The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-13 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

The East India and London Shipping Company's
screw steamship Calcutta, Capt. J. H. Wright, the
arrival of which in the Channel, with troops on
board from Madras, was announced in The Sun of
yesterday, anchored at Spithead yesterday morn-
ing, and at five p.m. steamed into Portsmouth
Harbour and was berthed alongside the dock,where
she will. land the troops this morning under the
superintendence of the military authorities. The
invalids,of 89 men, 3 women, and four
children,
forwarded by Government steamer
o the Royal
y willal Victoria
be consisting
Military Hospital, at Netley.
The time expired troops, consisting of 40 men, 10
t
women, and 14 children, will be sent on to the
depots of their respective regiments. Four soldiers
died during the passage home from Madras.

The Achilles, iron frigate, Capt. E. W. Van.
sittart, is ordered to be tried in the usual manner
over the measured mile in Stokes Bay, near
Portsmouth. This will give a reliable result of
the ship's actual rata of speed at her seagoing
draught of water, the only condition at which a
ship's trial can be made to render it of any value.
Yesterday Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, G.C.8.,
Port Admiral and Naval Commander.in-chief at
Portsmouth, embarked on board the Sprightly
steamer, which conveyed him to Spithead, where
he visited and officially inspected the Achilles. The
ship, with her four square-rigged waste has an ex-
tremely ugly and crowded appearance aloft, as seen
from a distance.

The Hector, iron frigate, Capt. Preedy, C. 8., has
sent up her topmasts alongside Portsmouth Dock•
yard in her course of refit and alteration in her rig
from her double composite lower yards and stumpy
topgallantmasts to ordinary full.sizsd single top..
sails, topgallantsails, and royals on her fore and
main masts. Her mizenmast will carry fore and
aft sails only. The Hector is to be, to a certain
extent, apparently an experimental ship, and
among other things to be tried is a new arrange-
ment for tatting the ship's anchors, the proposi.
tion, it is said, of a naval officer. Our dockyard
officials should really be competent to carry out
efficiently the disposition of a ship's anchor gear
without calling in extraneous aid for the perform-
ance of duties which they, as dockyard officers, are
specially appointed and paid to perform.
Some correspondence is passing between White..
hall and Portsmouth Dockyard relative to the Royal
Alfred frigate, now receiving her coating of armour
plates at No, 3 dock of that yard. It appears that
a proposition has been made to the Admiralty to
alter the whole intended system of plating the ship,
and, instead of giving her a, complete coating of
41in. plates (which, by the way, are already partly
on the vessel), to give her a 12-in. iron belt at the
water line, with a square iron box of great thick.
ness amidships, capped by two turrets. Without
offering any opinion as to the merits of such a
plan, we presume the cost already incurred by
the Royal Alfred since she was first laid down as
a screw two-decker and reconstructed as an ar•
mour-plated frigate, together with the fact that
the ship is of wood, will cause the Admiralty to
reject all idea of any second reconstruction or
conversion in her ease. The correspondence, how-
ever, is still going on, and a sketch of the proposed
second reconstruction of the ship his been received
at Whitehall from Portsmouth yard.
The screw steam storeship Fox, 2, Commander
Thomas C. Pullets, is now alongside the coal depot