The Sun.
London, England, 1865-01-31 00:00:00

hoping that during the night the blockade runner
would stand out for the Hole-in-the-Wall.
The night being dark and the currents uncertain

The New York Herald now advises Butler's dis-
missal from service for being " utterly incompetent
and insubordinate."
The Richmond Enquirer of January 12 advocates
the arming of the slaves as follows :
" General Lee is regarded as a man reasonably
devoted to our cause ; he is looked upon as not
easily disheartened ; he has exhibited a practical
patriotism ; he is admitted to know something of
the Wants and necessities of the army ; he is a large
slaveholder, and yet he urges his country's autho-
rities to conscript the negroes, and to liberate them
and the wives of those who are made soldiers. If
one was disposed to rest the question on authority,
we might stop here and ask what man will put him-
self in the scales against General Lee ? . If this war
was being waged for rights' in the territories, this
proposition to arm the negroes and liberate the
negro soldier would be suicidal. But as it is the
white man's liberty, and not the negro's slavery, for
which this people are really fighting, the proposition
of General Lee is one by which every man's devo-
tion to the cause may be weighed, measured, and
estimated. We proposed the plan of abolition ; we
suggested nothing as to who should abolish the
institution ; we merely said that for independence
ya
na France,u acquired e d
these
continues
throughwtsm.etStates
sso
tth—hl
should
—not recognition, not intervention—but for inde-
pendenced
f
atalindtypeoafceE,
nagclatunadll
istrum
baeboplriteipoanreofd toslau
slavery."
yu.rnnthieepeopl
Enquirere
" Mr. Seward's extreme haste to misrepresent this
proposition as a sign of our exhaustion shows his
dread of our approaching Europe armed with
such a proposition. He understands that
all his slanders and falsehoods would be
instantly exploded, and his Government pre-
sented to the world in all its naked deformity of
practically denying the great charter Of its own
liberties, and seeking; against its Declaration of In-
dependence, to impose upon these States a Govern-
ment against the consent of their people. Our
cause, stripped of the prejudices which slavery has
thrown around it, would be the cause of a people
struggling for nationality and independence, and
the United States would stand before the world as
the oppressor, denying the principles by which its
own struggle for liberty was justified. Then we
should reap the benefit of that disgust which the
conduct of the enemy has excited throughout the
world, as well as the value of that sympathy which
our firmness and resolution have won, despite the
disadvantages of slavery. The proposition canido
no harm—it may do much good—shall it not be
made."

The arrest of the Hon. Henry S. Foote, while on
his way to the North, as previously announced, has
given rise to many speculations by the Northern
press as to the cause of his flight and arrest. Some
journals think that Mr. Foote was intending to
make important disclosures to the Washington au-
thorities, and among them a statement of the mea-
sures adopted in the Confederate Congress during
its recent secret session. President Davis makes
the following announcement to the Confederate
House of Representatives :
I have just received a report from the Secretary
of War, stating that Henry S. Foote has been ar-
rested by a military officer in Northern Virginia
while.endeavouring to pass our lines on his way to
the enemy's country. I submit the matter to you
in order that such disposal of the case may be made
as to you shall seem proper."
Mr. Foote is reported to have avowed to Col.
Daggett, who caused histo eg
thatnarresooti,atea ea
he was
H
as one ishis
way to Washington
reported to be now at Fredericksburg, wider parol,

