The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-09 00:00:00

TUE NAVY.

Preparations for a naval war continue to be made
with undiminished energy at Portsmouth. Nearly
4 500 men are at present employed in the dockyard
alone, and this number is exclusive of seamen rig-
gers and men from the Steam Reserve. The forego-
ing number of men at work in the yard comprises'
1,279 shipwrights, 879 of whom are the established
class, and the remainder are hired hands ; 80 esta-
blished and 13 hired caulkers, 147 established and
90 hired joiners, 11 wheelwrights, 200 established
and 89 hired smiths, 76 established and 60 hired
millwrights, 59 coppersmiths, 47 at the woodmills,
DO sawyers, 181 established and 764 hired labourers,
about 60 locksmiths, braziers, and painters, and in
the steam factory department about 750. All this
crowd of men are fullyemployed, and many of them
are working extra hours to complete some of the
:nest pressing portions of the work, as in the mast
'making department, which is now working up to 8
to complete the masts and yards for the Black
rrince, Glasgow, and Octavia. The smiths' shop,
'with its 102 fires, seven furnaces, and seven Na-
emyth's hammers ranging from a lOcavt. to a 5 ton
lead—the latter having attached to it a hydraulic
"crane with a 50 ton lift—is as busily employed
throughout as the other departments in providing
for the want of the ships preparing for the pennant.
he ten decks possessed by the yard are all occupied
in one way or another, and in the majority of them
warms of workmen may be seen engaged on every
part of the vessels, in carrying out the necessary re-
pairs, &c. In No. 1 is the Coquette, 5, screw, now
nearly complete for commission. In No. 2 the re-
mains of the Meteor, iron cased floating battery, are
being broken up as rapidly as possible to render the
dock available for the general work of the yard. In
Ncs. 3 and 4 the Higbflyer, 21, screw, and the
Rosamond, 6, paddle; the former unopened, but
requiring heavy repairs, and the latter partially re-
paired and destined for a floating steam factory.
From both these vessels the men hitherto employed
on them have been withdrawn, and placed upon
more pressing work. In No. 3 is the Esk, 21, screw,
with stem out, and partially stipped of bow plank-
ing, disclosing a very rotten and defective state.
Her time for being out of the dockyard hands is
given for the 9th of May, but at present she has not
quite 50 hands upon her. In No. 6 is one of the
harbour steamtugs. In Nos. 7 and 10, the double
dock, is the Black Prince, the great trouble of the
dockyard officials. Internally she is a vast work-
shop, in which artisans of every kind are busily at
work with but little hope of finishing their labours
by the time given for her to be out of hand—the
30th of April next. Th 6 teak lining forward and
aft of her armour plating is being completed, and
the scuppers leading to the main sewer are being
enlarged and increased in number. Another bridge
is also being constructed across the quarter deck.
In addition to the construction of the model for her
fish head, and the general fitting of her main and
upper decks, an immense deal remains to be yet
done—such as the construction of her hammock
nett ings, alterations and additions to her head rails,
netting, and fitting of her cabins below. In the
Black Prince, as in the Warrior, the crew sleep and
mess on the main deck, in lieu of the lower deck as
in ordinary frigates, owing to the iron ships below
the main deck being divided into compartments.
These consist of, in the after part of the ship abaft
the armour plating-Ist compartment from stern,
store rooms ; 2d compartment, the officers' mess
room and cabins, or ward room ; and the 3d com-
partment, next to the armour plating, containing the
clerks' office in the centre, with a mess room on
each side, one for the midshipmen and the other
for the engineer officers. The next compartment,
inside the armour plating, contains the magazines,
store and light rooms, succeeded by five others
within the armour plating, containing respectively
the engine room, chain and shot lockers, shell rooms
and coal rooms, after boiler space, fore boiler space;
and, lastly, the fore hold and fore magazine. For-
ward of the armour plating is the cable tier, prisons,
and provision rooms, the warrant officers' cabins,
the sick bay, and lastly, in the bows, 'warrant offi-
cers' store rooms. Outside the ship the bilge pieces
on the bottom are nearly affixed to the angle irons,
and the scraping of the ship's bottom has been
