The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-26 00:00:00

The t tev. 11, W. Beecher at Manchester,

On S. aturday morning, on the occasion of a public
bTeakf, sat at the Albion Hotel in that city, the Rev.
Henry Ward Beecher took leave of his Manchester
friends —at least as many of them as the large din-
ing sr loon would accommodate—previous to his
depar' rare for America, The Mayor of Rochdale
(Mr. G. L. Ashworth) presided.
Die CHAIRMAN briefly opened the meeting, and
in his observations said that they had assembled
there that morning to take their farewell of Mr.
Bet:cher, and to give the lie to those who had said
th' st the people of England had now no sympathy
with that great question for which their forefathers
fo3 gloriously and so successfully struggled—the
abolition of slavery. England always did sympathise
with the slaves, bat nevertheless our Government
had done right and deserved our warmest support
in the course of neutrality which they had and
were prasuing on this great struggle in America.
After paying a tribute of thanks to Mr. Beecher for
the good he had done in England by his recent
speeches, which had set the public here right on the
American question, he called upon
Mr. F. TAYLOR, who moved a resolution thank-
ing Mr. Beecher for his able and eloquent addresses
to the people of this country, hoping that he would
inform his friends in America that the feeling here
was not one of hostility towards that country, but
one of friendship and sympathy. and assuring him
that ho had their warmest wishes fora successful
journey, and for the success of the cause which he
so ably advocated. i Ir. Taylor particularly wished
Mr. Becher to tell of the successful meetings that
had been held in England to hear him—meetings
such tiS the S9uthern sympathisers could not get up.
This -was a fact, and if it was doubted he only said,
" Let Mr. James Spence and his friends try, even
In his own town of Liverpool, and see if the people
of that place even go with him."
Mr. J., PATTISON (Liverpool) seconded the resolu-

sent moment. Every tradesmen and manufac-
turer was as busy as he possibly could be, and
he was trying to meet all the demands made upon
his taxed energies and skill to provide goods.
Labour never was more abundant. Everybody had
employment for both head and hand, and the mone-
tary affairs were easy and healthy, notwithstanding
the assertion of the Times editor to the contrary.
All this was very pleasing. Bat it was said the
crash was certain to come sooner or later. That was
true, if all the prosperity he had described was the
result of an inflated paper currency. The question
then was, "Is there more paper in circulation in the
North than there is actual and available property in
the North e and to that
he could
three North
no more paper in circulation in
is
safe, when we have the means toolcdoncvoeurnt
country
dAiinheowt
country must have credit, an
need it. Such being the fact, in about once every
10 years a commercial ofcrash—skinadhhle w
maissceolvlear-
neous crash—came, and when the h
the property remained. The community was sot
hurt by it. The property was there, the only differ-
ence being a change of owners. He believed Arne.
rica had never been more financially sound than she
nts now. Tradespeople were doing almost an en-
tirely cash business. The Government had issued
bonds upon the whole American Union, and not
State bonds as before, and the consequence was that
probably some 400,000,000 or 500,000,000 of capital
of the North had been invested in the security
offered by the Government, which, under another
name, was in America what the consols were in
England. The Americans felt that their Govern-
ment must stand, and hence they made it their
trustee and their savings bank, in which they in-
vested their 100,000,10,000, or 5,000 dole. Nothing
to the Americans seemed more sound and healthy
than the credit of the Uni`ed Staten, and hundreds
of miilion,4 of dollars had been invested in the United
States bonds in that way. Referring to his own
church, he said the blacks were allowed to sit any-
where—wherever they got, but it was not so in all
other churches. The treatment of the blacks in the
North had been bad. The North had been poisoned
by slavery when the party 'ow triumphant was in
minority. All the present majority in the North
asked for was that, since they had set their faces for
going to Jerusalem, nobody would stop them. The
late riots in New York were the sore raised up by a
foreign blister. They arose through the misinformed
Irish believing that if the slaves were set free there
would no longer be any work for them. After some
further observations, which were mainly repetitions
of what Mr. Beecher had said in previous speeches,
many questions were put to him regarding the con-
stitution of America, the anti-slavery party there,
the laws, &c., all of which he promptly answered.

tion.
