The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-19 00:00:00

The Duke of Somerset, as First Lord of the
Admiralty, will hold a levee (the last this season)
on Thursday next, at the Admiralty, Whitehall.
Letters dated February have been received at
Plymouth from the screw steam corvette Charybdis,
21, Capt. the Hon. George D. Keane. She was
then at Yokahamma, Japan, but in consequence of
intelligence received from England in relation to
the Trent affair was appointed to sail the next day,
the 19th, for Vancouver's Island. On board the
corvette it was supposed that her commission would
be completed on the Pacific station, under the com-
mand of Rear-Admiral Sir 'Thos. Maitland, K.C.8.,
screw steam frigate Baechante, 51.
The Shannon, screw frigate, Capt. 'Wainwright,
resumed her experimental trials at Portsmouth on
Saturday, steaming out of harbour at noon for the
trial ground in Stokes Bay. The screw tested on
this occasion was the double-bladed " Mangin." It
was cast in the new foundry of Portsmouth dock-
yard, but copied from the screw now in use in the
French Imperial navy, into which it was introduced
by M. Mangin, the inventor, some few years since.
Thia screw was fitted to the Austerlitz and other
French ships of war at the time the Anglo-French
fleets proceeded to the Baltic on the outbreak of
hostilities with Russia; but it never attained a re-
putation, superior, if equal, to that of our common
Admiralty pattern screw. It required a less aper-
ture, however, in ships' sterns when necessarily
lifted. Other advantages were also claimed for it
by its advocates. The weather on Saturday was in
the highest degree favourable for developing the
power of any propeller, the wind being light and
the Water perfectly smooth. The draught of water
by the ship was within one inch of the previous day
aft, and the same forward, being 20ft. 2in, aft, and
21ft. 9in. forward. On clearing the harbour channel
the ship at once proceeded to the trial ground, and
six runs were made at the measured mile. The
time and speed were respectively—in the Ist, 5 min.
9 sec., 11'650 knots ; in the 2d, 5 min. 36 sec., 10-714
knots ; in the 3d, 4 min. 55 sec., 12.203 knots; in
the 4th, 6 min. 2 sec., 9 944 knots ; in the sth,
4 min. 36 sec., 13.043 knots; and in the 6th, 6 min.
9 sec., 9.756 knots. In the fifh and sixth runs the
number of revolutions was 53k, in the other 53.
Mean speed of the whole, 11.331 knots. At the con-
clusion of the runs of the measured mile the ship
Was taken off to a fitting position, and her time as-
certained in making a complete circle with the helm
to port and also to starboard, the time being taken
from the moment of giving the order. The same
number of men (five)—in fact the same men—were
at the wheel as were there on the previous day. The
helm was first put hard:aport, and the rudder was
hove over to an angle of 13i deg. in 28 seconds. The
circle was completed in 7 minutes 14 seconds. The
helm was next put to starboard, the rudder was
hove over to an angle of 151 deg. in 30 seconds, and
circle completed in 7 minutes 1 second. The
engines during the time of making both circles ave-
raged 52 revolutions. It will be seen, therefore, by
comparison with the trial of the Admiralty pattern,
or common screw, of the previous day, that the
Mangin strew on Saturday obtained a slight advan-
tage, but very slight, certainly, in point of speed,
and that the ship also came round in less time than
she did on the preceding trial. Both these appa-
rently slight advantages were full accounted for by
the peculiarly favourable conditions of wind and
-weather under which the Mangin screw was tried.
On the other hand, the Mangin communicated to
the &sip a far greater vibratory motion than did the
common screw, had an unusually violent beat in its
revolutions through the water, and raised a column
of water beyond what is usual in the screw well.
The trials will be again resumed with a fresh pro-
peller to-day.
Some interesting firing with the 68-pounder
smooth-bore took place on Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday, from the Stork gunboat, at armour plates
on the side of the Sultan, target ship, at Ports-
mouth. With one exception, no armour plates pre-
viously tested at Portsmouth, whether experimen-
tally as targets, or merely for testing purposes,
have exceeded 4fin. The exception alluded to was
in the instance of Mr. Jones's angulated target,
tnelalf of which was plated with 51in. plates.