begun, to prepare it to receive a coating of the
patent composition, prepared by the Admiralty
chemist, Mr. Hay, with which also the bottom of
the Resistance, at Chatham, is ordered to be coated.
One serions defect, of an almost if not quite irreme-
diable character, exists in the construction of iron-
cased ships as constructed at present, and is fully
exemplified in both the Warrior and Black Prince.
This evil is the penetration of water between the
teak and armour plates. The water naturally
forces for its exit a passage between the joints of
the armour plates, and the opinion at present is
that nothing can remedy this under the circum-
stances of tongued and grooved edged plates hung
on a ship's sides by through bolts. Caulking is
stated to be useless, and that cannot be 'wondered at
considering the slung weight to be dealt with, and
the ship's motion at sea. But the effect of the action
of the water in the grooves of the plates and upon
the iron belts can only be expected to be such that
in four or five years from the time of commission
each ship will require replating. In No. 8 dock,
the Glasgow, 51, screw, is being caulked and pre-
pared to receive her copper. Her time for being
out of the dockyard hands is the 28th pros. No. 9
dock has been used of late for breaking up old ships,
but it has been cleared during the past week, and
yesterday received the Chanticleer, 17, screw, Com-
mander C. Stirling, and is therefore now added to
the list available for general service. In the steam
basin are the Prince Regent, 89, screw, complete in
machinery; the Octavia, 50, screw, ordered to be
finished by March 1 ; the gunboats Swinger and
Savage received their 100-pounder Armstrongs
to-day, and were to be ready for sea this evening;
the gunboat Jasper, 80-horse power, being brought
forward as quickly as possible by the shipwright
and factory departments ; the Hazard, with Capt.
C. Cole's shield model, and the Wallace, steam ten-
der. Alongside the north wall of the basin is the
Dart, 5, three-masted screw schooner, nearly com-
plete in rig stores and armament ; andthe four gun-
boats, Earnest, Foam, Cracker, and Pheasant, only
requiring each their 40-pounder (they
,have their
carriage and equipment on board) to make them
ready to proceed to sea as soon as their crews and
powder could be sent on board. In the ship basin
the Tribune, 28, screw, has her machinery in order,
and is being hurried forward in the other parts of
her outfit ; the Sultan is fitting for a receiving ship,
and the Juno fitting for a police ship. Her upper
deck seams have been payed on opposite sides by
the patent waterproof glue and ordinary pitch, to
test the merits of the former, of which much is ex-
pected. The poop of her Majesty's ship Victory is
also to be caulked with it, as are two ships to be
named by the Admiralty, one of which will be des-
patched on service in a hot climate, and the other
in a cold one. The Britannia, naval cadet ship,
Capt. R. Harris, is to be taken into this basin on
the 14th inst. to complete her outfit for Portland.
Alongside the shear jetty of the ship basin the Dun-
can, 101, screw, is carrying on her outfit, to be com-
pleted by the 28th inst., and yesterday shipped her
Griffiths propeller; while off in the stream, moored
in a line with each other, at about a cable's length
apart, lie, ready to proceed to sea at an hour's no-
tice, three of the finest 50-gun frigates in the world
—the Euryalus, Shannon, and Sutlej. In the build-
ing slips there is no great bustle, all the labour of
the yard being devoted to bringing for ward the craft
most urgently wanted. In No. 1 slip the Helicon,
paddlewheel despatch vessel, 835 tons and 200 horse
power, has her timbers in position, with the exception
ofa portion of her stern. In No. 2, the Harlequin, 17,
screw, 950 tons, 200 horse power, is in frame and
nearly ready for planking. In t he next slipthe Dryad,
51 gans, 3,027 tons, and 600 horse-power, is com-
plete in her framing, getting her deck beams in po-
sition, &c. The next slip is empty, but is designed
for the Kent, iron.plated frigate. In the last ship
stands the Royal Alfred, laid down for a 91, but
now converted to a frigate of 50 guns, and to be
cased with 41-inch plates from the manufactory of
Messrs. Brown.and Co., the Atlas Steel and Iron
Works, Sheffield. One peculiarity in these plated
frigates will be that they will have a stem falling
inboard from the water line, and carry no project-
ing figure-head. In addition to the number of men