Several gentlemen haven supported the resolu-
tion, which was unanimously egreed to,
'lice Rev. H. W. BEECHER ros?. amidst loud
cheering,to return thanks. He commenced by saying
he deeply regretted that he could not begin what he
had to say with ladies and gentlemen, instead of
with gentlemen only. (Laughter, and a voice, "We
represent the ladies.") Nu, they did not. No man
(Cheers and re-
could ever represent a woman.
peeved laughter.) It gave him very great pleasure
that morning—and it would have given him still
greater pleasure if he had been blessed with the
power of feeling more—to meet so many kind and
valued friends. If he had done anything in Eng-
land towatrds converting them to the abolition and
Norther'', cause, he must confess he had also been a
convert towards England. While he had seen much
during 'his sojourn in this country of the prejudices
and misconception of the American question among
the peisplei, he had seen much ii himself that was
prejud.icia towards England and misconception of her
PenPl e. And it was not the smallest triumph that
he could say that in the small course of two or
three weeks during which he had spoken in Eng-
land , he had gained a victory over his past im-
pressions and prejudices. His English friends in
America, when he used to speak of England as he
cOuld no longer speak of her, used to say to him—
" Ali, you don't know Old England ;" and he used
to reply that he did ; but when he got back to
them he should say very humbly—" I did not know
England." (Loud applause.) The question on which
he had to speak was a great question—a broad, an
intricate, and a multitudinous question in its con-
tents--the American question ; the total of which
was the whale of human society. It was the top,
the bottom, the centre, and the circumference; it
began here, ane went there, and back again. There
was no question in morals, in philosophy, or any
other queetion in which humanity is interested that
vas not involved in this great American question.
It was difficult, therefore, to always speak on a
question of such immensity and magnitude so as to
meet the requests of the audience. In Liverpool the
treatment to which he w is subjected was, he felt
—arid he must do them the justice to say so—rather
an outbreak of party feeling than of opposition to the
lihsty of free speee.:-: or sympathy with the Southern
cettee. The speeches walch he had made on this
nor, authoritative, inasmuch as they
b ad never passed under his hand or eye, and there
/bre he otOst not to be charged with any inaccu-
racies that might be discovered in Clem—inaccu-
racies which arose from the hurry in which the re-
porters had to transcribe, summarise, and frequently
to take zheii notes, and not from any wilful misre.
presentation on their part. He was a newspaper
man, and he knew the difficulties connected with
reporting for the press, and especially when only
toe summary of a speech had to be written, and the
writer was not well acquainted with the subject of
that speech. fleece, although summarised reports
might perhaps represent tne tenor of his speeches,
still they dol not always represent what he said,
and he shou4l not, therefore, be judged by them.
Daring his visit to England the keynote to his pro-
gress here had been an attempt to use his informa-
tioa so as to promote a better understanding and a
lasting peace between this country and America.
They wanted to draw closer the bonds of amity and
good fellowship. That had ever been his object in
addressing the meetings he had attended in Eng-
land, although he had been warned by one paper,
Daily
/es, he believed—and to which he wished
to be testimony how glad the Americans were
that that paper had dared to pursue such a course
with regard to their conflict—the Daily News had
t to touch upon such subjects—such
f
as the Trent affair, for instance—which were cal-
culated to alienate frond him the feelings and sym-
pathies of the English
epeople. Now, he did not
wish to renew that subject a
case
with, but he could not help' it was past and done
asking them as En
g-
lishmen, whether, if the had been vice versa,
they would not have felt and doned on that occasion
what the Americans felt and di(Applause.) The
news of the capture of Mason
and Slidell spread
rapidly over America, and everybod:chucjkokleed,
with great glee, treating the capture as
good
but in two or three days some lawyer sent a letter
to the newspapers saying that the capture was all
very
well, but there happened to
bceodesuch
a Power as England, and such a
international law, and what would they say about
it What is the law on this subject?" every.
body asked everybody else, and boon they be.
gan to draw long faces, although there was a um.
versa( conviction that Capt. Wilkes had acted on an
English precedent. That conviction still remained
with the Americans' and it was grounded on a fact.
The moment the capture was made known to the
American Govetnnient, Mr. Seward wrote to Mr.
Adams, in London, a private note, which he was re-
quested to read to Lord Russell (and which he did
read to Lord Russell), stating that they were
anxious to settle any question that might be raised
thereon amicably and fairly. Same ten days after
that note had been received and read in England,
and after it had oozed out that such a note had been
received, the Morning Post, •:ooliA upon
as the semi-offiei al organ of the Govern man declared
that a communication had beet: received by the
-Englieh Government from the American Govern-
ment, but that it bad no relation whatever to the
Trent affair, whereas the communication was on the
Trent affair and nothing else ; and to this hour that
paper had never retracted that most malicious false-
hood. (Applause.) Many said those men should
have been gives up
Government towithout calling n on the English
makeneta demand Icript',hem to be so,
but that could,
doctrine was that they had a right be, inasmuch the Englisit
to condemn
neutral veAseleoutainin e
prizs court, as and did in
I.contraoatl of war without
bringing her into a
is o 7 ; Wtiilet the Ai:lasi-Qin hne
doctrine or law was that
vessels cuntsining contraband
of wsr must be aken
iota a praze court. Hence the Arnerican. Govern-
ment wanted to know from the English Government
which law they proposed to act upon, and a he
English Government chose to act upon the Ameri-
can doctrine, and they gave up the captured
me
The rev, gentleman then, in allusion to El.