The plates just fired at in Portsmouth harbour were
all 51in., and comprised one plate from the Mersey
Steel and Iron Works, 15ft. long and 3ft. 4in. in
breadth; and three plates from the Thames Ship-
building Company ; Messrs. Brown, Atlas Works,
Sheffield ; and Messrs. Beale, of Parkgate Works,
Yorkshire ; each plate being 6ft. in length and 3ft.
Sin. is breadth. 200 yards was the distance, and
cast-iron shot was used with 161 b. of powder. The
Mersey plate received 14 shots, Brown's and Beale's
9 each, and the Thames Iron Company's 10. The
timber backing, or ship's side, behind the last three
was not penetrated. All the plates were, of course,
broken, but all were of a superior quality, and all
proved by themanner in which they stood the pound-
ing of the 68 pounder that the additional inch of
iron added to their resisting power sufficiently to
compensate for the additional weight of armour,
about 401 b. per square foot. There is one other im-
portant feature worthy of notice. The latest trials
of armour plates have satisfactorily demonstrated
that great improvement has been made in the all-
important matter of welding rolled plates within
the last 12 months. The greatest and most active
agent in the destruction of all armour plates, how-
ever perfectly they may be manufactured, or how-
ever costly the material, are the bolts by which they
are at present fastened to their ships' sides. All
fractures from sound plates, on being strum by shot,
spring from or to a bolt hole, and a fracture once
started in a plate, the destruction of the latter be-
comes merely a question of time, dependent upon
tho quality of the iron used in its manufacture.
The Imperial Russian frigate Oleg sailed from
the Motherbank on Saturday evening for Copen-
hagen and Cronstadt.
The Cormorant, 4, 690 tons, 200 horse power, and
the Racehorse, 4, 200 horse power, both attached to
the Chatham steam reserve, are to be immediately
got ready for service on the China station.
The screw steamship Sanspareil, 80, Capt. Le G.
Bowyear, one of the Mexican expedition, which
left Vera Cruz on March 15 and Bermuda April 24,
arrived in Plymouth Sound on Saturday. She
brings home about 350 rank and file of Royal
Marines, under the command of Lieut.-Col. Samuel
Nctterville Lowder, of the Plymouth division,—
viz., belonging to the Plymouth division, 200 rank
and file and the following officers :—Capts. Elliott,
West, and Naylor; First Lieuts. Nurse, Heriot,
Smith, Bouchier, and Westby ; and Second Lents.
Bree and Harrison ; belonging to the Portsmouth
division, 40 rank and file, under Capt. j. R. Lloyd,
and 28 Royal Marine Artillery, under First Lieut.
Poore; belonging to the Chatham division, 20 rank
and file, with Second Lieut. 31enzies and Paymas-
ter Cooper; and belonging to the Woolwich division,
40 rank and file, under Capt. J. B. Seymour.
During the absence of the expeditionary force 39
marines have died from fever and dysentery. Those
now returned appear to have been much debilitated
by the climate. The Eastern division of Royal
Marines will proceed to-day, in the paddle-wheel
steam vessels Geyser and Virago, to Portsmouth,
Chatham, and Woolwich. The Sanspareil left on
the Mexican coast Her Majesty's screw steam frigate
Mersey, 40, Capt. Henry Caldwell, C.B. ; the steam
corvette Challenger, 22, Capt. John J. Kennedy,
C. 8.; the paddle-wheel steam sloop Barracouta, 6,
Commander G. J. Malcolm; and the screw steam
gun-vessel Plover, 5, Commander the Hon. A. L.
Corry; six French ships of war, including one line-
of-battle ship, three frigates, and three steamers;
and six Spanish ships—viz., three frigates and
three steamers. At Bermuda the screw steamship.