we have quoted as being employed in the yard by
the Government, there are also a number of others
employed by private contractors in the ccnstrue-
don of No. 11 dock (to ;be capable of iseci).
ships of the Warrior class) and other w. rks.
only part of the yard, however, which is really in-.
active in the midst of all bustle i . the coaling
jetty erected by a contractor at the south end of
the yard. This work projects some 60 feet from
the dockyard into the harbour for a length of
600 feet and upwards, and its cost for the jetty
alone (saying nothing of the expensive hydraulic
machinery, not yet erected) was £15,000. Its pro-
fessed purpose was to fulfil the duties of a grand
embarkation and disembarkation stage for troops
from large transports, and to coal two such ships as
the Warrior and the Black Prince at one and the
same time. Its fulfilled duties have been that a mer-
chant transport discharging troops on one occasion
grounded at low water and proved it to be at present
totally unsuited for the purposes for which it was
constructed. It may be rendered serviceable, and
perhaps for the duties for which it was originally in-
tended, but at the present time it is useless. The
work consequent on the outfit of the ships and gun-
boats at Portsmouth is not confined to the dockyard
alone, the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard at Gos-
port and the ordnance and military store department
having also their share of the work to carry out.
The steam transport St. Andrew, Capt. Dutton,
now embarking materials of war for America at the
Royal Arsenal pier, Woolwich, has shipped 300 tons
of heavy Armstrong guns, shot and shell, 900 tons
of light stores, consisting of cases of small arms,
bales of warm clothing, accoutrements, hospital com-
forts, and other miscellaneous articles, and 85 tons
of powder. Notwithstanding her superior cabin ac-
commodation no positive orders had been received up
to last night for the embarkation of passengers.
The hired steamship Brunette yesterday moored
off Woolwich Arsenal, and will take up the berth
of the St. Andrew to ship 500 tons of shot, shell,
and other stores for Bermuda.

The steam transport Parthenon yesterday com-
menced receiving about 500 tons of heavy cargo—
namely, shot and shell, for Jamaica.
The screw steam sloop Icarus, 11, Commander
Nowell Salmon, in Plymouth Sound, received her
powder yesterday, and waits orders.
The paddlewheel steamer Terrible, 21, 1,850 tons,
800 horse power, Capt. F. H. H. Glasse, C. 8.,
which arrived at the Nore a few days since from
the Mediterranean, is having some defects in her
machinery made good previously to towing the sail-
ing frigate Brilliant, 26, to Dundee.
Since the order from the Admiralty for the com-
pletion of the fine serew frigate Arethusa, 51,
3,100 tons,:soo-horse power, in the steam basin at
Sheerness, the factory hands are employed until a
late hour each evening fitting her engines on board,
in order that she may be ready for commission by
an early date. Her engines are from the factory of
Messrs. Penn and Sons, Greenwich.
The Russian Government transport Giljach, Com-
mander Engvist, from Cuxhaven, December 30,
passed down Channel outside Plymouth Sound on
Monday last. She is bound to the Russian settle-
ment on the River Amoor, for the navigation of
which there are on board the materials of two steam
vessels and two lighters. The Giljach conveys also
a large quantity of wire, for the establishment of
telegraphic communication, across Siberia, between
the colony and the Imperial Government. A com-
petent staff of engineers take passage in the
transport.

The block of buildings now in course of erection
by the Government, at Sheerness, for the married
non-commissioned officers and men of the Royal
Artillery at that garrison are so far com-
pleted that they will be ready to be occupied
during the course of the ensuing summer. The
buildings have been erected in a very healthy place
and are constructed of the very best materials.
Arrangements have been made for allowing each
married soldier a separate apartment, thoroughly
ventilated and replete with every convenience for
domestic comfort.
A formidable bank of mud has accumulated in the
estuary of the Medway, near the entrance to the
great basin at Sheerness, which has been found so
seriously to interfere with the ingress and egress
of vessels of war using the basin that the large
steam dredging machine used in Chatham harbour
has been ordered to proceed to Sheerness for the
purpose of removing the obstruction.

