The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-05 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 5, 1855.

NAVAL AND miLETARy INTELLIGENCE.

wishea by packing their donations in packages not ex-
ceeding 120;11. in weight. Packages Of 4 ciwt., '5 cwt.,
and ecwt., are most inconvenient far removal in the
Crimea.' -
The steam-ship Eagle is receiving on board a large
quantity of hospital stores fOr Scutari.
The Odin steam•frigate,: Captain Francis Scott, was
paid wages down to Wednesday at. Woolwich, and the
crew 'have got one month's leave of alosence. In the
meantime the Odin will receive new boilers.-

SIR ARCHIBALD i LISON ON, THE IVAR•

The'JaMes Watt, 91, Captain Elliott, and the Pene-
lope, 18, Captain Caffin, are refitting in the steam-basin
at Portsmouth ; and the Centaur, 6, and Salamander, 6,
steam-vessels, are preparing for re-commission.
'The crew of the Majestic were engaged yesterday
taughtening lower and topmast ratlines, as the last act
of completing the refitment of rigging, ready for bend-
ing sails and for sea when necessary. She is now com-
plete+,.with lower topeail, topgallant, and Royal yards
crossed, and looks aloft a complete yacht on a large
scale.

SE AILkM, THURSDAY, JAN. 4.
Yesterday a ceremony took place in this little maritime
town, the inauguration of a literary institute, which served
to attract. tho intellect and refinement of the county of Dur-
ham for miles round, and of theadjaCent towns of Newcastle
and Shields, and to elicit froth the learned and accomplished
historian-of the great. French Revolution ail a ldress which,
at this crisis of the nation's fortunes, will be read with deep
interest throughout the country, entering as it does largely
upon the discussion of the leading questions afrtcting the
commonweal at this moment—viz., the right education of
the people, the national debt, our system of taxation and its
results, strikes between masters and workmen, and, above
all, the great contest which we v.ree new waging against
Itussia. The building which was yesterday dedicated to
the use and benefit of the inhabitants of Seaham, Flame 4,000
in number, the great bulk of whom are engaged in mining
and seafaring pursuits, has been erected under the auspices,
and almost wholly at the cost, of the rklarchionese of Lon-
donderry —her ladyship in that respect carrying out a wish
long dear to the heart of the late marquis, and being
prompted as well by her own benevolent impulses. It is
iu the Grecian style of architecture, after the model of the
femous Temple of Minerva at Athens, and ieternally it
consists of a large, lofty, and commodious lecture-roem, a
libraay and reading room, and a news-room. Precisely t.t
12 o'clock Sir A. Alison entered the lecture-room, accom•
panied by a distinguished party now enjoying the hospita-
lities , of Lady Londonderry atWynyard-park in this county,
including the Marchioness herself, the Each and Countess
Vane, the Earl and Countess of Portarlingtou, Lady Alison,
Lord Ernest Vane Tempest, the Earl of Sunderland.(an in-
teresting bey, eldest son of the Marquis and Marchioness
of Bland ford), Mr. John Vandeleur Stuart and Lady He-
len Stuart. They were cordially greeted on their arrival
by tholuuditory,:among whom, besides the inhabitant of
the town, were many of the gentry of the sari-minding
neighbourhood.

The Great Northern, the LadyiiiCel.4ambton, and
the Typhoon are all at Greenhithe having their com-
passes -adjusted, previous to proceeding for the Crimea.
The Great Northern has on board a locomotive engine
fur running on the Balaklava line.

