The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-16 00:00:00

—_,
gun fired at the same elevation, and with the some
charge, threw its shot to the right or the left,
longer or shorter, in a slight but still easily recog-
nisable degree. The difference between the shots
which fell shortest and those which went furthest
forms the length of the parallelogram, and the
extreme difference between those which made the
widest deviation from the true line of fire deter-
mines its breadth. All these parallelograms have
been carefully reduced and drawn to scale side by
side, so that the merits of each performance can be
seen and ascertained by measurement. There
have been 34 stages of the competition in all—
namely, 12 with solid shot, 11 with segment
shell, and 11 with common shell, and out of
these trials, judging by the tracings, Sir William
has won 14 times, has been second 11 times, and
been third nine times. Mr. Whitworth's gun has
won 13 times, has been second 10 times, and has
been third 11 times. The breech-loader has been
first seven times, has been second 13 times, and has
been third 14 times. So far we have used the terms
"first, second, and third," as being the most conve•
nient, but they really convey no proper idea of the
relative sizes of the competing parallelograms, and
we expect that the hardest task the committee has
got will be to determine the figure of merit which
shall properly assign the degrees in which each
gun has been beaten at the different ranges, Thus
in firing solid shot, which is its proper missile, Mr.
Whitworth has sometimes won by making a paral-
lelogram only about one-tenth the size of either of
Sir William's; and, therefore, to call Mr. Whit-
worth's first, and Sir William's second and third in
such a case, would not be at all fairly to represent
the amount by which Mr. Whitworth had been vic•
torious. On the other hand, in firing shell, which is
the only missile now used in field service, and the
only one which Sir William's guns were made to
fire, both his weapons have won by making paralle-
lograms almost 50 times less than Mr. -Whitworth's;
and here, therefore, to call the Armstrongs first and
second, and the Whitworth third, would be most
unfair, looking to the manner in which in these
competitions Sir William's has beaten Mr. Whit-
worth's gun. Again, if by another method we add
up the areas made by the parallelograms of each
gun, the result is almost equally unsatisfactory. In
this case the areas of the parallelograms of each
gun with solid shot and segment and common shell
would stand as follows :

BREECH-LOADER ARMSTRONG,

Solid shot
Segment shell ••• •
• •
Common shell

Sq. yds,
2,770
•. 2,001
2,099

Total . • • • ••
MozzLE-LOADING ARMSTRONG.

6,870

Solid shot .. ..
Segment shell ..
Common shell ..

Sq. Yds.
.. 3,052
.. 4,306
•• 1,770

Total

.. 9,128

Sq. yds,
1, 900

.. 3,940
.. 7,683

Sheerness Steam Reserve, hai been appointed tender
to the Trafalgar, 72, screw steamship, 2,700 tons,
500 horse power. Captain Charles F. Schomberg,
coastguard ship at Queen's Ferry, in the Firth of
Forth, in the place of the Mistletoe, now at Sheer-
ness, which requires extensive repairs.
The half-yearly examination of engineers and
assistant engineer students belonging to the factory,
was held in the dockyard on Monday, Tuesday, and
yesterday, under the superintendence of the Rev,
Roland Wilson, dockyard chaplain, Mr W. Rumble,
inspector of machinery afloat, and Mr R. S. Crock-
ford, instructor of engineers and engineer students
at Sheerness. Fortyafive engineer officers and 36
engineer students were present at the examination.
Papers of questions prepared by the Rev. J. Wool-
ley, LL.D., one of her Majesty's inspectors of
schools, were given in geography, English grammar
and composition, French, arithmetic, algebra, geo-
metry, trigonometry, statics, dynamics, hydrosta-
tics, chemistry, and on the steam engine.
The Lords of the Admiralty have ordered the
Caledonia, 35, iron-cased screw steamship, 4,125
tons, 1,000 horse power, Mr Henry S. Ley, master
in charge, now at Sheerness, to be taken to Ply-
mouth to bo docked and brought forward for com-
mission in consequence of there not being a dock
large enough to take the vessel at Sheerness. The
Caledonia will leave Sheerness about the let of July, 1
•

