The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-01 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 1, 1865.

THT::; CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA.

(From the Times' Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, Jan. 17.

The capture of Fort Fisher has filled the Northern
people with more than usual joy, 'and been unwel-
come to no true Federalist,: unless to General
Butler, who was explaining before the Committee on
"Military Affairs at Washington how impossible it
was to take it, when the news arrived that the deed
was done. The naval portion of the second expedi-
tion by which the result was obtained was as strong
as the first, while the military was much stronger,
and conducted by a General who had the fate of
Butler fresh and green in his recollection to warn
him of the personal consequences of failure. The
capture of Fort Fisher does not necessarily involve
that of Wilmington-17 miles distant up the Wil-
mington or Cape Fear River—but as the Govern-
ment and General Grant have resolved upon obtain-
ing the city at any price, and will not be deterred
from their purpose by any weak considerations of
cost, it is to be presumed that an attempt will im-
mediately be made to carry its defences either by a
coup de main or the slower operations of a siege. As
the city will be attacked in front by the victorious
troops of General Terry, and in the rear by a large
co-operating force from Newberne, it will tax all
the energies, resources, and skill of the Confederate
General in command at Wilmington--supposed to
be General Bragg—to hold the city against the
powerful odds opposed to him, if not to escape with
the garrison as cleverly as Hardee did from Savan-
nah when he found the position to be tenable no
longer. The news of the fall of Fort Fisher sent
down the premium on gold from 114 to 114} per
cent., but the fall was not maintained, and the price
rose later in the day to 1151.
The " peace mission" of the elder Mr. Blair to
Richmond has ended as all sensible men expected.
Mr Blair had nojauthority, no credentials, and no
public purpose. His private purpose was, it ap-
appears, to regain possession of some valuable law
papers and other documents taken from his house
at Silver Springs by the invading army of General
Early in the summer of 1864, in which object he is
stated to have been successful. As a private indi-
vidual, and not as a public functionary or an am-
bassador, he had interviews with some of the Con-
federate Ministers and other personal friends, and
learnt from them whatever they chose to communi-
cate on the great subjects of war and peace, and has
returned to Washington, in all probability, a wiser
man than when he left it. Gen. Singleton, a strong
Unionist, but a sturdy opponent of war as a means
of restoring the ancient compact between the States,
has also been allowed, rather than authorised by Mr.
Lincoln, to pass the Federal lines and proceed to
Richmond, and will in due time, if he mixes much
with influential people, make his way back, as
thoroughly convinced as Mr. Blair that the restora-
tion of the Union by negotiation is impossible as long
as the South has armies in the field or guerillas in
the mountains. Dr. Zacharie's mission, whatever
may have been its object, has been but little spoken
of ; but when he returns it will be strange if he has
anything newer or better to tell the President of the
views, wishes, and determination of the Confederate
people and leaders than he will already have learnt
from Messrs. Blair and Singleton. Wall-street has
ceased to be affected by the peace rumours that a
week ago were as thick as snow flakes in the wintry
air, and the prices of gold and stocks, instead of
vibrating to the dulcet melodies of peace and good-
will, are beginning to dance to the martial music of
the guns of Wilmington and Fort Fisher, and the
answering chorus of Petersburg and Richmond.
Meanwhile Mr. Seward continues to be bellicose
towards Canada and Great Britain, and peaceful
towards France ; while the Senate of the United
States takes a less moderate course, and seems to
think that if there is to be a foreign in addition to
the civil war, both France and England should bear
the brunt of it. Notice has been given in the Senate
of the desire of the people of the United States to
abrogate all existing treaties with Great Britain
having reference to Canada or British North
America, and Mr. Charles Sumner has even gone so
far as to introduce a motion to terminate the com-
pact known as the Ashburton Treaty. In addition
to this manifestation of unfriendliness Mr. Seward's
passport system has proved more vexatious to the
Canadians than even he, an adept in the art of poli-
tical irritation, could have imagined. An outraged
Yankee, resident in Canada, whose operations have
been impeded and diminished by the virtual block-
ade of Canada which the system has established, has
publicly proclaimed the Secretary, in true American
parlance, to be " a vindictive cuss," and such influ-
ence of a more conciliatory kind has been brought
to bear upon Mr. Seward, by the inhabitants of
Detroit, Buffalo, and other American cities on the
Lakes and in the vicinity of the St. Lawrence, as
will, it is hoped, induce him to withdraw the order.
Such neighbours have everything to lose and nothing
to gain by these impolitic, if not barbarous, restric-
tions, more suitable to China or Japan than to
enterprising and commercial America. As a means
of preventing the incursions of such soldiers or free-
booters—whichever designation may best suit them
—as Lieut. Bennett Young and his companions, the
system is utterly worthless. In spite of all the pass-
ports which an army of gendarmes could exact from
travellers, such guerillas or robbers, if intent upon
mischief or plunder, could pass unimpeded from
Canada into the States at hundreds of places on the
St. Lawrence and the Lakes. The measure was
solely intended for annoyance, and has accomplished
its object, with the unexpected accompaniment of
detaching from the Federal cause the last lingering
relic of sympathy entertained for it by the Cana-
dians. It has the additional demerit of being quite
as distateful to one side of the border as to the other,
and for this reason will probably be abandoned, in
deference to American rather than to Canadian
interests.