somenews-
paper attacks made upon him in consequence of his
remarks about the prosperity of America,repeated
that never since America was America had there
been morn material and come-ten-is' prosperity
than there was in the Northern States at the pre-

The proceedings did not terminate till between
one and two o'clock p.m., although the company sat
down shortly after nine o'clock a.m.

Mr. J. Laird, M.P.. upon National Defences.

On Fridal last the prizes for rifle and artillery shooting
competed for on the 17th ult. by the volunteers of Birken-
besd and district were distributed by Mr John Laird, M.P.,
who presided.

The CHAIRMAN, after some remarks upon the constitu-
tion of the volunteer force, addressed the meeting as follows
—Having said this much, I may perhaps be now allowed to
go into the question of the defences of the country. The
army and navy, everybody admits, so far as the personnel
goes, is kept in the highest possible state of efficiency. In
proof of that I need only call your attention to the charac-
ter, conduct, and known abilities of the officers of the Chan-
nel fleet, which lately visited this river. (Cheers.) I have
had opportunities for years—nay, all my life, in fact—to
meet naval men; but I must say I never met a set of men
better adapted to fill the position they were placed in than
those who were here with the Channel fleet; and I feel con-
vinced that, if provided with proper means, they will fulfil
their duty to the country. (Cheers.) Gentlemen, in last ses-
sion of Parliament, and in the session before that, great at-
tention was paid not only to the army and navy, but also to
the way in which that army and navy should be armed—the
sort of rifles and the sort of guns that they should use. A
great deal of discussion took place ',bout the Armstrong gun;
and so much was said about the millions it had cast, and
about the wasteful expenditure upon it, that I really thought
the gentlemen who ruade thoseremarksin t he House of Com-
mons were giving expression to mere figures of speech
rather than to anything else. But the statements were made
again and again. They were repeated day after day and
week after week, until a committee was appointed to inquire
into the merits of the Armstrong gun, its cost and its effici-
ency. I was appointed to act on that committee, and rather
hard work it was, sitting for two or three hours ad ty for
two or three days a week through two Sessions of Parlia-
ment. And I am bound to say, having sat on that committee
during the Sessions of 1862 and 1563, I was satisfied thet
pratically £2,500,000 .had been spent on that gun, and that
we had not got value for our money. (Hear.) And why did
we not get value ? Because I believe the appointment of Sir
William Armstrong an injudicious appointment. He was
appointed Engineer-in-Chief of Rifled Ordnance, and, of
courae,thought his own guns were the best that could be con-
structed; and, therefore, as an honourable man,he was bound
to endeavour to carry out his own principle; but he did it
with a bad result to the country, because, by being placed in
that position, I believe men like Whitworth, and Blakeley,
and others, who have invented guns and have done much for
the scientific development of the gunnery question, were
kept back. I don't mean to impute anything to Sir William
Armstrong, but I say his was an unfortunate appointment
on the part of the Government—(hear, hear)—and my opi-
nion is that such a post should be opened up to the country
generally; and that in scientific matters cf this kind you
should endeavour to bring to bear all the best and most per-
fect knowledge in the empire. If you do that, it strikes me
as a self-evident proposition that you are more likely to get
the beat invention than you would do if you confined your-
self to the invention of merely one man. (Applause.) Sir
William Armstrong started the ElswickOrdnance Company.
When he was appointed the Engineer-in-Chief of Ordnance
he retired, but his partners carried on the business, and
they had a large amount of work, amounting to one million
of money, in three or four years to do for Government,
the Government spending the other million and a half.