The Blenheim, 60, screw blockship, Captain W. H.
Hail, has been placed in the steam factory basin at
Portsmouth, to have a thorough refit.
The Hogue, 60, screw blockship, Captain William
Ramsay, has been placed in the steam factory basin at
Portsmouth, to have a refit in her machinery.
The Arrogant, 40, Captain Yelve:ton, steamed into
Portsmouth harbour yesterday from Spithead to refit.
The crew of the Formidable have-been paid down to
the 31st of October last.,

Imperieuse, 51, screw, Captain R. B. Watson, C. 8.,
was placed in the steam, basin dock at Portsmouth yes-
terday. Her bottom is perfect., there is scarcely a scratch
upon her copper, and she will haul out again to-day.
The Melarnpus•is fast progressing in her equipment ;
topmasts have been set an end, her rigging is set up,
and being ratlined down by the- dockyard rigging de-
partment at Sheerness.
The Amphion will complete the discharge of her stores
to-clay. The crew changed over yesterday to the Nymph
frigate hulk.
The Bonetta, brigantine, Lieutenant Wake, R.N.,
commanding, sailed from Spithead for Chatham to be
paid off yesterday.
The Adder, steam-vessel, arrived at Sheerness yester-
day, at 8 30 a.m., from Woolwich, with the Ann lighter
iy tpw, the,- latter -hs.yinz on board machinery for the
new screw steam-vessel Pylades, fitting there, and chain
cables for the new screw steam-corvette Tartar, fitting
at Chatham.

_ .
The Earl VANE, having assumed the chair, said, in
doing so, the pleasing duty devolved upon him on that
occasion to introduce to their notice a distinguished indi-
vidual who had kindly consented to leave the many pur-
suits and claims non his time and attention, in which
his eminent talents and abilities involved him, and to de-
liver the inaugural address of the Se:llmm Mechanics' In.
stituto. (Cheers.) It would be presumptuous in him to
enter on that occasion into any lengthened panegyric on
tho character of Sir Archibald Alison, inasmuch as he
should be very imperfectly able to express his high sense
Of the abilities, and of the energy of mind and character,
which had rendered Sir Archibald so deservedly eminent
among his fellow-men, and inasmuch as they themselves
must have already formed their own estimate of his intrin-
sic merits, as the great historian of the ago, whose name
would be handed down to posterity with feelings of the
deepest gratitude. (Cheers.) The noble earl proceeded
gracefully to state that the institution they were that day
a
inaugt' rating had originated in ono of the dearest wishes
of the life of his late lamented father—the happiness and
prosperity of Seahani harbour, which he might be said to
have called into existence, and he expiessed an ardent
hope that it would realise the beneficent aims of its
founder.