The action of the Senate on the Mexican question
is equally significant of ill-will towards France and
the Emperor Maximilian. An Appropriation Bill,
for the payment of the salaries of ambassadors and
other expenses of the legations in Great Britain,
France, Spain, the European Powers generally, and
Mexico, was brought up in the usual manner, and
was about to pass without discussion, when Senator
Wade, of Ohio, suddenly moved to amend the bill
by inserting before " Mexico" the words "the Re-
public of." The amendment was adopted nem. con.,
and the bill passed amid acclamation. This means
that if the Federal Government despatch a Minister
to Mexico, it will be to General Juarez, the late—
and the senators consider the actual—President of
the Mexican Republic, and not to the Emperor
Maximilian, the de facto, and, as all Europe consi-
ders, the de jure sovereign. The decision will place
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward in a difficulty, and the
Senate must either reverse its vote or the Federal
Government will remain without a representative at
the Court of its southern neighbour. Perhaps, too,
the Emperor Maximilian may think it advisable, if
the North recognise President Juarez, that Mexico
should recognise President Davis, which would be a
very Pretty quarrel, and one into which the North
will have thrust itself very unnecessarily.
Another border State, Tennessee, has by the una-
nimous
,Vote of a convention, abolished
popular
stavery, immediately and unconditionally. As it
appears that there was not a single slaveholder
elected to the
Convention, and as the interests and
wishes of the slaveholde as
any way set forth,
Trs,
the a class, were not in
ennesseeans cannot fairly
claim in this matter the
p they praise
may
of liberality, what-
ever amount ofapprobation
arrogate on
the score of philanthropy, r
ap-
plies to the recent action
of the same criticism
Sttate Conventions
that still
but
ill pending
of Maryland and Missouri,
and to hs the stigma
profited,
in Kentucky. It costs the abolitionistsse e nothing
their votes to remove from themselves
of an institution by which they never
which the war has converted from a socialnti, a
and
party and political question. According :0- —the
census of 1860 the total black population of these
States was 808,820, of whom 105,498 were free,
and 703,332 were slaves. The slaves in Marylande
numbered 87,189 ; in Missouri, 114,931 ; in . Ten-
nessee, 275,179 ; and in Kentucky, 225,483 ; while
of the free blacks Maryland alone contained 83,942,
or nearly four times as many as Missouri, Ken-
tucky, and Tennessee combined.
The unexpected though not untimely death of