Many statements were made in the committee, and very
much evidence was taken. Mr. Whiffin, the Accountant-
General, was called, and proved that, had the work done by
the Elswick Ordnance Company been done in the gun fac-
tory at Woolwich, the country would have saved, on an
expenditure of £600,000, no less a sum than £240,000; so
that we may calculate what a saving would have been
made if you reflect for a moment that the amount spent was
£1,000,000, and the work might have been done at Wool-
wich. I will candidly admit that there was a difference of
opinion upon that point, but my argument in the committee
was that Mr. Whiffin was called as the Accountant-Gene-
ral to verify the accounts presented to the committee. And
who is Mr. Whiffin? it may be asked. Well, he is a man
appointed by the Government to go to India, and put the
accounts of the army and the department is India in a pro-
per and sound basis. If he was an unfit and improper man
to be put in that position, we must take it for granted that
his evidence before the Select Committee on Ordnance was
incorrect; and, if he gave evidence that was incorrect, then
the Government should not have sent him on that mission to
India. I believe there has been a large expenditure on these
Armstrong guns which might have been avoided. But I will
not give you merely my own opinion, I will give you that of
hia Grace the Duke of Somerset, who was himself examined
uponu this committee, as to the efficiency of the Armstrong
g
n after all this enormous expenditure had been incurred.
The
lvtle,uk_etiof Somerset, in reply to question 5,012, said—
the facts.
aad report that the Armstrong gun had the greatest
rwanhongeZieethinefireatest power of penetration of any gun tried;
at 200 yards it certse
The Armstrong
try it ourselves that was not confirmed by
havenad
gre.-I:akitwArrastrong gun. at a great distance, may
Power of penetration, but for naval purposes
pounder Armstrong%
they had been at work. f:
old 68-pounder it, certainly had not the greatest power. Our
more powerful gun than the 100-
of money. Then, again for five This was evidence given after
eerthan the 100ep years, and spent 21 millions
gun
of
the
elednoble duke goes on to say that
rt r
gnugn
style struck a harder blow at
sah6oBrtporaunngd
considered dPeAurd
es
que:ttider
Grace said, in reply to
much an advantage to have a 7 6•108—" I thought it so
gthilant. could
throw a 1001 b. snot that I
armament of the Warrior would havebit probable that the
and it was not until we tried a 100
been allloo-pounders;
68-
pounder against Capt. Coles's cupola
thatl became
Pounder and a
that the 63-pounder struck a harder blow aware
pounder at short range." Other statemente thanw the 100-
the noble duke and other parties, with whicherle made by
d
trouble you—but I thought it right to go briefly nienet not
o this
• because at this moment it excites
question,considerable in-
terest. America has guns of very great power and of very
great size; and ,
every naval officer with whom I have eon '
versed has told me that in naval wars battles will be fought
at close quarter ;
that the ship that can deliver the harder
blows at 200 yards will be the most efficient ship; and the
Duke of Somerset, as you have already heard, has stated
that at short ranges the old 68-pounder is more efficient
than the 100-pounder Armstrong gun. Ido not say that
the 68-pounder is the most efficient gun that we can get;
but public attention has very properly been drawn to this
subject, and the next thing that we must do is to see how,
in regard to naval guns of increased size and power wo
can work them on board ship. Perhaps it may be said
that I should apologise for going into these matters, but I,
for one believe that the Volunteer movement is an essential
part of the defences of the country; and that unless the
Army, the Navy and Volunteers are properly armed
and equipped
we cannot expect adequately to defenl the
country; and, as we ought to -do, carry the war into the

qa cstion wcr,

stead of 400 acres of dock space in the Mersey we had only
40 acres, and that we had to do the greater portion of our
business on the Mersey; supposing we had to take cargoes
out of ships into flats, take them ashore, take goods on board
again from the shore and carry them on board the ships in
flats, and that every single piece of work on board the ship
in the river would have to be done by workmen going from
the shore, doing the work in the river, and coming back
again on shore ; why, need I tell any commercial man who
knows anything of the trade of Liverpool that with such a
system as this,Liverpool would never have gone on at all ?