The semi-official Richmond Sentinel of the 12th
inst. publishes the following article in reply to the
public demand for the enlargement of General Lee's
present military authority :
" Some of our contemporaries have been recently
discussing the nature of the official relation between
the two eminent public servants whose names head
this article (President Davis and General Lee) ;
and from the eagerness of some to give fresh confi-
dence to the people, though from less creditable
motives in others, have suggested that the appoint-
ment of General Lee to a higher grade—that of
generalissimo or field marshal, with power to com-
mand all our armies, or to assume the general con-
duct and direction of our military operations—
would have a tendency to dispel the temporary de-
spondency caused by recent reverses. We need
hardly say to our readers how earnestly we have
deprecated the exaggeration to which this despon-
dency has been carried. It has been far in excess
of what was justified by the circumstances, and has
been intensified by the croaking at the street corners
and in the bar-rooms, which has been the cause of
so much evil during the war. It is even to be feared
that some of this croaking has found its way into
quarters where courage and serenity are naturally
to be expected, and where, in consequence, it is
especially hurtful. This, however, is a diversion
from our purpose.
'' Believing, as we do, that it is of the utmost im-
portance to allow no misunderstanding to exist of
the real state of the case, we have taken pains to
ascertain the facts, and can now give them with the
certainty that we are not mistaken.
" General Lee is the officer now highest in com-
mand in the line of the army. General Cooper,
who alone stands above him in the army list, is on
the staff, not on line duty. Whenever General Lee
is in the field, therefore, he commands not only all
troops that are within the department assigned to
him, but all who may happen to serve in connec-
tion with his command. • The limits of his depart-
ment are bounded solely by his own opinion of his
ability to extend the necessary supervision over the
operations. Thus, when the President desired, some
time ago, to place General Lee in command of the
entire Atlantic coast, as being connected with the
operations of the army now opposed to Grant,
General Lee felt himself constrained to object to
taking military control of any part of the coast
beyond the mouth of Cape Fear, and to request
of the President to continue the separation between
his department and that which, under an independ-
ent commander, extends southward from the Cape
Fear.
" The first point, then, which we wish clearly to
fix in the minds of our readers, is that General
Lee's command in the held is as large, and extends
over as great a department, as he is willing to con-
trol. We must not be understood as concurring
with our great General in the modest estimate he
mukes of his own merits or capacity. On the con-
trary, we are confident he does himself less than
justice in believing that he would not add to the
strength and efficiency of his defence of our country.
We confine ourselves simply to the fact that it is
his choice, not the President's wish, that restricts
his control to the limits of his present department.
" But it is said—' We do not want General Lee to
command in the field any greater district of country
than he thinks best. What we want is that he
should have the general direction of the other
armies, the general conduct of their operation—a
control over their plans of campaign.'
" To this we answer that this is eminently de-
sirable ; that it is proven by the past history of the
war to be exactly what the President wished and
_attempted, but that] experience has shown, unfor-
tunately, that the two duties cannot be performed
at the same time by the same man, and that we are
driven to choosing between General Lee in the field
and General Lee in an office at Richmond, exercis-
ing a general supervision over all our military ope-
rations. In a word, the President has made the
very experiment now urged, and General Lee found
it impossible to do both duties. The President re-
luctantly, and at General Lee's own request, was
compelled to choose between relieving him from the
command of the army defending Richmond, or
from the general command over all our armies,
which it is now urged should vest in him.
" How quickly we forget history is illustrated
almost daily, but the present is a very striking in-
stance. On thc 25th March, 1862, Congress passed
a law indicating a wish that General Lee should
have the same control of military operations which
it is now desired to confer upon him, and the
President at once placed him in the position created
by the law. His counsels and aid were found in-
valuable by the Executive, until, on the fall of
General Johnston severely wounded at the battle of
Seven Pines, the President deemed it essential to
the safety of the capital to put General Lee in com-
ma of the army of Northern Virginia. But Gene-
ral Lee, when thus placed in command in the field,
was retained in the general command of all the
armies at the same time. What was the result ?
To the great regret of the President, General Lee
was forced, by a stress of duty too great for one
man, to request that a choice should be made.
Willing as he ever has been to do his country every
service in his power, he left it to the President to
say whether he could best aid in its defence by re-
maining in the field or returning to his office in
l,
Richmond. The wisdom of the choice which left
him in command of the army that has now for
threeto yearsget
pobsasffiessedion
of every
our effort
eapita of
nearly
the enemy
will scarcely be questioned by
any ; least
of all by Virginians.
" This exposition would be incomplete were we
to omit the fact that the President, while availing
himself of the services of General Lee in the field,
loses no opportunity of obtaining the benefit of his
advice and opinion on all important questions, and
on all extended operations. These two distinguished
citizens, too devoted to their country, too conscious
of their own nobility of character, too superior to
base or envious passions to entertain for each other
any but the most cordial sentiments of mutual
esteem and friendship, are constantly engaged in
the interchange of visits for conference on all mili-
tary affairs, as well as on the general condition of
our country. From this the happiest consequences
have resulted. Would that so eminent an example
were followed by all ; and we should soon see a
spirit of confidence animating the people, that
would put to shame the croaking, the despondency,
the fault-finding, and the faint-heartedness that
now disgrace so many of our public men, and pro-
duce effects so injurious to our cause."
The New York Herald of the 15th January, con-
tains the following article, which is headed " The
Present Policy of Russia : "
" We have had several visits from the Russians
to this country from time to time. The Government
of the Czar has sent war ships here, has established
diplomatic and consular agents, and keeps an
ambassador at Washington ; yet it is evident that
the Russians, after all, do not understand either our
position or what should be their own policy. If
properly advised by their agents, they would know
that now is the favourable time to carry out the
traditionary policy of their race to extend the empire
to the Bosphorus, and seize upon Constantinople.
The effort made in 1855 to accomplish this by the
Crimean war failed because the military combina-
tion of France and England was too strong for
Russia singlehanded ; but now, while we are pushing
our continental policy to a point that will be likely
'to employ the only two Powers in Europe that could
oppose the measures of Russia, the time has arrived
for the designs upon Constantinople to be inaugu-
rated. If the Czar does not do this, he must be as
befogged about the state of affairs in this country
as his diplomatic representatives appear to be."