Sir ARCHIBALD ALISON then rose to address the meet-
ing, and was received with loud and prolonged cheers. He
said, often as he had been called on to take part in
meetings of this description he never rose to speak with
feelings of warmer gratitude, and with higher satisfaction
than he did on the present occasion. He had assisted at
public meetings of this kind in many of the older cities of
the empire—in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
and Aberdeen; but this Wa3 the first time that he had been
honoured with an invitation to attend a meeting of a
different description, which was called not in an ancient, •
bat ie a rising city, which attested not the efflorescence of
civilisation, but its commencement. (Cheers.) When
they looked around them, and reflected on what they now
saw, iu what he might now call this rising town—this
beautiful and commotlions harbour, and this flourishing
neighbourhood, and contrasted its present position with
that which obtained five-and-twenty years age, they were
almost led to think they were placed amid, not the ancient
civilisation of England, but amid the rising energies of
America—on the shores of the Ohio, or on the banks of
Mississippi—for in no part of that promising and favoured
land had been found indications of a more rapid progress
than those they saw about them hero, or the seeds of ulti-
mately a prosperous development. (Cheers.) They could
not but reflect, when they beheld around them those snag-
nificent docks and harbours, and they could not forget
when they were assembled iu that hall—containing within
it so much that was interesting, attractive, and ennobling,
and constructed on the best model of Grecian taste—that
all that was mainly owing to the energy, the determina-
tion, and the patriotism of one man—(renewed cheerse—
and be trusted that as one man had laid the foundation of
thee prespeetty end edifice, many men would assist in
raising the superstructure, and thus the wishes and aspi-
rations of the noble family who had founded this city on
the very shore of a stormy ocean would bo more than
realised by those on whom they had conferred those bene-
fits. Whilst they stood in the very midst of so much that
was calculated to remind them of the illustrious noble-
man whom it had pleased Providence to take from them
within the past year, there was room for consolation when
they reflected that his mantle had not fallen on unworthy
shoulders. They had now in that room some of the sur-
viving relatives of the deceased nobleman, among whom
waste be found all that was most attractive and amiable
in the one sex, and all that was energetic, manly, and
beneficent in the other. In their presence was one who
had been the ornament of courts, and another whose chief
asnxiety was, as it had always been, to see the prosperity
and happiness of:Ill:trowel him. (fear.) In contemplat-
ing this rising city, and all that hail been done here within
a quarter of a century, he could not help indulging in the
hope that the efforts of the original founder of the place,
and of those noble persons who survive hiai, would not
prove unsuccessful to themselves. The prosperity, wealth,
and happiness which they Lad diffused around them, would
ho trusted reflect on their own family, and that all which
they now saw about them on every hand was only a dim
foreshadowing of what ultimately was to be the grandeur
of the house of Vane. (Cheers.) There was also much in
what they saw that reminded them of the pest; and it
was only by combining considerations of the past, the
present, and the future, that an institution of this kind
could have its due influence in elevating and ennoblieg
the human mind. In the records of this noble family
there was to be found enough to awaken and sustain the
interest of the most thoughtful men. During the last 150
years England had been engaged in three gi eat contests;
he meant the wars of the succession in the beginning of
the eighteenth century, the war of the French Revolution,
and the one in which WO were now one:se:ed. They be-
held before them in that room the lineal represent dive of
the great hero of the war of the succession. (Cheers.)
The young nobleman, then in their company (the Earl of
Sunderland), who took his title from a town in this neigh-
bourhood, as he wee destined to be the lineal descendant,
so lie (Sir Archibald Alison) trusted he would be the
worthy representative of the great Duke of Marlborough.
(near, hear.) On the other bend, in their president, who
had just addressed them in terms characterised alike by
good taste, eloquence, and philanthropy, they had a repre-
sentative of the companion in arms and in diplomacy of
the Duke of Wellington ; and in another scion of that
noble family they had a young nobleman who was not pre-
sent at the ceretuouy only because be was serving his coun-
try in the Crimea, and prepared to lay down Lis life for it
if required. (Cheers.) Of him it might be said, as Brutus
and Cassius said of a brave comrade in arms, that "he
was only the more present to the thought because ho was
withdrawn from the sight." (Hear, hear.) It was in the
social tendency of institutions like the one they were now
seeking to establish, in forming and moulding private cha-
racter, in withdrawing men, and especially the humbler
.orders, from habits of vice and degradation, and generally
in elevating and improving all classes of the community,
that their merit is said to consist. Far be it from him to
throw any chill on such pleasing anticipations. They must
all have seen to what a large extent these anticipations
had been realised. But on the present occasion he felt
that an institution of this kind ought to bo regarded in an-
other light, that was to say, not so much as conducing to
the elevation of the individual and to the virtue and hap-
piness of private families as to the due discharge of pub-
lic duties by the whole citizens of the empire. (Hear,
hear.) This was a light in which he was ready to
admit that institutions of this kind had not hi-
therto been considered, from an unwillingness on the
part of those in the habit of addressing the members of
such institutions to introduce aught in the nature of dis-
sension among them. While cordially agreeing with those
persons in that view, he still thought there were occasions
on which another line might be adopted with adVantage
to all parties. And that the present was such an occasion
he thought he might, as a proof, appeal to the events pas-
sing around them, because they were events in reference
to which they all felt alike. The persons to whom he
wished to address his opinions were not merely private in-
dividuals, fathers of families, brothers, sisters, and all the
different other relations of life—he was desirous of speaking
to them as being also entrusted with certain public duties,
on the due discharge of which the prosperity and welfare
of the empire entirely depended. It was in vain to say
they could separate the elevation and instruction of the
middle stied working classes from the general prosperity of
the empire. They it was who delegated a de&deil majority
of representatives to the House of Commons; and if we
were to find the foundation for wise measures, on the part
of Government or on the part of that house, we must look
for it in wise thoughts and wise views on the part of the
ceactituoncies. (Cheers.) It was they, and persons like
them, who formed the constituencies of the empire ; and
it was to them that the country must look for the forma-
tion of those opinions which were gradually to rise from
the great base of the pyramid of society until they
reached and properly influenced the comparatively
few individuals who wore entrusted with the conduct
of public affairs. He contended that unless infor-
mation, intelligence, and wisdom were implanted in the
body of society, in whom the regulation of the nation was
vested--that was to say, in the great majority—it was into
peeeible to expect that any amount of human ability,
on the part of those who governed, was to conduct the
affairs of the nation with success, or to avert disaster. hi
every point of view it was of the last importance that the
people of this country should he duly instructed, and that
their information should keep pace with the enlarged and
enlarging duties which they were called to discharge.
(Cheers.) Errors in conduct, either of individuals or bodies
of men, were seldom the result of want of right feeling ;
they. mere usually rather the result of want of knowledge,
or of misdirected knowledge. Ho would give one or two
instances just to show what an amount of blessing might
accrue to society if all classes, from the working man up to
the Cabinet Minister, were duly instructed, and if informa-
tion and the lessons of history were so imbibed that error
or Wondrous conduct was rendered impossible, There WM