Bristol, or London, or some other port would inevitably
have taken the trade, because the working of ships here
would have been so dreadfully expensive and ruinous that
the port would have been shut up as a port and its trade de-
stroyed entirely. Now, just look for a moment at the posi-
tion of the royal dockyards. The ships there cannot fit out
in the docks, but they fit out in the harbour as tar as they
can. They go to Spithead, and their stores are taken off to
them. A carpenter is sent off. if it is blowing hard he does
not get there at all. If he does not get there he loses half a
day ; and that is just how the money is spent in the dock-
yards. (Elear.) I say this to the Government and the House
of Commons, " We want two or three millions to make per-
fect accommodation, and if you give us this money now we
will save that expenditure in two or three years," That is
what they should do. Theyoughtto have done it before; but
they took a contrary step, and in ten years they have spent
a million and a half on mere peddling, stupid alterations,
without deriving any benefit from them. The first thing is,
they increase the length of a dock by ten feet. Then they
widen it two or three feet, and next they deepen it a foot
or 18 inches. This is another way in which the money
is wasted. Is there any commercial man who has
ever had a ship in this river, and has had to dis-
charge, and load, and refit in the river, who does
not know that if he had had proper means for discharging
his cargo, refitting his ship, and loading his outward cargo
in dock, ha would not have beaten another man who was
compelled to do all these things in the stream ? The man
who can do all this in dock would beat the man who had to
do it in the river in a very short time. (Hear, hear, and
applause.) Possibly, it may be considered that the country
is too great to look into these matters and the expenditure
of money; but I say that the true manner in which to
manage public business is to manage as a man manages
his own private affairs ; and until the Government in this
country is forced to do something of that kind they may
talk about what they will do, but they will never be able to
reduce the expenditure which is going on. (Hear, hear, and
loud applause.) I do not know that I ought to occupy your
time any longer, but various statements have been made
about a vessel that has attained to some degree of fame, I
refer to a vessel well known throughout this country as the
Alabama. (Loud and repeated cheering.) lam not ashamed
to acknowledge that some of my family have had to do with
that ship. Still, some statements have been made about her
which should be controverted. I should not have made any
remark now, but for the fact that the Government of this
country have made certain statements, and have given cer-
tain legal opinions about her, and they have talked about the
vessel having escaped. I see my friend Mr. Hind and other
gentlemen who are somewhat of sporting men, and well
they know what I mean when I say—when hounds approach
a fox cover the fox scents the hounds, and when the hunts-
man comes up to the cover the fox is gone. It is nonsense
to talk about the fox escaping or about the Alabama escap-
ing. The Alabama was in dock when she was inspected by
very many curious people, and in dock she took on board
her coals and her stores. There was no secresy what-
ever observed about the ship. She went out of dock
at night, and if she wanted to escape surely the night
was a time when she could have escaped. But, what
was the fact ? They were so vainglorious about their
little craft, that they anchored her off the Landing-
stage, and there she remained until half-past 10 or II the
following morning, when she left for her destination. They
admit that she was not fitted out as a man-of-war, and that
they had no legal authority to detain that ship until a man
was engaged to serve on board her as a sailor. Does any
shipowner present believe, or any man connected wide ship-
ping, that the captain of a vessel supposed to be going upon
any extraordinary voyage would go and tell a man who ap-
pears to have been a hired agent or spy of certain gentle-
men in London ? Would the captain of a ship on such an
expedition go and tell a common sailor, at the Sailors'
Home, all the ins and outs of his intentions regarding that
ship ? (" Hear, hear," and applause.) Certainly not. Now,
I know it is not true that that man was told anything of
the sort by the captain. I have been so informed, and I be-
lieve the information to be on the best authority. But let
me tell you it is not necessary, in engaging men to go to any
part of the world, to tell those men where they are going;
because, you know, I am an old hand myself in fitting out
secret expeditions. (Laughter and applause.) A few
years ago it was thought desirable by the Government of
this country to send vessels to China and to various parts
of India secretly. A Chinese war was anticipated; the
Russians were expected to come down the head of the Indus
and the Euphrates; and it was desirable to plane faith in
somebody, Her Majesty's Government were pleased to place
faith in me, and I built for the British Government about
a dozen vessels; but the Government said to me, "What
we want you to do, Mr. Leird, is this—we want you to
build, and to arm, and equip these vessels, awl to send them
out , they must be yours, and nobody must know anything
about it." Well, being a prudent sort of a shipbuilder, I
said, " I will take your order on these conditions." I built
the ships; they were armed; 1 engaged men; I did
everything. (" Hear, hear," cheers and laughter.) I had
to engage, not only sailors, but engineers and boiler-
makers, ship-carpenters, and men of a variety of trades ;
I had to send them to various parts of the world, and I can
assure you that a few shillings per month extra did all the
business. They did not care whether they went so long as
they got a little extra pay—',laughter)—and, therefore, the
statement regarding the captain of the Alabama having told
a sailor all about the ship—whose she was, and where she
was for—bears the impress of falsehood upon the very face
of it. I never saw the captain of the Alabama but Once, and
that was after having taken the ship out, and I don't think
he was the man to make such a statement as that upon
which the ship might have been stopped. Let ma read you
a few words from a speech of the Solicitor-General, who
made another great speech the other day at Richmond. He
said some months ago :—" It was not till the Alabama
reached the Azores that she received her stores, her cap-
tain, or her papers, and that she hoisted the Confederate
flag. It is not true that she departed from the shores of
this country as a ship armed for war." (Hear, hear, and
great applause,) And then went on to say :—" But I ve'sh
the house to understand that in those depositions there was
a great mass of hearsay evidence, which, taken by itself,
could not form the basis of any action. Of the six deposi-
tions transmitted on the 22d July, only one was good for
anything at all—viz., the evidence of a person named Pass-
more, which was sufficient to prove the material facts. Two
more were sent, corroborating Passmore, on the 24th, and
and were received by Earl Russell on the 26th." (Hear.)