Mr. Edward Everett has caused general regret
throughout the North. Mr. Seward, instructed by
the President, has officially notified " that the seve-
ral Executive departments of the Government will
cause appropriate honours to be rendered to the
memory of the deceased, at home and abroad,
wherever the national name and authority are re-
organised." Mr. Everett was not a statesman, but a
polished gentleman of the class rarely met with
among Americans except such as have travelled in
Europe, a pleasing writer, and a very fluent orator.
He had the art of making beautiful speeches about
nothing and containing nothing but a flow of grace-
ful words and well-turned periods. At the com-
mencement of the war Mr. Everett, in common
with many abler and more earnest politicians, was
of opinion that the Northern States had no right to
use coercion towards the South, if the Southern
States or any considerable number of them chose to
break up the political partnership of the Union, and
was put forward as a candidate for the Vice-Presi-
dency under Mr. Bell, of Tennessee, for the Presi-
dency, on the strictly Conservative platform of the
" Union and the Constitution," and any guarantee
to slavery that the Constitution might sanction.
But as time wore on he was carried away with
the multitude, and became as passionate a pro-
moter of the war as was consistent with the almost
feminine gentleness and gracefulness of his cha-
racter. He was quiet, methodical, precise—never in
a hurry, and never excited to overpass either in word
or accent, or even in manner, the line of polite
propriety and decorous if not stoical dignity. It
is related of his eloquent oration on Washington
—which he committed to memory without the loss
or addition of a word, and which he delivered no
less than 120 times in all the principal towns and
cities of the Union for the benefit of the fund for
the purchase of Washington's home and tomb at
Mount Vernon—that he always drew out his white
cambric pockethandkerchief and wiped his tearful
eyes at the same exact passage, that he always waited
for the popular applause at the exact sentence which
he had framed to catch it, and that the same exact
wave and motion of the right hand or the left was
invariable mode at the beginning or end of the
phrase where he had planned to introduce it. He
had no fire, no abandon, no gust of irrepressible
energy, but ran over the mill wheel of his work with
the most exemplary continuity and regularity. He
had no enemies and no friends, and was a graceful
specimen of honest and inoffensive mediocrity. He
never made any mark in statesmanship, and the
mark which he made in literature was neither deep
nor broad, nor likely to be permanent. He forsook
his true vocation when he abandoned the pulpit, for
which he was originally intended. America boasts
of many clergymen who merit the sobriquet of the
" Rev. Mr. Brimstone." It had one to deserve the
softer title of the " Rev. Mr. Treacle," and lost him
when Mr. Everett abandoned theology for statecraft,
and converted a persuasive divine into an irresolute
politician. The popularity which during the last
four years of his life Mr. Everett for the first time
enjoyed was due to the part he took at the outbreak
of the war. It was expected from his character and
antecedents that his sympathies would have been
with the South. They declared themselves strongly
in favour of the North. From that circumstance he
became a favourite both with the Administration
and the people, and holding no office, either civil or
military, he did nothing to forfeit the favour which
he had so easily and unexpectedly acquired, and
which, now that he is no more, has settled upon his
memory, and will hand him down to posterity as
one of the lights—though not among the most
brilliant—of American history.

Naval and Military Intelligence.
...--

The Rinaldo, screw, Commander Hon. Maurice

H. Nelson, was yesterday officially inspected at Spit-
head, on her return to England from foreign service,
by Capt. F. Scott, C. 8., and Aide-de-Camp to the
Queen, flag captain to the Commander-in-Chief at
Portsmouth, Admiral Sir Michael Seymour, G.C.B.
After the inspection the Rinaldo weighed her anchor
and steamed into Portsmouth harbour, where she is
ordered to be dismantled and paid out of commission.
The Helicon, paddlewheel despatch vessel, of 835
tons and 250 nominal horse power of engines,will be
launched from No. 1 slip of Portsmouth dockyard at
noon to-day.

The Himalaya, iron screw troopship, in the Warrior

dock at Portsmouth, has had her bottom and the
preservative anti-fouling compositions (Peacock and
Buchan's) with which it is coated officially examined
and reported upon to the Admiralty by the dock-
yard officials, who have recommended that a re-
newed coating should be given with the same de-
scription of compositions, after a clean scrub down,
and without any disturbance of the old compositions,
which are unusually well preserved. It is nine
months nearly since the Himalaya received her old
coatings of the Peacock and Buchan compositions in
dock at Keyham, and upwards of three months of
the latter part of that time the ship has lain at
moorings in Portsmouth harbour, giving the compo-
sitions a greater chance, therefore, of fouling than
they could have undergone had the ship been kept
moving under steam on her ordinary troop duties.
On the examination being made of the vessel's bot-
tom in dock,. however, there was only found adher-
ing to the composition tufts of short weed and slime,
the greater part, no doubt, deposited by the waters
of Portsmouth harbour while the ship has been lying
still at her moorings. There were no other adhesions
of any kind, nor was there found any appearance of
rust.

