The Sun.
London, England, 1839-02-21 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
February 14, 1839.
Sin,—lt is with the greatest astonishment, indigna-
tion, and regret, that I have read an article, publised
in the public Journals, said to be a " Supplementary
chapter to Sir John Barrow's Life of Lord Anson ;
and professing- to give a true description of the state
and condition of the British Navy." I feel " astonish-
ment," at the extraordinary assertions, the contradictions,
and false conclusions of the official Baronet. At the
flippancy, the presumption, the ungentlemanly tone of
language, considered distinctly from the question of the
truth, or inaccuracy of his statements. " Indignation,"
that the " Lion of England," alWays hitherto gloriously
represented •by the bold, 'able, intelligent, and gallant
band, forming the corps of Officers of the British- Navy,
should now, alas! in its sickly state as it must be con-
fessed, receive a last kick from one of the " humblest
of its instruments," • as he pleases to describe himself ;
who owes the greatest portion, if not the whole of his
present greatness, to his connection with that gallant
band, whose highest authorities he dares attempt to crush
beneath his feet. " Regret," that an individual who
has from the exertion of his native talent, and persever-
ing application raised himself from that humble though
venerable paterr.al thatched cottage at Ulverstone,
which, from such recollections, I have never passed
without bowing to with respect ; to be an inmate under
the roof of an official palace ; whose literary and scien-
tific requirements have obtained for him a dis! in-
guished name; and who, until this most extraordinary
outbreak, has always been remarked in my :hind for
gentlemanly emutesy, should have permitted himself,
in the evening his day, to allow his u!tra-Tory habits,
to run out so boldly into exaggeration, as to endeavour-
to break through, and to disperse that halo of respect,
which, in his isolated state, either afloat or on shore is
the essence of that power, which is necessary to wield
the truncheon of command as a naval chief ; making
one effort nn re to beat down into insignificancy and
contempt a corps of officers, who were once, alas ! in
by-gone times, their country's pride.
The Baronet has told us of some " article of wstr,"
I will tell him of a naval regulation to the purport that
every officer, civil or military, is strictly e: joined to re-
frain from making any remarks or observation on the
conduct of any of his superior officers, which may tend
to bring them into contempt." I am yet to learn that
the flippancy of a second secretary, who describes him-
self as the .‘ servant, and the old servant" too, of the
profession to which he belongs, directed towards a flag-
officer, or even to Commander Craufurd, who the first
Lord of the Admiralty has been pleased to reward
with the command of a vessel, over the heads of
many senior to himself, for what the Baronet
infers should have given even the flag officer to
the yard arm. I say, I have yet to learn how
the dignity, and respectability of Commander Cran-
ford in his ship, or the flag officer in any command, is
to be preserved intact, upheld and increased under the
lash of the Baronet's bitter invective, sarcastic irony,
and treasonable imputations.
Not content with pretending ignorance of the well-
known fact, that information gratuitously sent by any
of the corps of naval officers, out of the pale of the very
chosen few to whom consanguinity, or political influ-
ence, or some indispensablupersonal service, gives pe-
culiar privilege, is always consigned, to use the Baro-
net's quotation, to the " Tomb of all the Capulets," with
the well-known reply, " That the old servant has re-
ceived the document, and laid it before the Board, and
is the very humble servant," &c. 2 &c. Not content
with
his own presumptuous opinions, and decisions,. and
castigations, for what, as accuser, jury, and judge, he
declares to be military delinquencies ; he travels into
the record of history, and reminds us that on such a
day the brave: Admiral Vernon had a penalty inflicted
On him for a-very similar proceeding—et Tuough much
less culpable," as the Baronet is pleased to say, than the
flag-officer before whom he endeavours to hold out in
common with every other officer of the navy this sc ire-
crow in terrorem.
Good Heaven ! Is it possible that any man ,at this
day could have the hardihood
,to point to those times of
tyranny, oppression, and party injustice, and threaten
us now with similar punishment for doing our duty to
our country, because it might possibly throw the less
meritorious conduct of favoured privileged individuals
into shade, or perhaps prove that they had been either
wilfully or inadvertently in error ?
