The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-17 00:00:00

CORN EXCHANGE.

The show of samples of English wheat here to-day was
very small. For both red and white qualities, however, the
trade was in a sluggish state, at fully Monday's decline in
the quotations.

Wtth foreign wheat the market was well supplied, and
all descriptions moved off heavily at the late reduction in
their value.

Floating cargoes of grain were a dull inquiry, and prices
were with difficulty supported.

Malting barley sold steadily at late currencies, but grind-
ing and distilling sorts were in slow request, on former
terms.

The malt trade was inactive, yet no change took place in
prices.

For all kinds of oats there was a fair demand, and the
quotations were supported.

The inquiry for both beans and peas was very moderate,
at previous rates.

All descriptions of flour met a heavy sale at Monday's
fall in the quotations.

ARRIVALS THIS WEEK.
Wheat. Barley. Malt Oats. Flour.
Eng1i5h........ 510 i 1,120 i 780 7O 1 890 sacks.
Irish — 70 2,330 1 -
1
F0reign........ 32,790 • 14,680 , 19,150 I eks.
51,020 brie.

THE S UMTER.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,—Permit me, through the medium of your
columns, to say a word to the civilized world, in
defence of my ship, against the scurrilous and
cowardly attack made upon her by Mr. Gideon
Welles, who is just now the Secretary of the Navy
of the Northern fragment of what was formerly
known as the United States of America. That
gentleman (for by courtesy I must call him such,
from the high official position which he occupies),
used the following language in his recent report to
the President and Congress of what remains of the
old Confederacy
" It was natural that apprehensions should pre-
vail in regard to armed cruisers commissioned ex-
pressly by the rebel leaders to depredate upon our
commerce. This robbery of merchants and others
engaged in peaceful and lawful pursuits by
piratical cruisers is not inconsistent with the
general conduct of those who have violated law and
moral obligations to gratify inordinate ambition. Our
extended commerce presented inducements for
piratical warfare, yet but few of our misguided
countrymen have prostituted themselves to the pur-
poses of plunder, though thereto invited, and these
few have been in constant flight to escape the
avenging power of our vigilant naval forces. Such
of these cruisers as eluded the blockade and cap-
ture were soon wrecked, beached, or sunk, with the
exception of one, the Sumter, which by some fata-
lity was permitted to pass the Brooklyn, then
blockading one of the passes of the Mississippi,
and, after a brief and feeble chase by the latter,
was allowed to proceed on her piratical voyage. An
investigation of this whole occurrence was ordered
by the department. Soon the Niagara and the
Powhattan, from the Gulf squadron, followed in
vigorous pursuit, the latter, though long in com-
mission, and with defective boilers and machinery,
under her energetic commander, tracking her pira-
tical craft as far as Maranham. The Keystone
State, Richmond, Iroquois, and San Jacinto were
also in search of her at different points and periods,
Although a piratical rover, without license from
any recognised or acknowledged Government, and
avowedly engaged in the robbery and plunder of
our citizens, I regret to say this vessel has been re-
ceived and her wants supplied, against the remon-
strance of our consuls, by public authorities in many
foreign ports where her character was well known."
The closing paragraph of the above elegant ex-
tract from an American State paper would seem to
show that, although it was penned ostensibly
against myself, it was, in fact, levelled at those
European Powers which had acknowledged the
Confederate States to be a lawful belligerent in the
war which had been forced upon them. On no
other supposition could it charge me with "rob-
bery" on the high seas, and with being a " piratical
rover." A pirate is hostis humanigeneri s , and may
be seized and summarily dealt with by any and all
the nations of the earth ; but the fact is these
officers of the defunct Federal Union are so
blinded by their venom against the South that
they have no longer the power to distinguish
between terms. Mr. Welles, also, in imitation of the
dirty and mendacious press of the Yankee States,
calls me a privateer. He knows better than this.
He knows that a privateer is a vessel that bears a
letter of marque, and that I am cruising under no
such letter. He knows that I have been regularly
commissioned as a ship of war of the Confederate
States. If he and his deluded associates insist upon
calling the citizens of the Confederate States rebels,
under the idea that those States still form a part of
the old Yankee concern, then he might charac-
terise me as a rebel man-of--war. But if I am
this, so were all the ships of the American colonies
commissioned by the Virginian George Washing-
ton. Mr. Welles tells the President and Congress