The following appointments were made yester-
day at the Admiralty :
Assistant Engineers—F. C. Ford (first class), additional,
to the Indus for the Partridge ; E. D. Dooley (first class),
to the Asia for the Pheasant; H. R. Wills (first class), to
the Asia for the Foam.

Naval Cadet—Cecil F. Domville (nominated).

THE AIiIEIIICAN QUESTION.

MR. TRAIN DISCOUNTING THE FUTURE-
DEFENCE OF MR. SEWARD.

We are pleased to notice the great revulsion of
feeling in this country in favour of peace. The press
is less warlike, and the speakers in the discussion
halls, where public opinion is manufactured, more
conciliatory. Although appearances have been
against it, we are convinced that the great mass of
the English people are friendly to America, and as
anxious to shake hands with the Americans as the
Americans are to shake hands with the English and
be friendly. We warmly reciprocate the kind for-
get and forgive leader in Monday's Tinges.
We were pleased to see at the discussion on the
American question, in the Islington Debating Hall
on Saturday evening, that the large audience re-
peatedly applauded the speakers who favoured the
Federal Government. Mr. Train, by his recent re-
cantation, as the journals call it, on the Trent affair
seems to have entirely regained his former popu-
larity. Many of the country papers have reproduced
from the London American his speech, with,highly
complimentary comments, believing, as they say,
that it foreshadows the action of the American Go-
vernment. His predictions as to the certain down-
fall of the Copper Head Conspiracy, and of the
triumphant success of the Federal Government in
preserving the Union, the Constitution, and the
laws, are likely to be soon verified by incoming ar-
rivals. He mapped out a chart in the debate alluded
to for the rising generation of the West worthy
of consideration. The audience seemed determined
to have him take part in the debate, although he
told them he came to listen not to speak. We give
a short extract of that portion of his speech bearing
on the future :

Mr. TRAIN—Can the South subjugate the North P
That is the way to put the American question in an
understandable way to Englishmen. (Hear.) ,Can
three millions of disorganised traitors overpower
twenty-five millions of united patriots P or, in other
words, is it possible for four hundred thousand slave
owners who have succeeded in enslaving four mil-
lions of blacks, to bring again into bondage twenty
free States, and make slaves of the free citizens of
the North as they have of the white men of the
South ? Procrastination may be a thief—(laughter)
—but this time you will find him an honest man.
General Time is the best officer we have in our army
—next in rank is General Patience ! Wait a few
mails longer and England shall be satisfied that the
Americans have not disgraced their Anglo-Saxon
fathers. (Applause.) The flag already floats over
thirty-two States, and even while I speak I think I
hear booming over the ocean the sweet music of the
Union cannon playing the artillery 'requiem of
Death to Treason ! (Loud applause.) Omnipotence
is with us, there is no such word as fail. Providence
is always on the side of the strongest battalion. The
voice of the Union cannon is the voice of God. Our
camp covers three million square miles. Our army
is the army of freedom throughout the world. (Ap-
plause.) Europe wants more air, and America is
fighting for millions in this hemisphere as well as
for millions in that

" In vain, our kindred shores to prat,
Are waves between us thrown,
The tide that warms a British h3art
Is that which fills our own."--(Applause.)
We fight for millions of Union men in the South"
who call upon the nation's banner for support.
We fight for millions of Europeans who a wait peace
before emigrating. We fight for honour, education,
and religion—home—wife and father land—and as
an American you must pardon me if I smile at the
summary way, the last speaker proposed blotting