5/---e--c--c_.--r______
_

I-PRICE SD.

one topic of a social kind, and of great importance to all
classes of the community, to which he would advert for a
moment, and that had reference to the disastrous contests
which took place from time to time between masters and
workmen. (Hear, hear.) There was no point on which
intelligence and information were of more value than on
that. There was no subject on which practical knowledge
ought to have greater effect in promoting happiness among
the working classes, and in preventing those dis esters and
misunderstandings which produced misery and heartburn-
ing among employers and employed. There was a great dif-
ference of opinion among persons as to the effect of those
strikes. They would see it often stated in the public news-
papers—it was repeatedly said during thestrike at Preston—
that strikes were always unfortunate, and that the workmen
who engse•ed in them were always defeated. There were, oa
the other°hand, people, and generally among the workmen,
whoalleged that strikes werennerally attended with succesr,
and that they were the great means whi:h the workmen
had of raising wages. Those were the opposite feelings
floating through society on this subject ; and the effect
was that from time to time frightful collisions took place
between employers and employed, which threw hundreds
and thousands of people out of employment for months
together, seriously affected trade and commerce, and pro-
duced an amount of misery and heartbUrning impossible
almost to imagine. Now there was au obvious principle
by which they might diltineuish truth from felseho3d in
this important matter, and he hoped to see that prineiple
recognised in the end. The principle he apprehended to
be this, that strikes were Euccessful when they were made
by the workmen in t rising market, in order that they
might obtain _a 'certain proportion of the proats which
were accruing to their employers ; amid the point when -
strikes became disastrous was when they tylopted that
principle which was so Cam mon among them, but which
was of all principles the most untenable, and the most de-
plorable iii its results— namely, that by which, having
got their wages raised in prosperity, they sought to prevent
them falling in times of adversity. (Cheers.) A pitched
battle then often took place, on the part of the workmen,
to keep up wages, during a period of distress and suffering,
to the level which they-had attained at a period of pre-

vious prosperity. When the workmen struck-in arising
market, they-6track in their uwti,-intereit,,a.nd they were
benefited by it; but when they' struck under —n
riLliket, they struck in the interest of the master, be-
cause the master then got quit of the working men and of
ho rate of payment which ho could not -.4,uataiu. In
Lanarkshire, where there bad been strikes a% formidable.
as in any ether part of the empire, ho had often cnjsyod the
entire confidence of the leaders of those strikes, and they
often came to him for advice. llehad invariably said to them
"If you choose to strike, don't strike whoa the market is
against the master. If you want to strike, strike in a
rising market ; bat don't strike when the market is failing.
You can always judge of the tendency of the market by
the state of the funds. If you choose, I will -send you
newspapers by which you can ascertain, in a moment, the
state of the funds; and when the funds are falling, fur
God's sake don't attempt it." There was another matter
in regard to taxation in which he wished to impress upon
them, and through them upon the country, how desirable
it was that an institution of this kind should, if possible,
bring the working classes up to a level with the necessities
if the else, and put them abreast of their real situation.
Ile did not know if they were aware that one-half of the