that, by "some fatality," I ran the blockade of New
Orleans, and that he has ordered the whole affair

to be investigated. With the blind rage of a
baffled madman (quem Deus vull perdere, &c.), he
will, no doubt, endeavour to crush the harmless
and inoffensive commander of the Brooklyn, who,
poor man, no doubt, did his best. He says, also,
that he has had six of his largest and fastest
steamers in pursuit of me, and that the commander
of one of them was so energetic as to perform the
wonderful feat of tracking me as far as Maranham,
in Brazil. This, I suppose, is one of those daring
acts the officer being in command of a heavy frigate
—which called forth the panegyric of the Yankee
Navy which we find in a subsequent part of Mr.
Welles's report, for after praising his clerks this,
officer goes on to remark—" To the patriotic offi-

cers of the navy, and the brave men who, in various
scenes of naval action, have served under them, the
Department and tho Government justly owe an ac-
knowledgment even more earnest and emphatic,"
than that which they owe to his clerks ! Oh ! for

a James to pourtray these "scenes of naval action,"

confined to a predatory warfare on the Potomac

river, directed chiefly against women and children ;
to the capture of a sandbag battery at Hatteras; to
the masterly movement of the great Dupont, the
"greatest naval commander of the ago" in Yankee
hyperbole, who not only knows how to use gun-
powder, but, with Yankee thrift, to turn an

honest penny by selling it to the Government ;
and to the pursuit of the piratical Sumter,
away ever so far, even to the shores of Brazil,

by the gallant Porter, who probably for this feat—
so little material has Mr. Welles for heroes—will
be made a "flag officer." I feel honoured to have
been thus pursued by six frigates, and if one of

them caught Messrs. Mason and Slidell instead o:

catching me, why, that is John Bull's affair, and
not mine. But lam fleeing from those ships, says
Mr. Welles. Soft, Mr. Welles ! He would have

me, I suppose, fall into the Yankee trap he has set
for me, and rush to the encounter of his six frigates,
the least of which is twice my size, and of more

than twice my weight of metal. He dare not send

a ship of equal force to meet me, And if he did dare

do so, being safely ensconced himself in his arm

chair, I venture to say that the officer would ner

dare to find me. But I have to inform Mr. Welles

that by "Rome fatality" I have run another block•

ade. I have recently-steamed out of the port of St.
Pierre, in the Island of Martinique, in the face of
one of the fastest and finest of his Yankee ships,
the Iroquois, and which is more than twice my
force. Poor Captain Palmer ! I fear that he, too,
will be immolated on the altar of the " Universal

Yankee Nation," because he did not catch the Sum-
ter, though from all we can learn he had fits on the

occasion. This honourable captain is indeed a fit
representative of the honour of Yankee-doodledom,
for he violated the sovereignty of France and his

own solemn pledge at the same time, given to the
commanding French naval officer present, by cans

ing blue lights (brought all the way, no doubt,
from New London, Connecticut) to be burnt on

board a Yankee schooner in the harbour, to signal
to him my departure. But I only allude to this en

passant, as France is abundantly able to take care

of her own honour,—

" If the universal Yankee nation

" Can whip all creation Ill"
When Mr. Welles learns, too, that on my way hither
I burnt three more Yankee ships, and liberated a
fourth, only because she had an English cargo 014
board, he will probably send six more of his
doughty war ships after me—that is to say,
if he can spare them from burning corn-cribs and
h t to
frightening women and children along our South-
ern coast. He will take especial care, too, to put
i for
gfl
ant naval
plenty of men and guns o,hnsof u
board
uc
oofr constantthvei
gin
other-
wise I might not be in ,
escape the avenging power
forces." A word or two more and I shall have done.
What can wise Mr. Welles mean when he objects
to the "robbery of merchants and others engaged
in peaceful commerce and lawful pursuits " Does
he not know that all property, with rare exceptions,
' captured on the high seas, is property belonging to
"merchants and others engaged in peaceful com-
merce and lawful pursuits ? " Why this senseless
diatribe, then, about robbery, and piracy, and pri-
vate property, and peaceful commerce, and lawful
pursuits ? If Mr. Welles would give me an oppor-
tunity of capturing some of his public property I
would be much obliged to him. But he takes very
goad care not to do this by sending his heaviest
ships after me ; and have the Yankee naval officers
in those " Scenes of naval action " in which they

