The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—It is impossible to watch without deep
practical interest the character given to the arma-
ments in the American War. At a time when the
nations of Europe are remodelling their ordnance
and reconstructing their navies by the light of
theories and experiments, America is adapting her
actual practice to the necessities of present strife,
and shaping her course by the lessons of real expe-
rience. This contrast of situations would be instruc-
tive in any case, but it has been rendered peculiarly
remarkable by one prominent fact. What we accept
the Americans reject. All our conclusions and de-
ductions they have either neglected or discarded,
and have followed exactly the path on which we,
after careful survey, have hitherto declined to ven-
ture. The result is such an extraordinary diver-
gence of practice as may well arrest our attention.
At this moment the Americans are attacking Char-
leston with a siege train every gun of which throws
a 200-pound shot, whereas if we are engaged in a
similar operation our most powerful cannon would
probably be 68-pounders. If we are wrong in these
matters, it would follow that our artillery is no
longer equal to the exigencies of modern warfare.
The question is not an easy one to examine. On the
side of the Americans it can certainly be urged
that they are intent upon actual work with a tre-
mendous war upon their hands, and that the con-
clusions adopted under such circumstances must
necessarily carry extraordinary weight. They are
too much in earnest to regard anything but the
object actually in view, and too sharply taught to re
main long under mistake. This is certainly true, but
we must remark that the Federals, of whose tactics
we know most, seem never to have troubled them-
selves with any inquiries at all. They appear to have
assumed ,characteristically, that the biggest gun must
be the best gun, and that if they wanted a better
gun than the last they had only got to make a bigger
one. General Gilmore's batteries at Charleston are
now armed with 200-pounders, but he has already
received a couple of 300-pounders, and the manu-
facturer of these cannon is at present constructing a
500-pounder, and meditating, we are told, a 2,000-
pounder. At first sight, too, there appears some
justification for these views. The heavier the pro
jectile, other things being equal, the greater must
be its destructiveness, and just as we advanced from
12-pounders to 68-pounders in our sea service, and
from 6-pounders to 18-pounders in our field artil-
lery, so, it would seem, we should advance, if we can,
from these calibres to others still more formidable.
The Americans have presumption as well as practice
in their favour, and yet we cannot say that the
superiority of their system is absolutel3 established.
It must be remembered that, though the Federals
have made no trial of our principles, we have to some
extent tried theirs. We have had targets built to
represent the sides of their Monitors, and have made
experiments with guns as heavy as their siege guns
at Charleston. It was after these trials, and with-
out, as we hope, any prejudice against the new
designs, that we placed the old 68-pounders so high
on the list. The larger guns, with one or two excep-
tions, failed to satisfy oertain indispensable condi-
tions. Nor are we sure that the Americans have
been really more successful. It was reported,
though we cannot say on what authority, that many
of the guns in Gen. Gilmore's• batteries had burst,
and it is certain that his 300-pounder had nearly
two feet blown off her muzzle at the 25th round.
Again, though there is reason to suppose that the
Confederates are employing guns far heavier than
our own, they can make little or no impression on the
Monitors, whereas, unless our experiments are delu-
sive, the old 68-pounder at close quarters would
send her shot clean through their plates. When we
read of the 440-pound ball with which the Wee-
kawken stove in the sides of the Atlanta we lay but
little stress on the story, for a 40-pound Armstrong
bolt would certainly have done as much ; in fact, a
target like the Atlanta would be considered at Shoe-
bury ness as no target at all. As regards iron-cased
ships, therefore, the American practice gives us no
conclusive information. The Confederates cannot
destroy the Monitors, and the Federa s have never
met with any Monitors to destroy. No effect of a
shot against an armour-plated vessel is reported
which the old 68-pounder could not match. What-
ever Dahlgrens and Parrotts have actually done in
this way our chief service gun could undoubtedly do.
Out there is another branch of the subject re
quiring our attention. The siege guns used against
shore fortifications by the Federals at Charleston
have certainly done what nobody would expect of
any guns in our service. They have battered down
a fort at two miles' range ; they have shelled a town
at five miles, and we are assured they would be per-
fectly effective for the same work at seven miles.
Here there ean.be no doubt about the practice, and
it leaves the powers of our artillery far behind.
Possibly some of the guns may have been disabled,
and there may be other drawbacks from their
general efficiency of which we are not informed, but
the great fact remains that Charleston was shelled
from five miles' distance, and Fort Sumter knocked
to pieces at about half that range. Could our
68-pounders perform any such service as this P It
must be observed, too, that these enormous guns
were brought from a considerable distance to the
scene of action, and that all the necessary material
had to be similarly transported. Such exploits open
a new epoch in siege operations. We do not sup-
pose that Fort Sumter was any fair specimen of a
fortification, but that is of no importance to the
moral. The moral is that guns of about three times
the calibre used in our service have been successfully
employed for breeching and bombarding purposes
at a range hitherto unknown. Although, there-
fore, we cannot discover in the American war any
incident which should immediately disturb the re-
sults of our own experiments, we must observe that
these experiments have been directed to naval pro-
blems only. In those problems we have had to
consider not only what a gun would do, but how
the gun was to he carried. To apply the American
experience we should require first to see the 15-inch
gun tried against the Shoeburyness targets, and
then to see the vessel on the decks of which she
could be mounted. Whatever may be the powers
of these guns, we are by no means convinced that
they are good guns for ships. The Monitors have
as yet only crept along the Atlantic coast, and not
very confidently. The original model all but
foundered on her first voyage, and actually foun-
dered afterwards. The others have arrived safety
at the rendezvous, but we observe that their ar-
rivals are usually expected with some anxiety,
and reported with considerable congratulation.
Nobody supposes that they would form a sea-
worthy squadron, but this is what our ships
roust do, and if they cannot carry large guns on
such conditions they must carry smaller ones.
As to the armour of the vessels, it is remarkable
that though there is not a ship in the fleet the plates
of which could not, according to our presumptions,
be pierced by a 68-pounder, there is only a single
instance of the destruction of an ironclad by the
heavy guns of the Confederates. Dismissing, how-
ever, this branch of the question—not, indeed, as
settled in our favour, but as still obscure and uncer
Lain—we are compelled to conclude that the Ameri