On Sunday last, on board her Majesty's ship
Victory at Portsmouth, W. J. Hamill, a boy
belonging to her Majesty's training brig Ferret,
tender to the training ship Boscawen in South-
ampton water, was presented, in the presence
of the ship's company and the officers assem-
bled on the quarter-deck, with the Humane Society's
medal. It was bestowed on him for jumping over-
board from the brig off Southampton, while a fresh
breeze was blowing and a strong ebb tide running,
and saving the life of a boy and fellow shipmate,
William Bayley, who had fallen overboard. Capt.
Scott, of the Victory, in handing the medal to
Hamill, addressed him in a kind and encouraging
manner, praising him for his gallant conduct in
saving the life of his shipmate, and expressing his
best wishes for his success in a career which had
been so honourably distinguished at its commence-
ment. Hamill is 16 years of age.
The paddlewheel surveying vessel Asp is fitting at
Devonport as a tender to the guardship of Steam
Reserve Indus, Capt. William Edmonstone, C.B.
The paddlewheel steam storeship Dee, 1, Master-
Commander George Raymond, left Plymouth on
Saturday with boiler and engine gear for the iron
steamship Lord Clyde, 24, at Pembroke.• The Dee
then proceeds to Liverpool.
Orders have been received at Devonport to fit
the old sailing ship Hindostan, 78, as an auxiliary
for the Britannia, 8, training ship for naval cadets
at Dartmouth.
The lighter Hamoaze, J. Paddon, master, left
Devonport yesterday with stores for Pembroke
dockyard.

In accordance with orders to that effect received

at the head-quarters of the Royal Engineer estab-
lishment, Chatham, the Bth Company of Royal
Engineers, which has recently arrived from China,
has been augmented to its proper strength from the
depot companies at Brompton Barracks, the com..
pany having returned to England numbering only
about half its proper complement.
The hired sailing transport Royal Dane has arrived
at Spithead from Melbourne, with a number of
wounded and invalided officers and men on board
from her Majesty's naval and military force in New
Zealand, forwarded from Auckland, New Zealand,
to Melbourne, and embarked.at the latter on board
the Royal Dane on Nov. 8, 1864, the ship sailing
on the following day for England. The naval por-
tion of the Royal Dane's freight consists of Capt.
Alexander, R.N. (wounded), and five seamen, one
of the latter having leg. lost a The soldiers on board,
who are wounded
more or less severely, are from the
following eor
mander-Gen PsR
Commissariat Staff Corps—Com-
,,urolleston ;
Staff Assist- Army Hospital Corps-
-2 women, anq sgeilGiloode; Royal Artillery-5 men,
Ist battalion 12th—men' Military Train-5 men ;
2d battalion 14th-5 men, '2 women, and 5 children ;
2d battalion 18th ,men, 1 woman, and 1 child ;
`-'allt• Kemp, 6 men, 2 women,

and 1 child ; 40th Regiment-9 men ; 43d Regiment
—Capt. Sargent, 26 men, 4 women, and 8 children ;
50th Regiment—Lieut. Goldsmith and 20 men; 57th
Regiment-3 men ; 65th Regiment—Lieut. Butler
and 3 men ; 68th Regiment-18 men, 1 woman,
and 3 children ; 70th Regiment-11 men, 2 women,
and 1 child ; and the widow of Capt. Lloyd, with
three widows of soldiers and three orphans. Four
deaths occurred during the voyage home. The
militaryinvalids will be transferred this morning by
a Government steamer to the Royal Victoria Mili-
tary Hospital at Netley ; the naval invalids were
transferred yesterday to her Majesty's ship Victory
and the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar. If the
weather proves moderate the transport of the sol-
diers between the Government steamer when she
arrives in Southampton Water and the hospital at
Netley will be effected without much difficulty by
the steamer arriving there at high-water. With
any force of wind; however, very considerable dis-
comfort is experienced by the sick soldiers in walk-
ing up the open-planked staging, or mud roadway,
which now has to do duty as a pier between the
steam-vessel and the hospital grounds. The want
of a properly constructed pier near the Royal Vic-
toria Military Hospital at Netley at which to land
the sick and wounded soldiers, now received there
from all parts of the world, is much felt. The
Royal Dane has 2,012 ounces of gold on board on
freight. She is expected to sail from Spithead for
London, after discharging her invalids, about noon
to=day.