DENMARK,

A letter from Copenhagen, dated June 12, says:
—Those fidgetty English tourists, who do not know
what to do with themselves at this season, can
do no better than come and spend their summe.ae.
months on the Oresund. There can hardlej, be
greater pleasure in these bright days,
;'With begin
to be deliciously warm even in D'
steam up and down the So enmark, than to
So-- by
Ophelia, or Hamlet. Pt' the Horatio,
ease three little steamers
two coasts from Malmo to Copen-
co Elsinore and Helsingford, morn-
hp al yg
e between
n, and . h e n the
ee
morn-
ing and eve:sling. The shores on either side are
edmewhlP:c tame and lowly, and will not bear coin-
parisAl with the rugged sublimity of some of the
Great Mediterranean straits. But the scenery has
a charming homeliness of its own, nevertheless. The
two countries, politically sundered for so many
centuries, woo each other most tenderly, and as you
approach Elsinore the Danish and Swedish head-
lands overlap each other as if in loving embrace,
and the beholder is at a loss to tell where his eye
rests 0,11 a Scanian and where on a Zealandian land-
shape. The -vegetation on either side is luxuriant
• beyond belief, and the magnificent timber spreads
its drooping branches down to the very surface of
the tideless waves. The Lake of Geneva, where
it contracts itself into the narrow channel of the
Rhone, has not purer waters than are to be
seen in these ever-flowing currents; and nowhere
is the sight of white, glittering sails more animated
and enlivening than in this silent highway of
the Baltic. The steamers that waft you along
are clean and comfortable, the traffic is carried
on with all speed and in the best order, and the
company getting in and out at every station is
the best looking, most interesting, and sociable
you may wish to travel with. lam sure only
to see the rosy cheeks and golden hair of the
hundreds of well-dressed Danish girls on their
way to and from the different watering-places on the
Sound is a treat well repaying any trouble it may
cost a Londoner to come all the way from his dingy
Thames and from the coal begrimed wharfs of
Gravesend .reach.
-Whatever cloud may rise on the political horizon
of Denmark, the sky on the Oresund is, and
has been for weeks, as bright as the brightest
in the south. These Dines are a buoyant and
sanguine race ; in the worst plight they hope for the
best, and while the London Conference is disposing
of them with prolonged armistice, schemes of parti-
tion or personal union, they seem only to think that
summer and sea-bathing wait for no man. They live
by the day, the twenty-hour solsticial day, and put eff
the cares of the future for that gloomy winter
season which may be better fitted for sackcloth and
ashes. This short spell of genial, warm weather
is the Danish carnival. It is the season in which
they indulge in those quiet, rational amusements
which best become their ,sedate nature and the
thorough civilisation peculiar to them. Sea-bathing
is ith them the greatest luxury. The streets of
Copenhagen are empty. The whole population,
from the King to the humblest trader, are out for
a dip.
Such watering-places as the Sound everywhere
affords are not to be sought in Great Britain either
on the German ocean or on the Atlantic coast. The
influence of the Gulf Stream is not felt within this
inland channel, and the water is as deliciously ice-
cold as the stoutest eerves can desire, the sands
under feet as soft as velvet, free from all gravel and
shingle, and the diver can be seen fathoms deep in
the transparent element as distinct as if he were
floating in air. Bathing-houses or machines are
hardly needed. Yet just look out for the loneliest
nook anywhere along shore; you step from the green
sward into the rippling waves ; you flounder in the
water or bask in the sun on the grass with alter-
nate enjoyment. Your whole being becomes as am-
phibious as the country itself', a country truly
nacer-umsehlungen, where land and water clasp each
other in the closest embrace.
'Who shall number the multitude, men, women,
and children, who are sure, this blessed Sunday, to
plunge from the margin of the Klarnsenborg strand
on the skirts of the gorgeously verdant Deerpark ?
From which of the hundreds of tidy villas along the
Sound shall not the fair inmates issue forth in their
long-flowing gowns, metamorphosing for a few
minutes a nymph into a eyren ? From Copenhagen
to Elsinore every village on the coast is a watering-
place ; every country house is a bathing-house.
Yet, if the whole sound is a bathing establishment,
no doubt Elsinore is its capital. There is hardly
anything in the world, I believe, that will bear
comparison as a Bade-Anstalt with the Marien-
lyst, a short beyond the Queen of the
Sound, just beyond the glacis of the Kronborg.
From the glacis of old Hernia's eastle there
stretches along shore a wide, long meadow, smooth
and green as a billiard table, so wonderfully level
with the sea that you wonder by what invisible
law it is held in obedience to the fiat that parted
land from water at the beginning of the world, On
your left, as you look up to the Cattegat, you have
fine, swelling knolls, with such masses of green
foliage as all the parks of old England can scarcely
match—masses of foliage so rife with blossoms at
this period of the year that green can scarcely be
described as the prevalent hue. In the midst of
that foliage is a maze of winding walks, where, if
you can get an Eve to wander with you, you may
fancy yourself a very Adam in Eden; and here and
there in the thickest bowers you cntne upon snug
country seats, the flowery gardens of which seem to
be cultivated no less for your eetsceial enjoyment
than for that of their fortunate owners. Every gate
is invitingly open : every labourer at work has a smile
and a greeting God-clay for you, The Danes are a
people who know but little about fencing and paling.
nothing about locked doors or barred windows. Their
privacy needs LO other protection than the discretion
of the passer-by. How they manage it I know not ;
but they seem to have no fear of tramps or pick-
peekets, and the noxious vermin somehow cannot
flourish in the land. Ido not remember whether 1
ever mentioned it before ; but it is a fact that years
ago some gentlemen from Scotland-yard were in-
vited to this country to organise a kind of metro.
Politan police at Copenhagen, and creditably did they
acquit themselves of their task ; but the men who
were enlisted in that service are daily sending In
their resignation, as they are ashamed of and dis-
an employment which in this wonder-
inoffensive community has turned out a weari-
it would seem, cannot thrive
gusted with,
sioumllye sinecure. Thieves,
in the land, and thief-takers cannot prosper 'With-
assured that some of the
obnedeonn and Peris swell-mob, al-
If
the have
lured by this Arcadian securite have been tempted
gouent
ttlhememen.
to try their luck in the -
vir
but, somehow, the ehe a gin soil of Denmark;
woes net agree with them,
and they had to slink away, awed, as it were, by
(that guileless confidence that seemed to blunt even
while it defied their cunning. Somehow, it was like
trying the sharp edge of a sword on a feather bed.
Knavery could inlke no breach cn this apparently