us off the world's map by sending five thousand
troops to Canada. I am not one of those who be-
lieve that the Western people and the Western em-
pire can be wiped out of the Western horizon in
three weeks' time, only to leave a grease spot on
the Western ocean. (Laughter and applause.) An
illustration will show its absurdity. How brave
England will laugh to scorn the man who feared the
destruction of these islands, at the landing cf five
thousand Frenchmen at Dover! (Hear.) Or better
still, what could be more ridiculous than England
to have attempted the conquest of Russia by send-
ing only five thousand Englishmen to the Criniea I
(Applause.) My duty compels me to tell you in
confidence that the Americans are not Chinese.
(Laughter.) We have got through with the Fugi-
tive Slave Law Envoys—you will soon have with
you the author of the Negro Catcher act, and .the
son of the .New York tallow chandler, and I wish it
were possible for them to bring their negroes with
them to show Exeter Hall how well such men can
manage such labour ! (Laughter.) We shall have
no more of Mason and Dixon's line. It will now be
Mason and Slidell's capture. (Hear.) Everything
is on the change. The Pope turns brigand—Kings
die suddenly—Vesuvius belches forth molten iron—
and slaves no longer ran away from their masters,
but masters run away from their slaves. (Applause.)
The gentleman is mistaken about the strength
of our cabinet and our unity. Omitting the two
hundred traitors in Fort Warren and Lafayette,
and Fernando Wood—(laughter)—the North is a
unit acknowledging one chief who combines the
virtue of Washington with the will of Jackson.
Lincoln is every inch a President. Never before
has the American Cabinet possessed such amount of
Puritan honesty, Christian patriotism, and so many
cubic inches of solid brain. (Hear.) No cleverer
man than Chase ever handled the country's finances.
No abler man than Cameron ever filled the War-
office, and you must permit me emphatically to deny
the oft-repeat ed slander that Seward is hostile to
England. (Applause.) In recent speeches I have
alluded to this industriously circulated slander.
Seward is not a man of war. His temperament is
peace. Clever as a lawyer—clever as a speaker—
clever as a writer—clever as a statesman, he is,
without exception, the cleverest Secretary of State
that America has ever possessed. I have read his
speeches since I was a child—clear, forcible, and
full of life. He can talk diplomacy with Lyons, war
with Palmerston, Latin with Russell, Greek with
Gladstone, or Hebrew with Rothschild. (Laughter.)
His despatches are specimens of patriotism and
eloquence. He never repeats—all his despatches to
European powers are unlike in composition, but the
same in sentiment, and I challenge the speaker who
alluded so severely to our Premier to point me out
one word of hostility to England. (Cheers.) For
many years I have been proud of his friendship, and
when in Europe some little while ago, after some
twenty-five years' absence, I talked with him much
about England. I met him in London, and pre-
sented him to Lamartine in Paris, and was much in-
structed by the conversation of the two republican
chiefs. Any one acquainted with the Secretary can
understand the good-natured joke about Canada, to
the Duke of Newcastle. That dinner-table badinage
and a clause in his Astor-house speech in 1860, has
furnished the text for all the libels on his character
—" Let Carolina, let Alabama, let Louisiana, let
any State go out, and you will find Canada and the
Mexican States rushing in to fill the vacancy."
That is the extent of his offending—so far from
being hostile to England, he has always been just
the reverse—(cheers)—and I believe that Mr.
Adams has already received a despatch in advance
of England's demands, highly conciliatory, which
has been held back by the Foreign-office from the
people ! (Applause.) Yes, Mr. Chairman, it is all
up with the South. The last mean thing done by
Davis was to eat himself out of Virginia into Ten-
nessee. (Laughter.) I have often read descriptions
of the wholesale game hunting of some lands—the'
sportsman surrounds the woodland for miles and
beats steadily up to the centre—when the rattle of
rifles deal death and destruction on every side.
(Applause.) Such is now the Federal policy. No
better analogy can be found than that of the Bas-
tile prisoner who was placed in an elegant apart-
ment with light, and fruit, and flowers. His punish-
ment seemed a luxury, till one day he imagined
that while the proportions of his apartment were
the same, the room had lessened in size. Again he
looked, and sure enough there was a change.
Where is the wonderful machinery ? Pale with
doubt—listening with suspense—each day he