LOSS OF THE SAN JACINTO

Advices received here by the Federal transport
Continental, from Key West, on the 10th inst„
announce that the Federal steam sloop-of-war San
Jacinto, Captain
R. W. Meade, was lost on the
morning of the Ist inst., on a reef off No-Namekey,
on the Bohawa Banks. The day previous to the
disaster she had been chasing a blockade runner,
which escaped by reaching neutral waters. Dark-
ness coming on the San Jacinto stood in shores

the vessel overrun her reckoning, and instead of
being twenty miles from shore, as was supposed by
the commanding officer, she was close on the reef
which she struck at 12.40 a.m. All efforts and
attempts to get her off were frustrated by a heavy
gale setting in from the eastward, and at 10 o'clock
the next day she " belged," her sides being crushed
in. There being no possibility of saving the vessel,
the captain directed his attention towards saving
the crew and the public property. With his boats
and the assistance of the wreckers who had con-
gregated around the vessel, the crew were landed
without loss of life. The guns and most of the
stores were likewise saved.
The English naval authorities being informed of
the circumstances, sent a steam sloop-of-war to the
assistance of the San Jacinto.
The San Jacinto, it will be recollected, over-
hauled the British mail steamer Trent, from which
it took the Confederate Commissioners, Slidell and
Mason.

The Wreck of the African Mail Steamer

Armenian.
The Wexford Constitution gives the following
account of the loss of the African mail steamer
Armenian, on Arklow Bank. The steamer left
Liverpool on Tuesday last, having on board 42
passengers and a crew of 49, all told :
" At five minutes to twelve o'clock, on Tuesday
night, the captain reports that he saw Arklow light,
and put the helm to starboard. In a few minutes
afterwards the Armenian struck aft. She had on

full steam, and was going at the rate of eleven miles
an hour. At this time the passengers, eight of whom
were ladies and five children, were all in bed, as was

also a portion of the crew. The shock was so great
as to awaken every one on board, some of the
passengers being thrown out of their berths.
The passengers proceeded to dress them-
selves, but some of the women and children
had not time to do so. Every effort was made to

get the steamer off, but without success ; and, half
an hour after striking, it was discovered that there
was ten feet of water in the ship. By 1 o'clock on

Wednesday morning the water had gained so much

upon her that the engine fires went out, thus pre-
venting any continued attempt to pumpher, although
even during the time they were worked the pumps
proved of little service, owing to the water gaining
so rapidly. As all hope of getting her off was now
abandoned, and as she was sinking fast, preparations
were made for securing the safety of the lives of
those on board. The ladies and children were

_
first got out, not without great difficulty, and
placed in the starboard lifeboat, the port lifeboat
having been stove in. Some of the ladies sustained
severe injuries in the course of their transfer to the
lifeboat from the sinking ship, as did also

some of those who were assisting them, Dr. Gilmour,
R.N. (a passenger, who was going out to join the
Rattlesnake at Sierra Leone), having his arm put
out of joint. A crew of 10 or 12, under the com-
mand of Mr. Johnson, third officer, were placed in
the lifeboat, and the latter at once proceeded to-
wards the Arklow lightship, which was about six
miles to the north of the scene of the wreck. At
this time the sea was breaking over the vessel. The
remaining boats were got out, and as many of the
passengers and crew as they could contain were put
on board. Still, there remained upwards of

