The Sun.
London, England, 1855-07-09 00:00:00

MILITARY, &c.

A detachment of 40 gunners hnd drivers of the Royal
Artillery proceeded on Saturday to Bristol to join Cap-
tain S. Calder's Company, No. 7 of the 9th battalion,
under orders for Scutari, to be kept there as a reserve.
One officer, 4 non-commissioned officers, and 21 gun-
nerd and drivers of the Royal Horse Artillery are also
under orders to proceed to Scutari as a reserve.

The War Minister has made the following- appoint-
ment in the Royal Artillery, viz., Colonel E. N. Wil-
ford to be Director of Artillery Studies.
A further body of 3,000 men, to be stationed for train-
ing at Bristol for the Land Transport Service, is imme-
diately to be raised. The depot will be at Horfield
Barracks, Bristol, where the other bodies of this branch
of the service were trained. Of these there are scarcely
any left, the last compliment, SOO strong, having been
sent off a few days ago. Each man is fully armed, hav-
ing a revolver pistol in addition to musket and bayonet.
The following companies of the Royal Artillery have
been or lered to be filled up to their complement of 14
non-commissioned officers, 120 gunners, and one trum-
peter each, and to leave their present stations, and pro-
ceed to Sheerness and Shoeburyn4s, viz. :
Captain N. 111ackay's Company, No. 6, of the Bth
Battalion, from Portsmouth, to Shoeburyness.
Captain H. A. Vernon's Company, No. 6, of the 3d
Battalion, from Plymouth to Sheerness.
Captain the Hon. W. Yelverton's Company, No. 1,
of the 9th battalion, from Alderney to 'Shoeburyness.
Captain A. G. Burrow's Company, No. 4, of the 4th
battalion, from Shoeburyness to Sheerness.
Captain E. H. Fisher's Company, No. 1, of the 7th
battalion, from Dover to Sheerness.
In consequence of the above removals Captain F. B.
Chancellor's Company, No. 1 of the 14th battalion,
which was under orders for Shoeburyness, is cancelled,
and it will proceed to relieve Captain F. H. Fisher's
Company, 7th battalion, at Dover.
Captain C. Waller's Company, No. 2, of the 14th
battalion, is to proceed to Dcvonport to relieve Captain
H. A. Vernon's Company, 3d battalion.

THE MILITIA.
In consequence of instructions received last week the
West Norlolk Militia were ordered to start for Alder-
shott without delay. The regiment loft Norwich by the
Eastern Counties Railway on Tuesday morning by the
early train. As early as half-past 4 o'clock the men
began to assemble ma the Castle-hill, and from this time
until the departure of the train was occupied in taking
leave of their wives and sweetheaits—the latter appa-
rently forming by far the more numerous class.
The Royal South Down Militia, commanded by Co-
lonel the Marquis of Downshire, will arrive in Dublin
by rail from Newry on Wednesday next, the 11th inst.,
to replace the 3d battalion of the 60th Rifles.
The Antrim Militia (Queen's Royal Rifles), commanded
1, Lieutenant-Colonel Ferguson, will arrive at Newry

from Belfast on Thursday next, the 12th inst., to replace
the Royal South Down Militia.
The Royal North Down Rifle Regiment of Lliiitia,
commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Montgomery, will
arrive at Belfast from Newtownards on Friday next, the
13th inst., to replace the Antrim Rifles.
The Sligo Rifles have given a number of volunteers to
the line during the past week—all smart, able young
men, who have attained a high degree of efficiency in
their military duties.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

( From the Times of this clay. )

We did think that when Lord John Russell, after his
other numerous and varied appearances in public, sud-
denly broke up the Aberdeen Ministry, brought in his
old rival Lord Palmerston, started as PleMpotentiary to
Vienna, and on the way accepted the Colonies, he had
outdone even himself in the novelty and celerity of his
transformations. But his lordship is now presented to
the public in a fresh metamorphosis which beats all the
rest. He went out a British Plenipotentiary to the Con-
ference at Vienna, and returned an Austrian Plenipoten-
tiary to the Court of St. James's. True, it is not very
clear what is meant by "full powers ;" but, in whatever
capacity Lord John went out, in that capacity he came
home, with the single exception that he had changed
employers. In both missions he was equally unsuccess-
ful, for be neither persuaded Austria to agree to our
terms nor our own Government to agree to those of
Austria. He has been projected from London to Vienna
and from Vienna to London with equal effect. But
when the two missions thus successively discharged are
compared in their results, Lord John will be found to
have undoubtedly done a vast deal more service to his
Austrian than to his British employer. He has enabled
Austria to appeal to the authority of the British Pleni•
potentiary, pompously adorned for the occasion with a
Secretaryship of State, that she has fulfilled the obliga-
tions of the Treaty of December 2, and is released from
her promise to assist the allies in defence of Turkey.
The engagement, of course, with regard to the Third
Point was not to surrender her own judgment entirely
into the keeping of the allies, but to take a fair part in
the Conference for drawing up an ultimatum to be ten-
dered to Russia. She might have found a great difficulty
in satisfying the world that she had taken that fair part.
She might have left herself under the imputation of an
illusory and dishonest proposal, having evidently no
other object than to enable her to say that she had
done her best, that she had made a good offer, and if
the Western Powers bad thought fit to refine it, the re-
spensibilty lay with them. We may, perhaps, still
think this the case. We may think her development of
the principal limitation so cumbrous and impracticable
as to be ridiculous, and meant only to save appeera.oces.
But, whatever we may happen to think within our-
selves, Austria can now say, "Your own Plenipotentiary,
a Secretary of State, the man in whose honour and
judgment the Sovereign and the people of Englaed have
ever placed most confidence, thought otherwise. He
thought it a fair offer, and a sufficient interpretation of
the principle involved in the Third Point. By whom
should we be judged, except by the man you have chosen
yourselves 7" That is the result of Lord Jehn Russell's
return misaion to this country, and the important ser-
vice he has rendered to Austria.