TO THE EDITOR OP THE TIMES.
Sir,---Do me the favour to publish in the Times
the enclosed communication, which I design as a
reply to numerous assaults upon me by the English
Press—not excepting an occasional " rumble" from
yourselves—on the subject of my destroying prizes
at sea without adjudication by a Prize Court, The
London Evening Star and kindred negrophilist
associates have been particularly virulent and abu-
sive. The term "pirate" is a favourite z•pithet with
them ; but as abuse is always e:idence of the weak-
ness of the cause in whictd it is employed, and as
this little failing n,y be a sort of vocabulistic neces
city with tbe,in to enalt4e them to pursue their polite
perhaps ought not to quarrel with it.
If in ttie course of my remarks I have found it
neceseury to review some of the acts of your Govern-
vernment, I trust you will give me credit for doing
this in a spirit off.ustice and fair play, and not with
a disposition to be querulous or censorious. I have
alleged no fact that will not be conceded, and if my
reasoning upon the premises be sound, no harm can
have been done to any one, since truth is never un.
i'ast. If, on the contrary, the reasoning be unsound,
you have the probe and seapel at hand.
I am respectfully, Sze.,
R. SEMMES, Capt. Confederate States', Navy.
Confederate States' Steamer Alabama, on the
High Seas, April, 1864.