thirty on the wreck, which was every moment sink.
ing deeper and deeper. The sea was now break
ing over her so heavily that it was deemed ne
cessary to cut away the foremost so as to ease
her. We may here mention that some of
the ladies when put into the boat had scarcely
any clothing on, and were only protected from the
weather by rugs and other coverings thrown from
the steamer. About five o'clock the Armenian began
to settle down, there being 31 fathoms of water at
the place. Air were now obliged to take to the
rigging. One of the two passengers lost had not
strength enough to climb to the rigging, and was
washed overboard. How or at what time exactly
the other passenger and the two sailors were lost is
not known. The name of one of the lost passen-
gers is Home ; that of the other is not known. He
was a warrant officer going out to join his ship.
The two of the crew who were lost were Smith, the
first steward, and Watts, the third steward. The
water continued to rise gradually after the ship
settled down (it being flood tide), until it reached
within five or six feet of the top of her funnel.
All on the wreck continued to cling to the
rigging till about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, many
of the passengers suffering greatly. Meanwhile the
starboard lifeboat, containing the women and chil-
dren, had made for the lightship, which it reached
early in the forenoon, all getting safe on board.
The crew that had brought her thither, however,
were so exhausted that they felt they would be un-
able to take the lifeboat back to the wreck with a
view to render assistance to those who were still
clinging to it, and four of the crew of the lightship
volunteered to man the boat back to the scene of
the disaster. Coming towards noon, the steamer
Montagu, having observed the signal which had been
erected on board the lightship, bore down on the
latter. Those on board belonging to the Armenian
were taken out and put on board the Montagu. Capt.
Clarke was then informed of the critical state- of
those left on the wreck, and at once proceeded to-
wards the bank. The steamer noticed the two boats
which had last put off from the wreck, and having
taken on board all that were in the two boats took
these in tow and again proceeded for the wreck.
By the time she came near to her it was about 12
o'clock, and the poor fellows were becoming greatly
exhausted. Meanwhile the ship's lifeboat, manned
by the volunteers from the lightship, had also
reached the scene of the disaster. They were near-
ing the wreck, when the boat was caught by a
heavy breaker and at once capsized, the four men
who were in her being thrown into the water. Two
of the men were seen to rise and cling to the cap-
sized boat, but they were immediately washed off
again, and neither they nor their two companions were
ever seen again. The boats belonging to the Arme-
nian, and which were still in tow of the Montagu,
were then detached, and, manned by men
belonging to the wrecked vessel, with the assistance
of some of the crew of the Montagu, proceeded to
endeavour to get off those who were in the rigging.
This was a task of no ordinary difficulty, and only a
few were taken off in this way. They were enabled
to reach the boat by sliding down the running gear,
while others of them had to be hauled in through
the water, a rope being thrown from the Montagu
to the wreck and fastened to the latter, and a life-
buoy attached. The process of conveying each man
from the rigging to the Montagu occupied from 10
to 15 minutes. Those who were on the windward
portion of the rigging had to swing themselves to
leeward before lowering themselves into the boats.
All, however, were safely got off, Captain Leamon
lbeing amongst the last to leave the wreck.

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BREAKFAST BEVERAGE.—Honneapathio practitioners,
and the medical profession generally, recommend cocoa
as being the most healthful of all beverages. When the doc-
trine of homeopathy was first introduced into this country,
there were to be obt fined no preparations of cocoa either at-
tractive to the taste or acceptable to the stomach ; the nut
was either supplied in the crude state, ~.co unskilfully
manufactured as to obtain little notice. .I:Epos, of London,
Homoeopathic Chemist, was induced in the year 1834 to turn
his attention to this subject, and at lent succeeded, with
the asslgtance of elaborate machinery, in being the first
to produce an article pure in its composition, and so refined
by the perfect ti iteration it receives in the process it passes
through, as to be most acceptable to the delicate stomach.
For general use Epps's Cocoa is distinguished as an invigo-
rating, grateful breakfast beverage, possessing a most deli-
cious aroma.. Dr. Hassall, in his work, "Food and its
Adulterations," says —" Cocoa contains a great variety of im-
portant nutritive principles—every ingredient necessary to
the growth and sustenance of the body." Again: "As a
nutritive, cocoa stands very much higher than either coffee
or tea." Directions—Two teaspoonfuls of the powder in a
breakfast cup, filled up with boiling water or milk. Secured
in tin-lined }lb., Ob., and 11b. labelled packets, and sold by
an grocers, confectioners, and cliemiste.--[Anrr.]