No wonder that, when Lord John Russell found him-
self making as little way in the Conference at London
as in the Conference at Vienna, and that what he
brought back was as worthless as what he took out, he
felt eo inclination to parade his second failure. Te fail
in one mission for his own Sovereign was enoueli ; to
fail in another, eratuitously undei taken for a foreign
Power was no trifling discredit. Lord John must have
felt himself in the position of the young hero who took
an old horse to the market and brought back a gross of
green spectacles. It is true that neither was of great
value, but the former was what it professed to be, and
the latter was a make-believe. A proposition that,
whatever fleet Russia kept in the Black Sea, the Weq-
ern Powers were to keep up another there equally ter-
rible and costly, can hardly be called bona fide, and we
can imagine the surprise and disgust with which the
Primrosefamily in Dovvning.street must have listened and
looked on as their messenger opened his return budget.
But what was to be done ? The whole Ministry was sure
to be called to account for the close of the Conference, and
here was one of them—the most important of them—
who had committed himself to the opinion that the Con-
ference need not have closed, and that it rested with us
to follow up a good tender. So it seems to have struck
them all as a happy thought to say nothing about it for
the time. Perhaps Sebastopol might fall soon, in which
case there would be a general indemnity for errors. So
a grand silence was observed as to the Austran proposal,
and, when it came to Lord John Russell's turn to give
an account of his mission, he carefully omitteci all men-
tion of his second negotiation. In place of it, lie gave
us a strong philippic against the Macedon of modern
times, leading us all to suppose that he saw no alterna-
tive but to carry on the war. Had he seen his mistake
—had he felt that be had been under Austrian chloro-
form, but was now himself again, that might have ex-
cused a little temporary reserve about the matter. But
all this time, during all the debates in Parliament, and
' alterations of victory and defeat in the conduct of the
war, we have had a Secretary of State who solemnly be-
lieved the war to he causeless, and his country in the
position of an implacable and irreconcilable belligerent,
All this time Lord John Russell was sustaining two
characters, outwardly the indignant Plenipotentiary, in-
wardly the disappointed Cabinet Minister ; outwardly
the peacemaker who had dono his best to secure A. 1,-
trvit
theaiad tamefatal
a obstinacyßuss of is owntheia,inwahenlycountry and i
pntriot grievingt
os
rulers ; to the eye and ear denouncing Russia and sur-
rendering Austria to the hard judgment of British poli-
ticians, inwardly regarding Queen Victoria and her ad-
visers as the only obstacles to the peace of Europe.
Now, in these days it is deliberately attempted to ex-
tend to Ministers the impeccability of the Crown. The
people, forsooth, and in particular the anonymous press,
is not to destroy confidence in public men. Who-
'ever does so can have no other reason than that
they aspire to the helm themselves, and wish to rise ou
the general wreck of political reputations. But this is
no occasion for abuse or depreeiation, or any display of
worked-up animosity or pretended scorn. It is the sim-
ple question, how are we to understand our public men?
Wbat are we to take them fort What are their duties
as to veracity or reserve ? The seceding members of
Lord Palmerston's Cabinet tell us they think the war
unnecessary and criminal, and nobody doubts them ;
for, in fact, their conduct had long led us to expect that
this was the ease ; but it is startling to find one of their
successors quite of their opinion. It is startling to find
while we are desolating the earth with fire and sword,
burning whole towns in the Baltic and Sea of Azoff, de-
stroying the food of millions, .and pressing on a war
that will probably cost the human race half-a-million
souls yearly as long as it lasts—after all, the war' is as
much an open question in our Cabinet as the Ballot or
Marriage with a Deceased's Wife's Sister. We will not
say we have no "confidence" in our Government, be-
cause in that case we incur Lord Palmerston's solemn
rebuke but we will say that we don't know which of
them are carrying on the war conscientiously, and. which
of them against his conscience ; which of them thinks
the Czar in the wrong, and which Queen Victoria; which
of them only halt, and - that the less important half.
War is a very horrid affair at the best, and requires that
a man should be thoroughly nerved and braced for it..
It is a thing that a man must do in good earnest, or he
will be sure to do it ill. The least misgiving paralyses
the arm and staggers the resolution. If, after all,
half the Cabinet think they are simply murdering
their species on a very large scale, we wholly de-
spair of those vigorous and decisive measures from
which success is alone to be anticipated. Lord John
is not the only Macbeth in the Cabinet, or he
would not long remain there. There must be others
who don't quite like their work, and who relent in mid
blow. After Lord Palmerston's homily on the use of
our pens, we will not deprecate confidence in these men,
but we will venture to ask—what are we to confide in ?
What is it that we are to believe ? We believe Lord J.
Russell when he tells us that, having rejected fair terms
of peace, be holds us to be responsible for the horrors of
the war. But, if this is his opinion, do we want a man
of such an opinion to be one of our Queen's advisers and
not to carry on the war? No. It is confidence in the
word of a British statesman which satisfies us that Lord
John Russell should retire, and leave the conduct of the
war to those who think it a just one.