Nile, Capt. E. K. Barnard, flag of Rear-Admiral Su.
Alexander Milne, K C.B. ; the screw steamship
Donegal, 99,Capt. Sherard Osborn (which is ordered
_ home) ; the screw steamship Agamemnon, 89,
Capt.
Thomas Hope ; the screw steamship Hero, 89, Capt.
A. P. Ryder ; the screw steam frigate Orlando, 50,
Capt. Francis Scott, C. 8.; the screw steam frigate
Melpomene, 51, Cspt. Charles J. F. Ewart ; the
paddlewheel steam sloop Spiteful, 6, Commander
W. C. F. Wilson; paddle-wheel steam sloop Hydra,
6, Capt. R. V. Hamilton, and the steam gunvessel
Landrail, 5, Commander T. 11. M. Martin. The
crews of all the ships on the Mexican coast ana,
Bermuda were in a healthy state. The Sanspareil

No draughts of troops will be despatched to India
this season from the depots at the camp at Col-
chester, some of the regiments which have been
stationed in the East being now en route for Eng-
land, while the strength of others will be made up
by volunteers from such depots of the home regi-
ments as have their hill complement. On Friday a
detachment or sergeants and privates left Colches-
ter for the Hythe School of Musketry. The officers
accompanying the detachment were Lieut. Lampen,
34th ; Lieut. Hume, 38th ; Lieut. Davidson, 88th ;
Ensign Stanton, Ist battalion, 6th ; and Ensign
Bain, 44th Regiment.
On Saturday a troop of the 14th Hussars, con-
sisting of 5 officers, 111 men, and 109 horses, under
the command of Brevet Liout.- Col. J. A. Todd,
arrived in Liverpool from Dublin. They were
brought in the City of Dublin Steampacket Com-
pany's steamer Windsor, and proceeded southwards
by the London and North-Western Railway.
The hired transport King Lear, with the 83d Re-
giment from Bombay, which arrived at Plymouth
Sound on Saturday morning, having received orders,
was towed out of the Sound in the evening, and
left for Gravesend, where her troops will be landed.
On Saturday detachments of Royal Engineers,
the Army Hospital Corps, 2d battalion 10th, 2d
battalion 11th, 2d battalion 13th (Prince Albert's
Light Infantry), 67th, 85th, 99th, and Cape Mounted
Rifles Regiments arrived at Chatham garrison from
China and the Cape of Good Hope, having disem-
barked at Government quay, Gravesend, the same
day from No. 7 Government transport the Echunga,
Capt. Cooper, and the hired transport Sir George
Grey, Capt. Wilkins. The Echunga, 1,007 tons
burden, sailed from Hongkong on Dec. 29, having
on board 238 naval invalids from the various vessels
serving in China, 12 men of the Army Hospital
Corps, 29 men of the 67th Regiment, and 61 non-
commissioned officers and men of the 99th Regi-
ment, together with the following officers :—Capt.
G. Ingham, 44th Regiment, in charge of the mili-
tary invalids ; Mr. W. H. Warsfold, master ; of the
Pioneer, 6, screw steam-sloop, in charge of the
naval invalids; Capt. 0. H. Stokes, Royal Engi-
neers ; Lieut. C. B. H. Somerset, 99th Regiment ;
Mr. W. C. Gordon, deputy assist.-superintendent of
stores ; Staff Assist.-Surg. J. Carlaw, and Assist.-
Surg. J. Mockridge, R.N. The Echunga arrived at
the Mauritius on the 30th of January, and remained
there 14 days to land stores, ammunition, &c., and to
ship guns. During the time the vessel was there the
cholera broke out on board, and 20 persons died from
the disease. The Cape was rounded on the 9th of
March, and St. Helena sighted on the 17th of the
same month. The Echunga arrived at Ascension on
the 2d of April, and, after landing and shipping
stores, sailed thence on the sth. The passage
to Gravesend occupied 138 days. During the
voyage the vessel was in a very leaky condition,
requiring pumping every four hours from the day
she left Hong Kong. Owing to the protracted
nature of the voyage, the troops were on short
allowance of water for 31 days. During the pas-
sage there were 37 deaths on board, including 22 of
the naval invalids, 10 of the 99th, and 5 of the 67th
Regiment. After the troops had been medically
inspected, on Saturday, 15 of the number were ad-
mitted to Fort Pitt Hospital for treatment.
