vessel ho appears to have elicited the approba-
tion of Sir Edward Codrington while employed by
that admiral in communicating with the officer in com-
mand of the Turkish forces in the Mores. He after-
wards watched the harbour of Navarin, until at length
enabled to report to the commander in chief at Malta
the intelligence cf its evacureion by the remains of the
enemy's fleet; end in October, 1828," he witnessed the
final departure of Ibrahim Pacha's army from the
Mona. Captain Hamilton, who, during his cruise off
that peninsula, as well as with Sir Thomas Staines at
Grabusa, had been very efficaciously employed in the
suppression of piracy, and had been advanced to post
rank by commission dated August 9, 1828, resigned the
command of the Pelican Dee. 1, in the same year. Ho
has not since been afloat. Captain Hamilton was ap-
point( d, in 1841, private secretary to his relative Lord
Haddington, thou First Lord of the Admiralty, and
after acquiring, in the discharge of the duties of that
delicate and:important post, the affection and esteem of
the service to an extent, we believe, unparalleled, was
selected in January, 1845, to succeed Sir John Barrow,
Bart., in the Second Secretaryship of the Admiralty.
He married August 15, 1836, Lady Harriet Hamilton,
sister of the Marquis of Abercorn, and daughter of the
late Viscount Hamilton, by Harriet, granddaughter of
the 15th Earl of Morton, who, on the Viscount's death,
married, secondly, the present Earl of Aberdeen, late
her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs."
The private secretary to the First Lord, Captain
the Hon. F. T. Pelham (1840), has served afloat
about eighteen years • he was a most excellent
officer, and will, we doubt not, prove a second Cap-
tain Hamilton in his new office.
" The Hon. Frederick Thomas Pelham, born August
2, 1808, is the second son of Thomas, second Earl of
Chichester (who filled the office of secretary to Lords
Northington and Camden, when Lords Lieutenants of
Ireland, and was afterwards Secretary of State for the
Home Department, and Postmaster- General), by Hen-
rietta Juliana, daughter of Fres. Godolphin, fifth Deka
of Leeds. His brother, the present Earl of Chichester,
is married to a sister of the Earl of Cardigan. This
officer entered the navy, June 27, 1823, and while at-
tached, es midshipman, to the Sybille, 48, Captain Sam.
John Pechell, was present in 1826 in an attack on the
pirates in the Grecian Archipelago. He passed his ex-
amination in 1829; acquired the rank of lieutenant,
Feb. 22, 1830; served as first of the Ferret, 10, Captain
Edward Wodehouse, on the Mediterranean station, from
28th of April following, until paid off at the commence-
ment of 1832; and between 2d of May in the latter year
and the date of his promotion to the rank of commander,
Sept. 21, 1835, was employed on the north coast of
Spain in the Castor, 36, Captain Lord John Hay. For
services performed while in command, from Jan. 17,
1837, until the autumn of 1838, of the Tweed, 20, on
the Lisbon station, Captain Pelham was presented,
18e4 Odin,
Aug.
9, 1839, with the cross of San Fernando. He attained
post-rank, July 3, 1840; and since May 24, 7
been in command, in the Mediterranean, of
h
steam-frigate, of 560-horse power. He married, in July,
c
1841, Ellen Kate, daughter of Rowland Mitchell,
of Upper Harley-street, by whom he has issue.., was en-
Rear-Admiral Houston Stewart,
C.B
M.P
tertained last night at the Trafalgar HOWL Greenwich,
The Gallant
by a numerous body of his constituents-1
Admiral, defended the administration of the late board
with respect to the preserved meats, and the efficiency of
the Megxra screw troopship. He al so gave a list of the
great improvements effected by the late board, and
warmly eulogised the Duke of Northumberland and the
members of the new board as honest, able, and good
men, who have the interests of the service at heart.
DEFENCES OF SPITHEAD.-The buoy-boat belonging
to the dockyard went out from Portsmouth on Tuesday,
taking a party of engineer, officers, and some privates of
the corps of Sappers and Miners, to examine a site for a
battery which will be erected for the defence of the en-
trance to Spithead anchorage. Rear-Admiral Superin-
tendent Prescott, C. 8., also went out in his yacht, the
Portsmouth, to examine the position fixed on for the
battery, which is to be placed about a mile and a halt
from Nettleton, on the No Man'a Land
.shoal, about two
or three miles inside the Nab Light vessel. The shoal
and
is nearly dry at low-water spring tides, the bottom
rather rocky; the ground was bored on Tuesday.
Whether the battery will be built of stone, or whether it
Set
will be a pile battery, we have not
fhe4ld.b W
several times advocated the building
the south-west side the Spit shoal; a° flaeePticeouldt,teaertyn
havepr-
sent, anchor at Spithead out of range of all the guns at
Portsmouth. A battery on the Spit, with a Martell°
tower or two on the Isle of Wiaht, would completelycommand the extensive anchorage
at Spithead.
Fairy, Royal Yacht tender Master Commander
Welsh, and the Elfin tender, were taken
out of Ports-
mouth yesterday morning by Commander Crispin, to
prove their engines,
conveying the Court to Osborne on the Bth. &se, preparatory to their services in
Rear-
Admiral Superintendent Prescott went down in the
Fairy as far as Stoke's Bay, where he landed to look at
the two new forts now in course of erection at Browns-
down.
Simoom screw troop-ship, Captain Kingcome, having
repaired her defects and adjusted her compasses, was
removed from Portsmouth steam-basin yesterday morn-
ing,
and
will be taken out of harbour, round Spithead,
and along the measured mile in Stoke's Bay, to test her
machinery and speed.
Fire Queen steamer was taken out of Portsmouth
steam-basin yesterday morning. She will be dismasted
and brought into dock to have her boilers examined.
A seaman belonging to the Polyphemus steam-sloop,
at Woolwich, in a drunken fit, attempted to cut his
throat yesterday. He had instant medical attendance,
and, his wounds having been dressed, lie is now doing
well.
PORTSMOUTH, WEDNESDAY.--The Fairleigh convict-
ship, embarked some convicts yesterday Spiro
.head, and
proceeded to Cowes to receive anotherved from
burst Prison. The Madagascar, Indianian, err'
gagotg mPthe River yesterday,
The Essex, aaileu yes-
terday for Madras,