Are we again to have a Matthews sacrificed to a
Lestock ? or a bold Hawke again censured for doing
that which the immortal Nelson seine years after so
gloriously did off Cape St. Vincent, when with his coun-
try's cause in his brain, he spurned the inefficient line,
broke it, wore round without signal, on his otvit un-
erring judgment, and brought the enemy to close action
with the most brilliant results ? Yes ! I do remember
Admiral Vernon's dismissal from. the service ! As a boy,
I well recollect how my check burnt when I read the
record of it in the " Gentleman's Magazine ;" and if my
memory holds good, he was erased, without trial, from
the list, merely for remonstrating with the despotic and
self-sufficient members of the old Navy Board for build-
ing such ships as the old Boyne, of 70 guns, and others ;
too narrow, too crank. and totally unfit for those ser-
vices, in which her Majesty's faithful officers are to risk
their country's glory and their awn characters. For this
the conqueror of Porto Bello, with six ships, as he
pledged himself to do on the floor of the House of
Commons, was erased from the Navy List.
Too well do I know that these notions are still held
in the, purlieus of the Baronet's office. It is there that
the official coat is supposed to be ElijaWs mantle, invest-
ing the wearer with all exclusive ability. Too well I know
that every suggestion from individuals without the pale
of faseituritism is "shelled," either to be unattended to,
or if resumed, to be brought out under the patronage of
a more favoured personage, as his own, or to
his own praise. Did the Baronet never hear of
extracts from 'Fupinier's celebrated pamphlet having
been sent to the Navy board, and to a Lord of the Ad-
miralty ten years since, with a full description of the
rapid and energetic improvements going on in the French
Navy at the very period when the Navy Board was ex-
pending millions in repairing the ships called the "Forty
Thieves," forming round sterns, building a shoal of 46
gun frigates, after a moo el taken in the American war,
and others nearly similar ; and as a chef-d'ceuvre priding
themselves in the dockyards, in building, or commencing
to build, only at that moment the 84 gun-ships, after a
French model, which France had at that instant declared
were too small for coping with the improved classes
of vessels then building by the maritime powers of some
countries—or of the manner in which an officer who bad
lived for three years in, and adjoining a French dock-
yard, had endeavoured to impress on the minds of his
superiors, that unless we made the same improvement
in our ships, then making in France and elsewhere, we
must expect to be overwhelmed in single action ; to all
which, not the smallest attention was paid.
I could treat the Baronet to other reminiscences—one
too in the article of rope-making ; which, if it had been
attended to earlier than the hour when Sir
Frederic
Maitland found the bantling oil some official shelf, and
nursed it, might have given the Baronet a better rope
for his tlag-officers threatened exaltation, than he is likely
to find from the grand hempen depots, said to exist for
the rapid arming of fleets. But to show how. this narrow
spirit was even carried to the improvement of the mind ;
does the baronet not remember one of the answers given
to some zealous officers who had observed the many ad.
vantages enjoyed by the French marine, and wished to
establish by private subscription in an English dock-yard
a library, siindar to those established by the state in
every dockyard •in France ; does lie remember the ob.
servation of one individual ? " No, no ! Let us have
no library there. We have too many half-pay officers
now goieg into the dockyards intermeddling and plaguing
u
"
rtehienarksaidcoiplaints, and we should
only withi number—we
will have no such nui-
n
sanceand the library fell to the ground.
If that miscalled nuisance had been more attended
to,
if men would have extended their vision and looked
abroad instead of poring over the musty records of So-
merset House, adhering to b'goted
prejudices and pom-
nre theiras e
pom-
pous assertions, we should not now have a real and more
dangerous nuisance to abate—one that is not created
by the present naval administration, nor by the preced-
ing, or further back again ; but which has been on the
increase for the last twenty-three years • and which in
s
spite of all the Baronet
' assertions, I sertions, I deelare to
be now so palpable, and big with such important
results, that I have no hesitation in saying that
unless we immediately set about the abatement of it,
our mastery of the sea, when the death struggle comes,
con only be contineed by prodigies of valour, and by
cases of fortunate accidental results, springing from
almost moral impossibilities,
For some time past I have been rejoiced to see a spirit
of inquiry arising as to the state of the Navy in the
public mind ; I have watched its progress eagerly and
attentively. lam well aware that great improvements
have been made in many p ort.ons of the naval depart-
ments. Our gunnery practice, founded on the system
of the gallant and intelligent Sir Philip Broke, is the
best. We have other ameliorations of a system rendered
generally good by practical exertion,, but theoretical')'
bad. If could enite Viatine4 theory and ?renph en-
couragement with our practice, we silould have the most
unconquerable Navy ; but our main preps arc moulder-
ing into decay as to efficiency ; the main supports are
rotten and lapkep 4nwn ; the
whole cprps of officers
want. renovation ; they want an uplifting 16:1 I,llo'4i:eat:C.
' and an invigoration of their wounded pride ; their in-
dependent spirit is crushed by actual deprivation and
neglect. Too well !le I know that no ipdep Pendent
T••