cans are giving is a lesson in the capabilities of
siege artillery. We cannot say what practice may
be made with the Armstrong 110-pounder, but we
do not imagine that we have any battering guns in
our service which could send their balls through
26 feet of earth, or through nine inches of wrought
iron backed by 24 inches of oak. Yet the Fedcrals,
...

if we are to accept their own statements, have
actually made a gun equal to such work, and have
placed it in position before Charleston. It may be
said, perhaps, that other European nations are left
in the rear, like ourselves, by these new discoveries ;
but that may not be the case long. The Russians,
we aro told, have ordered as many as 4,000 guns of
our manufacturers, none of which are to be lighter
than the 68-pounder, and many probably very much
heavier. This is proof enough that the new sys-

tern is thought practicable. We do not yet know
that such ordnance can be successfully carried or
worked at sea, but we do know that it is manage-
able on shore, and that its range and power are

• - extraordinary,—a lesson far too important to be

received with indifference.

POST.—The Hapsburgs, as we all know, held the
throne of Spain and the Indies for nearly two cen-
turies. It would have required singular boldness
to have predicted to them a revival of any part of
that inheritance since its definitive settlement on
the House of Bourbon, by the treaty of Utrecht, a
century and a half ago. Indeed, the unmistakable
decline and threatening extinction of all the
branches cf this Bourbon dynasty would have made
it less improbab;e, ten years since, that the Aus-
trian pretensions might have revived at the Escurial
than that the accidents of conquest and marriage
should have now offered to the Hapsburg line the
prospect of two imperial thrones on the other side
of the Atlantic. We now learn that a marriage
has been arranged between the youngest brother of
the Emperor of Austria and the eldest daughter and
heiress of the Emperor of the Brazils. The Archduke
Louis Joseph Antoine Victor is now just twenty-
one years of age, and the Donna Isabelle Christine is
seventeen. In this union the hope of the Brazilian
succession will rest, and an Austro-Brazilian prince
will some day in all probability ascend the impe-
rial throne of Rio Janeiro. That contingency, no
doubt, is distant enough, for the Emperor Pedro 11.
is not yet forty. The Austrian Archduke, however,
when his princess ascends the throne, will probably
take the title of Emperor, as the consorts of Maria
di Gloria in Portugal, and of Isabella in Spain, took
that of King, The Hapsburg succession in Brazil
w'll probably become as established a fact es the
Hapsburg succession in Mexico. Three imperial
crowns in possession or in remainder fall to a single
branch of one family that seemed, only thirteen years
qop to be struggling for existence even in their