Passmore was the man who made the affidavit that he was
told by the captain where the ship was to go. I don't be-
lieve him, and he must have got up the evidence for the
occasion. Lord Palmerston, whom we all respect—(ap-
plause)—seid on the 27th of March last—" I have myself
great doubts whether, if we had seized the Alabama, we
should not have been liable to considerable damages. It is
generally known that she sailed from this country unarmed
and not properly fitted out for war, and that she received
her armament, equipment, and crew in a foreign port.
Therefore, whatever suspicions we may have had—and
they were well founded, as it afterwards turned out—as
to the intended destination of the vessel, her condition
at that time would not have justified a seizure." (Cheers.)
Now, here is Lord Palmerston, an old and experienced man,
who says, in his opinion, the Government would have been
liable to considerable damages had they stopped that ship.
I think after what has been said—considering my connec•
tion with this place, and after the noise this vessel has made
in the world—(laughter and applause)—the meeting will
excuse my having brought forward these questions. (Ap-
plause) But the whole question of the defences of this
country may be, I think, very safely brought before this
meeting, because they are all intimately connected with the
Volunteer movement; and I therefore feel that I have teen
justified in going somewhat at length into the various qaes-
dons as to the character of our ships of war, the quantity of
guns that they are to carry, and other incidental matters.
Other speeches have been made by a noble lord who does
not seem to agree with Lord Palmerston. I mean Earl
Russell. (Hisses.) He made a speech the other day which
has caused a great sensation all over the world, and which
the Americans say is only due to the coercion they have
put upon him. Earl Russell is a man who is well known
and respected throughout the country by his own followers;
but he is a roan of whom Sydney Smith said that he had
such confidence in himself that he would take command of
the Channel fleet, if necessary. Well, I think Earl Russell
has undertaken something that he will not be able to carry
through quite so easily as, perhaps, ho might command the
Channel fleet. He has undertaken to say in this country
that he can do certain thivgel and that if he finds the law
is not sufficient he can go to Parliament for an indemnity,
(Hear, hear.) I don't believe myself that Parliament will
ever indemnify any man in the country, however powerful
and however great ho may be, if he is trying to transgress
the law. (Loud and protracted cheering.) At any rate,
up to the time that the Act of Indemnity is passed, there aro
laws in the laud which all of us are bound to obey. (Hear,
hear.) Laws are not mado for Administrations, but fur the
le are bound to obey
people of this country, and the p eop
the law as it stands, and not to obey laws which may po,_
sibly come to be passed hereafter. (Reneged cheers.)
Another eminent gentleman, Sir Roundell Palmer, has
made another speech at Richmond; and I must say, leav-
ing read the speech, that it is all very well for an eminent
lawyer, one of the first legal authorities of the day, to make
a speech in the month of March, and say that those were
the views of the country, and to make a speech in sup-
port of another client in October of opposite views; but
I sav it is not the duty of a man who holds the position of
a statesman in this country to be placing one interpretation
upon certain facts in March and another in October. (Loud
cheers.)

enemy's oamp, which is the proper way of banishing
intruders. (Hear, hear.) If we are to go into
this question of large guns which has been talked of so
much, and which has been looked after, not only with great
interest in this country, but with more than usual interest
in America,--if we are to adopt those guns, we can
only do so by resorting to the cupola plan of Captain Coles
to work them. I believe that by that plan we can work the
largest and the heaviest guns. I know we can work guns of
from 15 to 20 tons with the greatest possible ease. We
cannot do that on board a broadside ship, and if our battles
are to be fought and won by ships with the heaviest arms,
went, the sooner we consider the question of the ships best
calculated to carry those heavy guns the better it will be
for the country. What have we done on this subject I
vessel
;;I cu to
poclara carry
The cupola, I should tell you, if you do not already know
it,aBB stands in the middle of the ship, and you can strengthen
a anycupteh cupola
thickness-12
anyos—wle2i weight. t.