whole taxation that now pressed upon the country—
?,6,000,00 1. a-year—might have been avoided, and the
whole of it have been taken off, if the advice that was ton-
lered to the people of the country in former times had
been followed, and if the sinking NIA existing at the end
of the war had been kept up to discharge its debt. There •
was at the end of the war 15,030,00 C/. a-year of sinking
fund ; and if that had been kept up, we should have had
at this moment no national debt at all, it would have
been all paid off in the year 1815, and we could have car-
tied on the war to all eternity with, nit either a loan or
any other assistance. (Loud cheers.) Bat now the op-
portunity wee lost. 15,000,0001. a year at c(appoutel
interest would have paid off the whole debt iu 1815, and
10,000,000/. a-year would have paid off the whole debt by
this time ; and since the peace we had repealed taxation to
the amount of 40,000,0001. a-year. Why was it that this
enormous benefit had been lost? It was just owing to this,
that the middle and working classes had not been properly
instructed, and did not know their duty ; and now the debt
remained a hopeless burden -on the national energies. These
were facts in reference to which he wanted the people in-
structed. He could not refrain from adverting for a
moment to the subject which almost wholly absorbed the
national mind at this time—he meant the present state of
the war. They could not look at a newspaper, or mix with
society, without feeling that that was the all-prevailing ob-
ject of anxiety. There was hardly a family in the country
who had not a father, a brother, a relation, or a friend at
present serving in the Crimea. Of the warily of their
noble patroness (the Marchioness of Londonderry) there
was ono member with the army before Sebastopol, and of
his (Sir Archibald Alison's) own family there were to be
found two eons engaged in the same perilous duty. (Hear.)
How many families were there to whom the departure of
relatives for that service carried sorrow and anxiety, and
from whom the receding sails of each transport-ship wafted
away at once all the endearing memories of the past and all
the hopes of the future, and cast them on the ultimate
issue of events which no human wisdom could fathom. To
them might be truly applied the words of an old English
poet :
" Then go, and round your gallant heads, like banners in
the air,
Shall float full many a tender thought, and many an
ardent prayer."
(Cheers.) When such had been the interest which the
present war had excited, it was of the last importance
that we should what was the nature of the enemy with
whom we had to contend, and what was the cause of
the anxiety which had eo suddenly changed the thrill or
exultation which followed our first triumphs into some-
thing akin to the despondency of defeat? He would tell
thorn. The power with whom we had to contend was no
despicable enemy. Ho was at the head of an empire of
70,000,000 of men, who doubled themselves every seventy
years. The whole energies of tho nation were dedicated to
war or to preparations for war. Commerce, agriculture,
science, art, were all held in subordination to the leading
passion. Every young man of any ability was sent to the
military schools ; 180,000 men were being constantly so
educated, and the ablest among them were reserved from
time to time to the profession of diplomacy. At the head
of that empire was to be found a man of most remarkable
character, who would leave his deeds durably imprinted
on the records of history. He was a man of energy, of
unshaken courage, of great determination. He was ccr-
dially supported by the whole Russian nationfor.the
Russians were unanimous on that point. Every man, from
the Emperor himself down to the serf, was impressed with
the idea that the Russians were to conquer tLe world, and
that they themselves were to be the instruments of its sub-
jugation. Te this man, so qualified, and characterised by
such extraordinary and extravagant ambition, might be
applied, with a slight alteration, the lines of a poet of the
last century :
" No joys to him paeific sceptres yield ;
War sounds the trump, he rushea to the field;
Behold, surrounding kings their power combine.
* # * it ar