In The Sun of the 22d inst. it was stated that
Commander Hope Johnstone, of her Majesty's ship
Virago, was severely reprimanded by court-martial
at Bermuda. We are requested to contradict this
statement.

We have to record the death of Lieut.-Col. Fre-
derick, Harvey Fuller, at Bear-hill, Twyford, Berks,
on the 25th inst. The deceased, who had attained
the age of 70 years, entered the army January 21,
1804, and became lieutenant April 4, 1805. He
proceeded to the Peninsula in 1808, and was pre-
sent with the 53d Regiment at the capture of
Oporto and in the battles of Talavera, Busaco, and
Fuentes d'Onor. He had received the war medals
with two clasps for Talavera and Busaco.

The contract for the construction of the steel
upper masts and yards for the ironclad screw fri-
gate Bellerophon, 14, 1,000 horse power, building
at Chatham dockyard, has been taken by the firm
of Messrs. Jackson and Watkins for the sum of
£1,030. The Bellerophon is the first of our vessels
of war which will carry masts and yards of steel.
Those who advocate its adoption for this purpose
have little doubt that it will in future be used in all
the iron vessels to be constructed for the navy. The
lower masts for the Bellerophon are of plate iron,
and these are now being manufactured by the Wood-
side Iron Company, whose tender for the work was
£1,445. In accordance with instructions received
from the Admiralty the whole of the hands employed
on the Bellerophon have discontinued working be-
yond the usual time, as they have done during the
last summer and present winter. This order has
been given, not from any fear on the part of the
Admiralty that the Bellerophon will be completed
by too early a period, but solely, it would appear,
from the circumstance that the additional sum taken
in the last year's estimate for extra wages is nearly
exhausted. A similar order has been given to dis-
continue working extra hours on board the iron-
cased frigate Lord Warden, likewise building at
Chatham, which will result in the completion of
both those vessels being delayed a considerable time
beyond that originally named.
The paddlewheel steamer Terrible, 21, 1,850 tons,
800 horse power, which was docked at Chatham on
Monday, underwent a thorough inspection yester-
day at the hands of the officials connected with the
master shipwright's staff, to ascertain the extent of
injury she sustained from getting aground during
the late gale. Beyond some slight defects, which
an hour or two's work on the part 'of the shipwrights
Would make good, there were no injuries apparent,
her forefoot being unhurt, and only a few streaks of
copper rubbed off her keel, while her valves and
cocks were uninjured. She was floated out of dock
at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon.
Tier Majesty's ship Steady, 5, Acting Commander
A. G. Bogle, was at Bolivar, up the Orinoco, on the
Ist of January, 1865. All on board were well, and
the weather was fine. The water in the river was
low, and the vessel could not proceed higher up.
She ascended the river in three days. The Steady
was to go to Demerara at the end of January.
The launch of the improved paddlewheel despatch
vessel Helicon was successfully effected yesterday
from No. 1 slipway of Portsmouth dockyard, a
few minutes before high water. The ceremony of
naming the vessel and releasing her from the dog-
shores which held her on the " ways" was per-
formed by Miss Elliot, the eldest daughter of Rear-
Admiral Superintendent George Elliot, the Admiral
Superintendent of the yard. The Helicon in all
probability is the last wooden vessel that will be
launched from Portsmouth dockyard. For the duties
of a vessel attached to a squadron of ironclads the
Helicon will be admirably adapted, for,
_from her
graceful lines and power of engines as compared to her
tonnage, she will undoubtedly prove the-fastest craft
of her size in her Majesty's navy. Her draught of
water was found yesterday to be 6ft. aft and 4ft. 2in.
forward. The following are the Helicon's principal
dimensions :—Length between perpendiculars, 220 ft ;
length of keel for tonnage, 200 ft. lain. ; breadth
extreme, 28ft. 2in. ; breadth for tonnage, 28ft. ;
breadth moulded, 27ft. 2in. ; depth in hold to top of
floor, 14ft. bin. ; burden in tons, 834 53-94ths. She
was launched, of course, as a mere shell, and her
machinery has yet to be placed on board. This will
consist of a pair of oscillating cylinder engines, driv-
ing feathering float paddlewheels of the collective
power of 250 horse-nominal. Messrs. Ravenhill, Sal-
keld, and Co., are the makers. The Helicon was
originallylaid down from the same lines as the Admi-
ralty paddle-yacht Enchantress, and the Pysche and
the Salainis despatch-vessels. These vessels, however,
proved on their trials under steam to be either over-
done with engine power in proportion to their ton-
nage, or faulty in their lines forward, the tendency
of all three vessels under full steam being to bury
their bows in the water, and thus absorb a conside-
rable amount of their propelling power in overcom-
ing the resistance of this wall of water raised in
their path, aptly described by seamen as " a bone in
her teeth." On the accession of Mr. E. J. Reed as
Chief Constructor of the Navy that gentleman ap-
pears to have marked down the Helicon as too
valuable a vessel with which to repeat the mistakes
—if a mistake had been committed—in the Enchan-
tress, Psyche, and Salamis. He accordingly directed
that the vessel's framing, from her midships section to
forward, should be taken down and reconstructed on
an entirely different plan. The original lines of the
vessel forward were carried out with the established
(Admiralty) lean hollow-bow, with an overhanging
and depressing mass of stem, cutwater, rails, figure
head, &c., round the ship's stem. The present
forebody of the Helicon has been constructed
on Mr. Reed's well-known theory by which the
V-shaped form of the midship section is carried well
forward, gradually decreasing to a true wedge with-
out the " hollow" bow, while the steamhead is
thrown back and inboard, and has no outer " fix-
ings" of any kind, not even a bowsprit, much less
the projecting cutwater, rails, figure-head, &c.
The stem of the vessel is elongated below the water-
line, and thus possesses the swan breast form in
common with the Defence and others of her Ma-
su of offencea means
b y runningof
forw a fullrd
Ma-
jesty's ships constructedas " rams." In the Heli-
con's case this projection. has not been given her as
flotationstem n into
a n d. at no
lift" her to the sea when feeling the
4,
a enemy,mean
but as
full power
of her engines. The Helicon will be at once fitted
with her machinery. Her trials at the measured
mile in Stokes Bay will immediately follow. If
her trials are carried out at the same draught of
water and under the same conditions in other re-
spect as were those of the Enchantress--the fastest
of the three vessels named as formerly completed—
the results will be most interesting on many points,
in addition to the not unimportant one of proving
the bowportion of Mr. Reed's theory of shipbuilding.
The remainder of the officers and crew of Her
Majesty's late ship Bombay are expectqd to arrive
at Portsmouth to-day by special train
from Liver-
pool, the Herschel steamship,
in which they are re-