By direction of the Secretary of State for, War a
number of men of the Royal Artillery, from Wool-
wich, together with troops of the line, assisted by a
party of convicts, have been employed for several
days past, under the direction of Capt. Dyer, Royal
Artillery, in the examination of the whole of the
smooth-bore guns lying on the Ordnance-wharf,
Chatham, in order that any gun in which the
slightest flaw is to be detected may be at once
removed, to prevent it being issued. Although
several hundred of the largest 10-inch, 68-pounders,
and 32-pounders have been examined, the number
of guns discovered to be in the slightest degree un-
sound has only been three. The examination has
been confined to the smooth-bore guns, the 110-
pounder and other Armstrongs, proved only a few
months since, not requiring to be examined.

VOLUNTEER FIRLD-DAY Al EPS° .11,

On Saturday afternoon a brigade field-day took
place on the Epsom Downs, under command of
Colonel M'Murdo, Inspector-General of Volunteers,
attended by Colonel Luard and Colonel Morriss,
members of his Staff. The force under arms, num-
bering in the aggregate little short of 2,000 men,
was contributed by half-a-dozen of the principal
Volunteer regiments of the metropolis, and the
gathering was intended not so much for purposes
of display as of work. In the regular service the
occasion would have been known as a "private
field-day ;" but from their very constitution Volun-
tee) s may be added to that class of humanity which
cannot keep a secret, and accordingly there was a
large though not inconveniently numerous atten-
dance of sight-seers on the Downs. The afternoon
was beautifully fine, but with a dull heat that
seemed ominous of a coming storm, and the long
ascent from the station to the stand-house was con-
sequently rather a severe preparation for the move-
ments to be undertaken. But the regiments all
bore it very well ; and when the line was formed,
at half past six o'clock, the men looked in remark-
ably good order. On the extreme right were the
Inns of Court, whose punctuality—professional
multiplied by military—brought them on the ground
a good hour before anybody else. On the extreme
left were the London Rifle Brigade ; and in-
termediately, in the order of their arrival,
were the Queen's Westminstcrs, the London
Scottish, the 38th (Artists), and Lord Radstock's
corps, the 9th Middlesex. The plan of battle was
of the ordinary suppositious and flexible 'character,
largely affected by the nature of the ground, and
still more by the absence of either cavalry or ar-
tillery. For purposes of explanation, it is sufficient
to state that the enemy was in force in the direction
of Leatherhead, facing the grand stand, that he had
got possession of a thicket of gorse and brushwood,
and that his advanced posts held a farmhouse
im-
mediately on the right of Col. M‘Murdo's position.
To shake off these proximate assailants, the Inns of
Court, under Colonel Brewster, were at once thrown
out as skirmishers, and continued to act in that ca-
pacity during nearly the whole of the operations. In
modern warfare it has become habitual to employ
corps d'elite first, instead of holding them in reserve.
Louis Napoleon used up hie Imperial Guards and
won his Italian campaign at about the same moment.
In the event, therefore, of actual invasion, the
" Devil's Own" have Law,, them a future more bril-
liant than pleasureable. While they were engaged
in surrounding the farmhouse the other battalions
moved up a valley towards Tattenham-corner, the
London Brigade leading, in a dark solid column, like
a patch of ink upon the grass. The Queen's West-
minsters, nearly double the strength of any other
regiment upon the ground, wheeled very steadily,
and followed in the same direction, and the line was
closed by the London Scottish, the attire of whose
flank con3panies Mr. O'Lynn himself must have com-
mended as "pleasant and cool," though penalties
lurked in the thicket of gorse. At this point the