The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-23 00:00:00

NAVY.

The screw corvette Scylla, 21, 400 horse power,
Capt. R. Lambert, arrived at the Nore yesterday
from the Mediterranean, and saluted the flag of
Vice-Admiral Sir W. J. Hope Johnstone. The
Scylla has been in commission upwards of three
years. She will be immediately dismantled and paid
off into the steam reserve.

The naval invalids and supernumeraries who came
home in the Scylla from the Mediterranean still re-
main on board, as it was found impossible to land
them at Portsmouth owing to the roughness of the
sea on Saturday. The Scylla has experienced very
rough weather during her passage from Spithead.
The Conqueror, 89, 600 horse power, is ordered to
be fitted for the first division of the steam reserve,
in the Medway, in succession to the Meeanee, 81
400 horse power, commissioned for service in the
Mediterranean.

The Amphion, 36, screw steam frigate, 1,474
tons, 300-horse power, Capt. A. C. Gordon, recently
from the Mediterranean, was paid off under the
superintendence of Capt. S. P. Thompson, of the
Steam Reserve at Sheerness, on Saturday last. The
crew were granted 14 days' leave. The Amphion
will be placed in the third division of the Sheerness
Steam Reserve.

The Geyser, 6, paddle-wheel steam sloop, 1,054
tons, 280-horse power, Commander Colin A. Camp-
bell, sailed from Sheerness on Monday with the
seamen for the western ports who were paid off
from the Amphion on Saturday. The Geyser has
also on board provisions for the Channel squadron
which she has fetched from Deptford.
On Monday, the 15th inst., it was reported in
The Sun that the Lily, 4, screw steam gun vessel
200-horse power, Commander Henry Harvey, had,
by orders from the Lords of the Admiralty, returned
from Plymouth to Sheerness, to undergo inspec-
tion, relative to certain defects which rendered her
unseaworthy having been reported on her arrival at
Plymouth en route for Cuba. It was also reported
that on her return to Sheerness Mr. Joseph Large
constructor of the navy, and Mr. James Wright,
assistant-chief engineer of the navy, from the office
of the Controller of the navy, had inspected the
Lily, and that they had sent up their report to the
Admiralty. Since !ben their lordships have re-
ported to the Commander-in-Chief at Sheerness
that, having taken the matter into consideration,
their lordships had decided that Commander Harvey
had incurred their most serious displeasure for re-
tarding the public service by sending in a list of
frivolous defects which ought not to have been
made. They further entirely exonerate the officers
of Sheerness dockyard from all
The principle defect which required, alteration vies
connected with the furnace bars, whiCh hid from
improper management become welded together
during the passage from Sheerness to Plymouth.
The authorities at Sheerness are now making new
furnace bars, and as soon as they are fitted the Lily
will proceed to sea.
A few days since we had occasion to refer to an
order received at Portsmouthdockyard from the Ad-
ralty directing that the chief energies of the Mas-
ter Shipwright's department should be devoted to
the repairs of the Cnragoa and Esk (the one a
wooden screw frigate and the akar a corvette, and
both half rotten in their framing), even to the neg-
lect, if necessary, of other work in hand in the yard.
At the same time we pointed out the strange incon-
sistency of this order, if by carrying it out any por-
tion of the work upon the two ironplated ships
Royal Sovereign and Royal Alfred should be de-
layed. Our fears in this respect have been fully
verified. The Royal Sovereign shield-ship has now
only some 50 shipwrights employed upon her, and
the Royal Alfred, plated frigate, about 60. Both
vessels have therefore had three-fourths of the
hands employed upon them removed, inadequate
as the original numbers were for the work to be
completed. They have been employed upon the
repairs of two vessels that Rill be worthless as men-
of-war when finished, and therefore can only repre-
sent so many thousands deliberately thrown away.
It is necessary the matter should be fully under-
stood, for no question at present can be of much
greater importance to us, as the chief maritime
power of Europe. The Royal Alfred is supposed
by many naval men to be the representative of what
this country should possess in the iron-plated broad-
side gun-frigate, while the Royal Sovereign, as
everyone now knows, is the representative of the
Coles shield, or central gun principle—a principle
which has been almost exclusively adopted in the
additions lately made to the Federal American fleet.
It is therefore surely requisite that both these ships,
but more especially the Royal Sovereign, should be
got afloat as speedily as possible, in order to obtain
certain results for future guidance. Their Lord-
ships appear to wish to reduce Capt. Coles's plans
to a simple applicability for coast floating batteries,
and to further damage the principle by unaccount-
able delays. Capt. Coles, on the contrary, bas
always maintained that his shield-ships would be
as good sea boats as the ordinary broadside gun
class of ship, and would, moreover, be en-
abled, from the central position of their guns,
to cast adrift and work their guns in a seaway when
it would be simply impossible for any broadside-gun
plated ship, with her ports cut down to the water-
ways of her decks, to do the same. In addition, the
Admiralty have before them drawings of an exceed-
ingly simple and effective plan of rigging the cupola
or shield ship with biped tubular iron masts, which,
fitted with the Cunningham topsail yards, would
enable the Royal Sovereign to carry some hundred
more feet of sail as a shield ship than she could have
again, there is
adnoon
tehearsreassoinhrweeh- ydetchkeers.hiplsllPtoreu'ld be at Spithead
as speedily as possible—that We may find out what
sail she can spread under ordinary circumstances at
sea, and her mode of reducing sail, and the amount
she would then carry on going into action. At pre-
sent, therefore, the case stands thus :—The number
of men employed upon the two iron-cased ships
have been reduced to a minimum, in order to repair
two wooden ships the hulls of which are only fit
for firewood. The iron-cased ships, when completed,
would not only prove a most valuable addition to
our navy, but would also assist greatly.in solving