THE REASONS WHY CONFEDERATE CRUISERS BURN

THEIR PRIZES, AND THE REMEDY.
I had the honour to command the first vessel of war (the
steamer Sumter) commissioned by the Confederate States
in the present war, and, having successfully run the
blockade of New Orleans and got to sea, it early became
necessary for me to adopt some mode of disposing of my
prizes. A blockade of the entire coast of the Confederate
States had already been declared, and the enemy was busy
in collecting and arming ships to enforce it ; and I presumed
that in the course of a few months the blockade would be at
least sufficient to keep out sail vessels, and of this class,
with rare exceptions, it was probable my prizes would be.
It was clear, therefore, that I should be effectually prevented
from sending my prizes into the Confederate ports. Up to
the time of my running the blockade (June 30, 1861) I had
not seen her Britannic Majesty's Orders in Council pro-
hibiting the belligerents from bringing their prizes into
British ports; and looking to the unequal oseration of
such orders, I had strong hopes that none such would be
issued. I made my first prizes on the coast of Cuba, and
with a view to test the disposition of Spain in this matter I
sent them—seven in number—into the port of Cienfuegos.
Their arrival was telegraphed to the Captain-General at
Havannah. The Captain-General was without instructions,
the orders of neutrality of the Queen of Spain not yet
having been received. The prizes were permitted to remain
until these orders should arrive. The orders came, and the
prizes were afterwards illegally handed over to the enemy,
instead of being warned to depart. Spain, as well as
France, had followed the lead of Great Britain, and in due
time all the smaller commercial nations did the same. To
show the objects I had in view in sending in these prizes, I
quote below an extract from my letter to the Governor of
Cienfuegos :
"The cargoes of several of these vessels are claimed, as
appears by certificates found among the papers, as Spanish
property. This fact cannot, of course, be verified, except
by a judicial proceeding in the Prize Courts of the Confede-
rate States. But while this fact is being determined, what
is to be done with the property ? I have the right to destroy
the vessels,- but not the cargoes, in ease the latter should
prove to be, as claimed, Spanish property; but how can I
destroy the former and not the latter ? I cannot before sen-
tence unlade the cargoes and deliver them to the claimants,
for I do not know that the claims will be sustained ; and I
cannot destroy the cargoes, for I do not know that the claims
will not be sustained. Indeed, one of the motives which
influenced me in seeking a Spanish port was the fact that
these cargoes were claimed by Spanish subjects, whom I
am desirous of putting to as little inconvenience as possible
in the unlading and reception of their property after sen-
tence, in case it should be restored to them,"
It will thus be seen that I was not only anxious to condemn
my prizes, but to put neutrals to as little inconvenience as
possible. It any prizes had been received into neutral ports,
and permitted to remain there until they could be adjudi-
cated by our Prizs Coutts, sitting in our own territory, no
possible inconvenience that I can perceive could have re-
sulted to neutral nations, and the rights of every one would
have been secured—the right of the captor to the full benefit
of his prize, and the right of the neutral claimant to adjudi-
cation. What inconvenience to Great Britain, for example,
could possibly have grown out of the fact of a captured
vessel lying quietly at her dock in the port of Liverpool in
charge of a ship-keeper and prize agent until she could be
adjudicated ; and if he should be condemned, why could she
not have been sold as quietly at public auction as if she had
been seized and sold under an execution for debt? It was
my intention to follow the precedent set in the Cienfuegos
case—of sending all my prizes into the most convenient ports
for the parties concerned; as, where there were English
claimants, into En,g,liehports ; French claimants, into French
ports, &c. ; but this intention was frustrated, as has been
seen, by the orders of the Queen's Government—l say the
Queen's Government, because that Government gave the
cue which was followed by the other nations. By these
orders I was deprived at the same time the right of
asylum and sale of my prizes and of the power of adjudica-
tion. What course was expected of me under these circum-
stances ? Was it expected that I would abandon the right