15 You
inches,c
and armour-
plateyou
can make it perfectly impenetrable to shot; and, as it is a
very small portion of a very large ship, you won't depress
the ship much in the water, but the battery will be well
protected and imprevious to shot. That, you will see, is a
very great point. But what has our Government done
with regard to this plan ? There are two plans now before
the public. One is that of Captain Coles ; the other is the
plan by Mr. Reed. Now, it is quite clear to naval men
that, if either of these plans is to supersede the old broad-
side system of gunnery, the sooner either one or the other,
or both, are tried the better. But again I ask, what has
our Government done ? In April or May, 1862, they
stated in the House of Commons, after various remon-
strances, that the Royal Sovereign had been ordered to be
cut down to be fitted with Coles's cupola, and that another
was to be converted on Mr. Reed's plan. 1 venture to say
that if proper exertions had been used those two ships
might have been ready in six months from April last (hear,
hear), and I don't believe they will either of them be ready
for six months to come. In the meantime, a large
amount of money has been expended in other ways ; and if
these plans of Reed and Coles should prove to be the best,
we shall have wasted some millions of money on ships of
another construction. If we were to go to war to-morrow
our navy is not—l say it advisedly—in such a state as that
we could go to war with a certainty of success. How do we
stand with regard to iron plated ships? It we were to go to
war with America, they have a number of iron clad turret
ships perfectly fitted in every respect for coast defence,while
we have no ships at all that are suited for the purpose. It
will not do to say, as we did during the Russian war, that
we can build 150 or 250 gunboats by means of private yards
in 12 months. Armour plated ships require a length of time
in their construction, and I say most emphatically that it
would be the best policy of this country if the Legislature
would turn its attention to this question, because, although
the fleet we saw in the Mersey the other day was composed
of most magnificent ships—most of them drawing from 25
to 28 feet of water—l need scarcely tell you who know any-
thing of the port of Liverpool that they are perfectly unfit
for war on the coasts of France or America. (Hear, hear.)
If we went to war to-morrow, we •should go into that war
for the first year or two under most disadvantageous cir-
cumstances, and then we should have to turn cur dockyards
and onr private yards to some account—in fact, to do some-
thing to get us out of the scrape in which we should find
ourselves, as we had to do during the Russian war, because,
if in that war we had had a sufficient number of efficient
gunboats, which we had not until the second year of that
war, we would have put an end to that conflict much more
rapidly than we did, and at far less cost to this country. I
think it right to impress this point particularly upon the
meeting. We have only two ships that I can find on looking
over the Navy List that could possibly be considered suit-
able for cost defences, and those are two vessels constructed
on Mr. Reed's plan. Why they are not brought forward I
cannot pretend to say; but I do believe this, that the money
wasted in the naval administration of this country is some-
thing fearful. We have spent from £30,000,000 to £33,000,000
in the last three years, and got a number of large ships
afloat, some of which you saw in the river the other day,
and others are building, but not ready, and none of which
will be of any use to us to carry on a war in the circum-
stances in which we shall most probably be placed. I state
these facts distinctly, (Hear, hear.) I have stated them
in my place in the House of Commons (hear, hear), and I
have no fear of their being heard by anybody in any Place,
because I can prove them to be correct. I assert, then, that
there are only two ships capable of application to coast and
harbour defences; and that the two ships on Captain Coles's
plan draw so much water that they are utterly useless for
the purposes they are intended for—namely, the defences of
our coasts and harbours; and, moreuver,that they are neither
masted nor rigged, nor are they fit to be sent across the At-
lantic, It is is vain that Captain Coles has protested to our
Government against this state of things.. He has urged
them to make those ships serviceable, not only for the de-
fences of our own coasts, but for foreign service. I need
not tell any of the many commercial men I see hereto-night
the difficulties that attend ships of great draught of water
getting into and out of Liverpool. How, then,
can ships of
that class cruise about our banks ? (Hear, hear.) What we
want is a number of ships of a certain description, of from
8 to 10 or 15 feet draught of water ; and, unless the Go-
vernment come to do something of that sort before very long,
we shall have to spend a large sum of money without being
in a position when the time really comes to meet the emer-
gency; and we shall in the end spend considerably mote
money than would be the case if we considered the question
well at the present time. (Hear, hear.) Mr. Cobden has
been pleased within the last day or two to make some com-
plimentary remarks about my late firm at Birkenhead. I
don't agree with Mr. Cobdet.t in his conclusions. I don't
think it would do to abandon entirely our Government
dock) ards ; but I to believe it would be desirous to main-
tain theta to a certain extent, while at the same time
they should have throughout the country a portion of their
work done in private establishments, so that in case of
war we would not only have the resources of the national
dockyards to rely upon, but the extensive resources of the
private yards, the proprietors of which would understand
how to do Government work. (Hear, hear.) But we stop
progress in this country, and the naval development of this
country has come to this, that it is supposed that when a
gentleman is appointed controller of the navy, whatever
his antecedents may have been—however respectable he
may be, however good a sailor he is—yet he must needs
carry all the shipbuilding brains of the country in his head.