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain
' Think nothing gained;' he cries, `till nought remain,
On Stainhoure walls till Russian standards fly,
And all ha mine beneath the Eastern sky."
(Cheers.) flow was it, again, that in this contest with this
great power wo had made so sudden a transition from the
exultation of victory to the despobdency of defeat ? That
was to be fauna in the neglect of the experience of former
wars. They saw that a great deal of blame was sought by
the public journals to be laid on this Minister and on that
journal. He stood there neither to vindicateeme Minister
nor another, nor ono general nor -another ; but he stood
there to point out to his fellow-countrymen the errors and
faults, he would almost-say the national crimes, which had
led to.this war as a national punishment. We had been,
all along, unduly confident in our positiou, and lead over-
looked, during the long peace, all future preparation for
war. The infatuation of the country in this respect had
been such that when it came to be recorded in the pages of
history it would appear almost incredible. There had not
been a single Minister since 1815 that had not come into
power, or endeavoured to retain power, by perpetual re-
ductions. of the army and navy. That had not been a
matter of party. Whigs, Tories, and Radicals had had the
same end ru view, and among thorn they had done the it
best to render this great nation utterly powerless in the
midst of its neighbours. The people who returned the
House of Commons, which had the command of the purse
strings, did not know, when one by one they were reducing
some small articles of taxation, that there was going on at
the same time the loss of the sinking fund, and the' utter
prostration of the country for any purposes of just ag-
gression or defence. Three times during that pacific
period, when we were constantly reducing our arma-
ments, we wore on the very verge of destruction frem the
weakness of our military and naval forces. At that very
period we 'were three times on the eve of a war—twice
with France, and once with France and Russia united.
Indeed, so near a war were we on that last oc-
casion , that the ambassadors of France and Russia
bad IeIV London. ' What was our force then ? At
that time, .if the French had'attempted to land on our
shores, we mild only have opposed to them 10,200 infan-
try, and 42 guns, the carriages of which had not hien re-
paired since the battle of Waterloo. (Laughter.) • Really,
in this matter there was but one mode of securing national
independence and a durable peace, and that was by Teeing
always prepared for war. During the 40 years of peace
we had Been relaxing the sinews of war, and showing that
we were wholly unprepared for any purpose of successful
defence. We were the richest nation in the world, and
the greatest in commerce ; we were the object 'of envy to
every State under the sun ; and was it wise—was it not
rather the height of madness—in a country like this to go
on reducing its • armaments year after year, and so pro-
claiming to tte world that we wore in no condition,to fight
in the event of being menaced by aggression or hostility ?
He must say, our existence as a nation at this time might
almost be ascribed wholly to Divine interposition, for it
had not been preserved either by the wisdom of our states-
men or of our people. Why was it that we were now in-
volved in such serious' danger? It was jest because our
army was one-third of its proper size. Suppose when the
war broke out England bad had 100,000 regular troops,
20,000 cavalry, and 80,000 militia, we should then have
gained a decisive success in the first campaign.•• With
40,00 men in the Baltic wa could have taken Cron-
stadt ; and suppose we had sent at once 50,000 to the
Crimea, we should have been able to destroy the.enemy's
great fortress on the Euxine. If there had been 6,000
cavalry, instead of 700 at the battle of the Alma, the re-
treat of the enemy would have been converted into a
total rout ; and at Balaklava— fought on the anniversary
of the battle of Agincourt, after the lapse of 430
years—if we had had 5,000 more English troops, the valu-
able road from Balaklave to the camp would have been
protected, and 5,000 English horse would have rode tri-
umphant through 10,000 Russians. At the battle of
Inkerman, again, which was destined to be immortal in the
world, and would take its place with these of Marathon
and Platen, if we had had 20,000 'more English troops,
while with the right wing we hurled the Russian bat-
talions down the heights of Inkerman, with the left wing
we would have taken Sebastopol, and the two Grand
Dukes, who were present at the action, would only have
come up to see the total destructi ' of their father's hopes.
(Cheers.) Before he concluded e would. make one Ire-
markwas, of a more general character, nd that as, as to the
probability of the future contin ance of war, and the
moral purpose which war was i tended to servo in the
- administration of nature, We d beard a good deal o,