noticed the contraction of the walls. Closer and
closer they came—shutting out window after win-
dow—but no hand was seen, no noise heard—all was
as still as death.—His doom was sealed.—An inch
to-day, another to morrow—one grip of the four walls
and all was over ! (Applause.) The man was pressed
to death foot by foot, inch by inch, and he knew not
from whence emanated the secret power that crushed
_him. (Cheers.) So is it with this ungodly revolu-
tion. Little by little—step by step—battalion by
battalion—the camp is being surrounded—and an-
other mail may bring the startling news of the
death- knell of treason. They have played all their
trumps in the game of death—while all of ours
remain. Their powder is exhausted—their power
is gone—and the canker of remorse is eating up the
lying, treacherous wretches who ere long will be
willing to pick up the crumbs that fall from the
Federal table, or to rest even for a moment in Abra-
ham's bosom ! (Cheers and laughter.) You compli-
ment me by alluding to my success in foreshadow-
ing events. Again I glance at the western horizon.
This time we must change the map and put new
words into tho history of the war. For secession
read rebellion—for Secessionist read Traitor—for
Confederacy read High Treason !—and you will
never again laugh at the mention of Bull Run—for
it will be known in the nation's record as the Pat-
terson Treachery ! (Cheers.) It having been acci-
dentally discovered that South Carolina and Vir-
ginia
do not compose the entire United States—
these
lecherous old thieves must be swept away-
-1 the two Carolinas must sink into one under the
1 name of Carolina! Virginia having prostituted
herself is no longer the virgin she once was, and
must make way for the new State of Kanawha!
(Hear.) Her eastern boundary must be added to
the district of Columbia, Maryland, and Dela-
ware. The border States must all bg free—white
men must come in and Yankeefy the soil, and make
the desert blossom like the rose. (Hear.) Florida
and Louisiana must be reduced to territories—
colonize contrabands in the former if you like—
and let the commerce of the latter come over the
railways and the lakes to New York7-finish the
middle link of that great broad guage Triink Line
of 1,200 miles that sonnets the Erie railroad with
the Ohio and Mississippi—the Atlantic and Great
Western—and cut a steamship canal through from
the Illinois River to Lake Michigan, and by these
routes take away the roundabout commerce of New
Orleans to the Empire City—change the term of
President to six years—build monuments to our
heroes who died for the Union—each State and each
city to honour its own dead—let the fortifications at
Washington remain as the inner forts, and build an
outer wall—have more naval schools and West
Point academies—build low, fast, long, heavy Parrot
or Dahlgren gunboats, but no frigates or liners—
open the nation's doors to all the world—have no
more Caucuses and National Conventions. (Hear,
hear.) Remodel the Constitution to meet the nation's
wants—have a school-book prepared to be called
the Union Reader, which will be entirely composed
of patriotic speeches, patriotic songs, patriotic pro-
clamations, and patriotic resolutions, commemora-
ting this epoch of our history. Put up a large
board in all our school-rooms, lined with black,
giving the names of all the pirate chiefs, so that the
children may daily learn to curse their memory !
(Oh.) Introduce a new form of prayer to be read
in every church, thanking God for saving our na-
tion and preserving our Union. (Cheers.) And have
a great national holiday, to commence on Monday
morning and last till Saturday night—a regular
jubilee of freedom ! (Cheers and laughter.) Pass a
bankrupt law for honest men—the last was executed
for scamps—and let the Treasury notes circulate
among our people, a kind of national bank with-
out any of its disadvantages—and make it
high treason for any man to charge a discount on
Government paper. (Oh !) Cry America for the
Aturicans—establish American banks in Foreign

cities—patronize American merchants. We Must
have no more Secession bankers in England. The
time is ripe for a Union Bank—a Union Govern-
ment Agency—for Union men and a Union Admiais-
tration ! Make America the mother land of the
Americans. (Applause.) England is the grandmother
land. (Laughter.) Make up this unseemly quarrel
—shake hands and be friends.

No fame that flashed on Britain's brow,
But gleams on ours alike;
Then if you can, abjure us now,
Forget it all—and strike I
One of these truant days I intend to be a governor
in my native land—(cheers)—and not the leak of
the planks in my platform, when she confesses sor-
row for misrepresenting us, will be eternal friend-
ship for England ! (Loud and continued cheers.)