turning to England from Montevideo, being under-
stood by the authorities to be ordered to Liverpool
from Lisbon, her last port of call. On arrival at
Portsmouth the officers and men will be temporarily
berthed on board the Duke of Wellington training
ship, Captain John Seccombe, pending the result Of
the court-martial for the loss of the Bombay, which
is expected to assemble on board Her Majesty's ship
Victory about the 6th inst.
The amalgamation of several of the depot com-
panies and breaking up of a number of the depot bat-
talions, in accordance with the orders received from
the War-office, has caused numerous important
changes in the corps quartered at Chatham, and
yesterday the first removal of troops from that gar-
rison under the new arrangements ordered by the
Horse Guards took place. The depots removed
were the 101st Royal Bengal Fusileers, which pro-
ceeded to Walmer, to join the 6th Depot Battalion ;
the 91st Argyllshire Highlanders, from the 3d Depot
Battalion to Preston ; and the depot companies of
the 31st, 75th, and 83d Regiment to Aldershot t
Camp, to join the headquarters of their respective
corps. The depots of the 43d Light Infantry, num-
bering 270 non-commissioned officers and men and
the following officers—viz., Lieut. E. Villiers and
Ensign J. C. Carter ; and the 51st King's Own Light
Infantry, numbering 92 non-commissioned officers
and men, with Capt. C. L. B. Hamilton, Lieut. R.
N. Cobb, Lieut. E. E. Middleton, Ensign H. Talbot,
and Ensign R. R. Tomson, will leave the garrison
to-morrow, for Winchester, to join the 7th Depot
Battalion, which is to consist exclusively of light in-
fantry regiments. The vacancies caused at Chat-
ham by the removal of so many corps from that gar-
rison will be filled by the transfer of several of the
depots from those battalions which are to be broken
up. The first of the depots—that of the 2d Batta-
lion of the 2d Queen's Royals—arrived at Chatham
yesterday afternoon from Walmer, where it was re-
lieved by the 101st depot. The 2d Battalion of the
2d numbers 140 men of all grades and the following
officers, viz. :—Capt. R. J. Hercy, Capt. H. R.'
Tucker, Capt. S. H. L. T. Wedrington, Lieut. J.
C. Stratford, Lieut. E. G. St. John, and Lieut. W.
C. Hood. The following depots are expected to
arrive at Chatham garrison to-day from Preston,
viz. :—The Ist and 2d Battalion of the 10th Regi-
ment, numbering 10 officers and 300 non-commis-
sioned officers and men, and the depot of the 29th
Regiment, consisting of four officers and 158 men
of all ranks. The other depots ordered to be quar-
tered at Chatham are the Ist and 2d Battalions of
the 15th Regiment, the 40th, the 65th, and the 80th
Regiment.