of capture altogether, or that I would be guilty of the
child's play of capturing the enemy's ships with one hand
and releasing them with the other that, in short, I would
retire front the high seas, and leave the enemy to pursue his
commerce, his "innocent and peaceable commerce," as Mr
Adams plaintively and naively calls it, without molestation ?
If you did not suppose this —and I will not impute such
folly to a people who not only know the value of commerce
to a belligerent, httt who have always annihilated the com •
coerce of their enemies in their ore wars---you must have
know that I would destroy the enemy's ships in every case
where it was possible. Why then do you complain of the
course I pursued ? Was it just to force that course upon me,
and then exclains aganet it in pious horror ? Is this the
kind of fair play upon which Englishmen pride tneurselves ?
But your neutrality,you say, compelled yoti to this course.
Let us see how that is. What is neutrality? Impartiality,
Impartiality in form or appearance merely, or impartiality
in substance ? When a nation Is called upon in good faith
to perform that most solemn act of declaring her impartiality
between two belligerents is a mere jugglery of words all that
is necessary, or must she look at the practical consequences
of the rule she adopts. To this query there would seem to
be but one answer. The rule must not ouly speak in the
language of justice, but it must work out the ends of justice.
Otherwise it is a sham and a deceit. Let us test the orders
of British neutrality by this canon. On their face nothing
could be more fair. Whatever in ordained as to the one
belligerent is ordained an to the other, The prizes of both
belligerents are prohibited from entering British waters.
But when these orders were penned what facts and what
consequences were in the mind of the Minister ? Did he or
did ha not knew that he was dealing a staggering blow at
the Confederate States at the same time that he Was playing
directly into the hands of the Federal States ? Let us see.
It will be admitted that the two belligerents had the right
to use against each other all the modes of warfare recog-
nised by the international code, and that no nation had the
right to prohibit to either of them the use of any of those
modes. Privateering, was one of those modes, and the cir-
cumstances of the two parties to the war ware such that this
mode of offence was peculiarly valuable to the Confederate
States. The Federal States had a large commerce and a
very respectable navy, they having retained possession of
all the ships of war of the old service, while the Confederate
States had little or no commerce, and were just beginning to
improvise a navy. (And here it may not be out of place to
mention a fact highly creditable to the parties concerned
—every ship of war in the command of a Southern naval
officer at the date of the secession of his State was duly
handed over to the Federal Government before the officer
resigned his commission and returned to his State). A
large proportion of the wealth of the Federal States con-
sisted in their commerce, and if this could be destroyed an
important blow would be struck in the war. The Volun-
teer Corps of tho sea—as legitimate as the Volunteer
Corps of the land---waR the most effective weapon with
which to ctrike this blow, and accordingly in the first days
of the war several privateers were commissioned, and others
were being rapidly fitted out, when the Queen's orders
appeared and knocked the whole scheme on the head. As
if by magic, the privateers which had already been com-
missioned disappeared from the seas, and all work was sus-
pended on those in course of preparation, and the little
Sumter, afterwards assisted by two or three other small
vessels, was obliged to undertake the task of destroying a
commerce second only to that of Great Britain, and which
covered every sea. The reason of the disappearance of these
private armed ships is obvious. They are prepared at the
cost of individuals, and depend upon their captures for
success. If these cannot be made available the enterprise
becomes abortive, and the capital invested in it is sunk;
and they could not bo made available by reason of the
Queen's orders referred to deny log them the right of asylum
in British ports, the British Foreign Secretary well know-
ing that they could not be made available in the Confederate
ports because of the blockade, the blockade having been
proclaimed on the 16th April, 1861, and the orders in Coun-
cil not having been issued until the Ist of the following June.
So far as results were concerned the British Government