The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-18 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, DEC. 18, 1863.

MEADE'S retreat again across the Rapidan is cer-
tainly a bit of an anti-climax. The more credulous
believers in Federal boastfulness were on the tiptoe
of expectation thatLEE and his lieutenants were upon
the eve of being signally if not finally worsted—
when lo ! and behold, like the King of FRANCE with
his forty thousand men, Ge•aeral MEADE,with thrice
that number, marches, if not up a hill, across the
Rapidan—only, with all the pride, pomp, and cir-
cumstance of glorious wear, as creditably as he could
possibly perform the manoeuvre, to march back
again ! Perhaps the next time that the
Northerners are chaunting premature pecans
of triumph, no na. Atter how loudly—we would now
suggest that—p arhaps the next time the m re in-
fatuated anaon g the still surviving hangers-on to
faint ghost 'of a belief in the possibility of Federal
truthfulness, -will moderate their credence and delay,
for
their
a little 'while longer at least, the expression of
inavilicit confidence in the tidings bruited to
Europe
from New York—tidings often so auspi-
cious for
'ae North, and so disastrous for the
South ! -yet
somehow invariably coming forth in
tt hh oe
end jest joefetNi,,lthe
rteeisely vice versa ! Seen through
rn observation the news from
the actual seat of
war has rather more than once
come to us just exactly inverted. The most bril-
liant succv ss, has turaeaezt
almosta,edet
fa il always,
ltl o. a dead_
in
certainty, about the Ncr
magin
able. The Commander-in.nv,;
to con e qur everything, ha,-"LeA. who has gone forth
etmae back, figuratively
speaking, with his spurs ahorn
"la and his baton of
command ignominiously broken i
twain. And
while those successive Commander,-in-chief of the
Northern army have contrived thas,lti lamentably
rapid succession, to come like shadows, so
to depart—the Southern Commander-in-chief
has continued uninterruptedly in his Nat
of
an_
preme responsibility, with his reputation steadily
advancing, and enlarging—the prestige of aictery,
ever his, for hitherto LEE, in the field, has never
upon one single occasion been defeated. 1J
to the present period he has so played the terrible
game of war, though confronted from first to last by
immensely superior forces numerically, that, at his
own pleasure, ho has advanced, or he has
retreated ! Often advancing at the pas de
charge never retreating, as his foes have done,
quite undeniably more than once, in panic flight.
The heaviest blow, indeed, that has yet befallen
the cause of the Confederates—who does not know
it ? Nut the discomfiture very recently of General
.2RAGG, a Guneral that LEE, unaccustomed
to the bare notion of Southern discomfiture,
IP.s, almost as a matter of course, at once
%aperseded. No—that heaviest blow of all
Tat dealt at the cau3c of the Confederates, was,
not the bl'ilking of General BRAGG'S ambition!
io
was that blow dealt inadvertently by a
Southern hand,
that fatal blow which struck
down' e_ e.veral months back, the noblest, the
most chivalrous and enterprising among that
group of paladins the lieutenants of LEE.
Bat happily for the the cause of the South,
LEE is there still in the chief command
in the full vigour of his great Powers as a master of
the deadly art of War, as
perhaps
the greatest soldier of the age. altogether
And there
still around him are men like LONGSTREET,
and JOHNSTON, end BEAUREGARO, aed others in
many ways worthy of being brothers in arms of
brave, dead and gone STONEWALL JACKSON—every
one of them, as unhesitatingly as JACKSON was
throughout his brief but brilliant and m o
m et
career, es he was, in simple truth, 'up to t
lae moment

of his death, ready to obey implicitly the orders, the
slightest hint, of the great Confederate Commander-
in-Chief.