What I want is simply this—that the Government shall
bring to bear for the interest of the country all the talent
that exists in the country. That is done already by the
Government in respect of engineering for the navy, and I
need not tell you who have turned your attention to the
subject that the engineering talent of this country, as ex-
emplified by Penn, by Mandalay, and others of considerable
eminence, has been the means of bringing a vast amount of
talent and ingenuity to bear in the construction of the most
perfect machinery which science could devise for propelling
our ships of war; and this would not and could not have
been the case if one man only had been placed at the head
of the naval engineering department, and everything left to
him. Competition is desirable in all things, but in this case
it is desirable extremely for the true interests of the country.
I do not want to be personal at all, because I will take the
testimony of a certain vessel's operations. I will take two
ships built in this neighbourhood--the Alabama and the
Florida. (Loud and protracted cheering.) I am not at all
ashamed, ladies and gentlemen, to own that my sons de •
signed and built the Alabama. (Renewed cheering.) Nor,
I am sure, is the builder of the Florida ashamed to say that
he designed and built that ship; but the testimony borne to
those vessels is not the testimony of Birkenhead or of Liver-
pool, or indeed of this country, but the testimony comes from
America. They are two vessels that have been afloat for
some considerable length of time, and they have defied the
power of 400 ships. (Cheering.) They have never been
caught. (Renewed cheering.) They were designed and
built by private individuals, but in this country it is the
misfortune of the managers of our marine to imagine that
one man and one man only is to carry in his head the brains
of all the designing talent of the country for building ships.
If they had got a little life in the Admiralty, then they
might have improved on the Alabama and the Florida,and
perhaps on other ships. (Laughter.) We have been ac-
customed to hear of the Americans boasting about their
shipbuilding, and that they built ships to run 20 miles an
hour. Ladies and gentlemen, the Alabama goes 13, but
the Americans have never been able to touch her. I
certainly do not agree with Mr. Cobden that we should rely
on private interests alone. I think the Government should
do in respect to shipbuilding as they have done with regard
to engineering. As I have told you, I was a member of the
committee for two sessions on the Armstrong gun, and that
committee recommended, and carried their recommendation,
that the inventions of all able men should les ptoperly con-
sidered. That was a great step in the right direction—(hear,
hear, and applause)—and, no doubt, our gunnery will be
very much advanced in the future in consequence. (Hear,
hear.) I may, perhaps, be tiring the audience—(cries of
No, no, and cheers)—but when I was asked to come here I
did not come here merely to talk about the volunteers. My
intention was to speak on the general defence of the coun-
try ; and, therefore, I now want to state, as shortly as I can,
my views on some points connected with that matter.
(Cheers) You have had this point repeatedly stated in the
House of Commons, and it is one which is of lasting impor-
tance, and that is the question of dock accommodation for
ships of the Royal navy. (Hear, hoar.) Many gentlemen
here, no doubt, are connected with the trade of Liverpool ;
and I will just tell you now what the position of the Royal
dockyards are as compared with Liverpool, and then make
a few remarks on that point. Liverpool and Birkenhead have
400 acres of dock space, and 28 graving ducks. The whole
of her Majesty's dockyards, including Chatham, Sheerness,
Portsmouth, Plymouth, and other places, have only 41
fleet
acre, of dock space, and the number of graving docks is
33,g but
likeonly tour or five of them are capable of taking in
ships
the Warrior. In the Mersey, the other day,
that Ratlooked
nothingtoattuaells;ouhtuut NoVneehpavaret
to go to Plymouth s ewe was obligedt h a at
the time they et
back
and another to Portsmouth, and Ports-
mouth harbour Would not -
Admiral told me himself
f take them all in. Why, the
that he was alarmed at the very
idea of coming up the Mersey ; but he got into the
Mersey, and he got out of
it
again, as safely as we
could do, and as we did do, every
very large merchant ships. (Rear,ehay
hear Now,
the year with
householder in Birkenhead pays taxes; and.) therefore, ever
taxpayers, they are all interested in where the money goes.
I'll explain to yott whe-o iortio of it goes. Supposing, in-

Full• benefit of reduced duty obtained by pur-
chasing Horniman's pure Tea ; very choice at 3s. 4d. and
4s. "High Standard" at 45. 4d. (formerly 44. Bd.), is tile
strongest and most delicious imported. Agents in every
town supply it in pack.`.`_'

THE SUN. LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCrOBER 26, 1863.