The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty :—Walter B. Elliot, Algernon B.
Sheridan, Robert C. Cragie, and Francis Powell,
midshipmen, to the Sutlej ; Robert S. Rolleston,
John B. M. Heming, Anthony G. F. Gordon, and
Charles R, Arbuthnot, naval cadets, to the. Sutlej ;
Walter B. fAlmack and Frank W. Wyley, naval
cadets, to the Curacoa ; Alex. W. C. Batten, nomi-
nated to a naval cadetship ; James Trimble, assist.-
Burg., to the "Britannia ; and Charles L. Cunning-
ham, assist.-surg., to the Liverpool.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

MIDLAND.

A telegram from the secretary of this company states that
the directors have decided on recommending a dividend on
the ordinary stock of the company for the half-year ending
the 31st of December last at the rate of 71 per cent. per
annum.

annum on the A preference stock and B preference shares,
and £3,940 for a dividend on the ordinary stock, at the
rate of 4 per cent. per annum, leaving a balance of £502 for
the next account. The income of the company for the
whole year 1864 was £35,131 as compared with £31,658 in
1,863, showing an increase of £3,473. A bill for the ensu-
ing session was intended, among other things, to empower
the company to purchase by agreement a branch railway
of nearly a mile and a half in length, known as the Rhos
branch, with a view to convert it into a public railway as
part of the system of the company, and thus to open out a
district from which coal and ironstone might be brought
in considerable quantities to the main line. A bill pro-
moted by the Carmarthenshire Company *had powers in-
serted in it to enable the Llanelly Company to make a
railway of about one mile and three-quarters in length,
to connect the Carmarthenshire Railway with the com-
pany's St. David line. Trains had been running over
the entire length of the Carmarthen line, but the narrow
gauge had not been laid over the whole of that portion of
the Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway which,the company
must use to pass their trains to Carmarthen and to the junc-
tion with the Great Western Railway near that place. The
operations on the Swansea lines had been carried onwith all
the vigour that circumstances had allowed, and the endea-
vours of all parties were directed to provide for traffic pass-
ing over the line at an. early period. The capital account
showed that £360,015 had been expended on the main line,
£382,502 on the Swansea lines, and £182,983 on the Car-
marthen line ; total, £925,500.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the report,
congratulated the shareholders on the improved position of
the company. The net earnings for the past half-year were
very nearly sufficient to pay a dividend at the rate of 4/
cent. per annum on the ordinary stock. The new lines
were not yet completed, bat they hoped that early in May
the Swansea branch would be ready for traffic.
Resolutions were passed adopting the report, and declar-
ing a dividend on the ordinary stock :at the rate of 4 per
cent. per annum, payable on the Ist of March. The retir-
ing directors, Mr :J. Biddulph, Mr. C. W. Christie, Mr. J.
Overend, and Colonel Miller, were re-elected.
The meeting was then made special, and the directors
were authorised to raise £30,000 by the further issue of 5
per cent. B preference shares for the purpose of purchasing
15'ranch railways, additional rolling stock, and building new
offices. The lease for the Vale of Towy line not being ready
for sanction by the shareholders, the meeting was adjourned.