Another leviathan of the navy has just been
launched. The Minotaur is the largest and best-
protected iron-plated frigate in the service. Her
tonnage exceeds that of the Warrior and Black
Prince by upwards of eight hundred tons. She is
encased with five and a-half inch iron plates from
below her water line to her bulwarks; she lies low
in the water; and will be armed with some
fifty formidable guns. We do not sup-
' pose that any maritime nation can produce
a vessel that could try conclusions with her on the
high seas with any prospect of success, but here the
prestige of invincibility ceases. A vessel of the
Minotaur class may be invincible when she can get
at her foes, bat the great draught which her inor-
dinate size necessitates renders her powerless against
coast defences as an aggressive power, and likewise
useless for intercepting an invading force conveyed
in ships of light draught of water. It may be con-
tended that the Minotaur, and her two sisters nearly
ready for launching, will, by the great power of
their engines, command a speed which will enable
them to intercept any hostile fleet while yet in deep
water. But is England to rest contented to act on
the defensive only ? Hitherto it has been our boast
to carry the war into the enemy's country, and we
should like the Lords of the Admiralty tell us why
they are building ships which will be useless :or
purposes of aggression, excepting through the
agency of their boats or tenders. Why has the
Administration taken such a mania for defending
ships ? The Armstrong guns and the Minie rifles
have not made the artily less popular, and the youth
of England enlist and " march to death with mili-
tary glee," as freely and as confidently as in the
da, sof old " Brown Bess." Why are our seamen
to be taken such unwonted care of? Cutlass and
pistol have hitherto been the order of the day in
our navy, and the cry of " boarders away" has been
considered the conclusion of the action. Are we
now to relinquish the prestige which three centuries
of indomitable courage have given to the nation and
follow the example of the Americans by trying
conclusions with our enemies at five miles range,
with what happy results the siege of Charleston
may demonstrate. Again, for the sake of argument,
let us suppose that our leviathans are manageable
and handy, and that they can carry guns weighing
twenty or even thirty tons. Of what avail would
they be if exposed to the fire of the forts of Cron-
stadt armed with six or eight hundred pounder
Blakely guns such as that gentleman is at present
manufacturing for the Russian Government. Hav-
ing been neglected and rebuffed by the Government
of his own country, he has been compelled in self-
defence to seek that support from a foreign Power
which petty favouritism and underhand influence
prevented him from receiving in his own country.
Last week the first trial at long range with the
Armstrong six hundred pounder took place at Shoe-
buryness. One shell only struck the target, but
that one was sufficient virtually to demolish it ; the
range was only 1,000 yards, but there can be no
doubt that the effect of the shot would have been
as destructive at 2,000 yards as it was at the
shorter distance. In fact a six hundred pound shell
would have passed through both sides of the :Nino•
taur, scattering death and destruction on its way—
the heavy plates and backing only serving to aggra-
vate the evil. The question, therefore, resolves
itself into this—if armour plating cannot protect our
ships from the impact of heavy artillery, why should
they be encumbered wi..h it ? Speed is of more
advantage to a cruiser than invulnerability, and by
dispensing with armour-plating she may carry
heavier guns and more powerful engines. We as
yet know but little to what extent artillery range
or calibre may be carried, but we do know how far
we may load our ships. Sir WILLIAM ARMSTRONG'S
600-pounder cannot be fired three, or at most four,
times in the hour, and then, even when the dis-
tance isknown and the angle of elevation calculated,
two or three shots are thrown away before the
target is struck. When we consider that each of
these shells costa the country some £45, economists
cannot be blamed if they advocate reserving such
monsters for coast defences, where by the adapta-
tion of hydraulic cranes or steam power these heavy
guns might be served as expeditiously and as truly
as 18 pounders on board a ship. There can be no
doubt that the Armstrong shells are unrivalled as
destructive missiles, but the complication of their
construction and the consequent expense naturally
lead us to question the expediency of their uni-
versal employment, especially when we find that
BLAK.ELY'S or WHITWORTH'S muzzle-loading guns
have the same accuracy and penetrating powers
without the same extravagant outlay in projectiles.
For field service or boat guns we believe that the
ARMSTRONG breech-loading g tins are unequalled,but
for heavy ordnance we would rather place reliance
on those of BLAKELY or WHITWORTH, and let
practical utility have precedence of theory. We
believe that our navy is in as high a state of effi-
ciency as that of any other Power, but we have yet
to learn that the supremacy of Britain depends on
her ships rather than on her seamen.

Hitherto the chief demonstrations that have taken
place throughout the country seem to have been
held by the Conservatives. It is time then that the
Liberals should have their say, and hence the meet-
ing at Yorkshire is appropriate, as affording an op-
portunity for retort and reprisal. Audi alteram
partem is a well known adage, and a very good
one ; it expresses the sentiments that always actuate
the people of this country, and form the chief reason
why we carry on affairs so much more quietly than
our neighbours, and yet possess so much more in-
trinsic freedom than they whose excited demeanour
and vehement language might at first sight lead a
'4130144d observer to think otherwise. Mr.
;set:a Evoke at some length, and appeared to give
satisfaction to his auditors. In the first place,
he commenced
his speech in a somewhat novel mode
thefor HaoLuisheer
and he did
harangue. Instead o
against 0411 member,tor by sounding the praises of
Lords.
too
was the toast he pro-
posed, %%title justice to it, in his earnest
endeavouring to put class
h often. the practice among
w-l3rn to particularise might be
class, as
from te, fojramdgerins,g
dnaontagbelreoußs
most satisfactory to notice
recent experience,g it is
meet with such
Public men doing
IR'lltjes, and remove
Really
yth
we
ewasyo doften
grievances so
tahlWeiarybsest to
prejudices.
tirades against authorities, and other
fiercely expressed, that the originality of this
ais_
course is as welcome as is style. Mr. is.
tees in
beginning adverted to the great advantages
We
derived fiom the mixed form of governmentt—ritlile jolt.
,
Lords, and Commons. This may seem
a
servance, but surely this is the very time of which
to take cognisance of the benefits thereby deduced.
It is long since all who took large views on political
subjects concurred in the opinion that no liberties
could flourish under despotism, and that the exist-
ence of absolutism was incompatible with the growth
of any lasting prosperity in a land ; but recently
some other notions must have been subverted.
Many well meaning innividuals entertained the idea
that repub icaniem was the must correct form ct
government. The deplorable events that have
taken place beyond the atlantic must have evi-