have distinguished themselves refrained from the
capture of private property ? I saw recently in a
Yankee paper an account of a wood sloop—that is
a sloop loaded with firewood—having been " most
gallantly " captured and burnt, the other day, on
the Potomac, and a number of other small craft,
belonging to the poor people along the coast, have
been captured from time to time, and sent to Yan-
keedorn for adjudication. Even fishermen have been
subjected to the same fate—a class exempted by all
civilised nations. But I suppose it is only when
the vessel is a fine ship of 1,000 tons, belongs to a
Yankee, and is captured by the Sumter, that the
property becomes private ! Astute Mr. Welles !
The fact is, that this Northern horde of the Alaai,
which is bearing down upon the sunny fields of the
South, in imitation of their ancient prototypes, has
(while Mr. Welles is singing his hypocritical song)
set all the lades of civilized warfare at dcflarz.'e,
and captures private property on the land as well
as on the sea. The gallant Dupont laid Lis
unscrupulous hands upon all the cotton he
could find at Beaufort—a few bales only, as
it happened—and, first and last, many brilliant
achievements in the way of stealing negroes and
robbing and burning private residences have
been accomplished by these Northmen amid the
" various scenes of naval action" in which they have
flourished. But I grow tired of the subject, and I
fear I have already trespassed too much upon your
space and patience. lam reminded, too, of the old
adage, that " He who meddles with pitch shall be
defiled," and so I will take leave of Mr. Gideon
Welles and his scurrilous report.
R. SEMMES, Commander Confederate States
Navy.
Confederate States steamer Sumter, Cadiz, Jan. 9.

ALLEGED FORGERY OF RAILWAY
TICKET'S.

' At a special bench held at Farnham yesterday,
before Mr. F. R. Thresher and Captain Nicholson,
Thomas Hunter, a respectable looking person, de-
scribed as an artist, residing at Guildford, was
brought up on a warrant, charged with having on
Dec. 23, 1861, and Jan. 8 inst., forged certain in-
struments called " railway tickets," by means of
which he had defrauded the London and South
Western Railway Company, by travelling on their
line without having previously paid his fare. Mr.
Dickie, barrister, prosecuted ; the prisoner was un-
defended. The learned counsel, in opening the case,
said that during the last three months deficiencies
had been observed at the head office of the com-
pany, and that on inquiry it had been found that
they had originated with the Guildford station.
Suspicion in consequence had fallen upon the ser-
vants employed at that station, who for some time
had rested under that most unpleasant imputation.
After constant and unremitting watching, however,
it was believed that they had detected in the prisoner
the person who had manufactured the forged tickets
by which the discrepancies in the accounts had arisen.
1 he learned gentleman then called a number of wit-
nesses, including Arr. Joseph Walter Dyson, the sta-
don-master at Guildford, Mr. W. Hanson, the ticket
printer to the company, and a host of ticket-clerks,
porters, and railway policemen. The theory of the
prosecution was that the prisoner—whose avocation
as an artist and drawing master required his
constant attendance at places within a few
miles of Guildford--having purchased a ticket
on one day, managed to avoid giving it up
by loitering about the premises until after all
the tickets were collected, and that he then altered
and used the same ticket for another journey. Two
cases were gone into at great length, but one briefly
recited, will serve to explain the nature of the
charge. On the Bth of the present month, the pri-
soner, being then suspected and watched- was proved
to have travelled between Guildford and Farnham,
and to have given up at the latter station a ticket,
apparently correctly dated, and numbered 5,999. It
was proved that before leaving Guildford on that
day be had taken no ticket whatever ; but that on
the 6th inst., two days before, he had taken and
paid for a ticket from Guildford to Farnham. That
ticket was numbered 5,989, and was never given up
at Farnham, although the prisoner had travelled by
the train. No ticket numbered 5,999 had been issued
on the Bth of January from Guildford, and the
charge was that the prisoner, having ascertained
the progressive manner in which the tickets were
numbered, had availed himself of his skill as an
artist, and by altering the 6 in the date to an 8 and.
the 8 in the number 5,989 to a 9, had accomplished
the forgery in question. In somecases of tickets pro-
duced even a whose word had been changed, such
as Liss into Liphook, and so neatly was the altera-
tion effected that the most experienced eye could
scarcely detect it under a powerful magnifier, and
the fraud would probably never have been discovered
but for the discrepancies in the accoun s. The pri-
soner, who denied the charge and cross-examined
the witnesses, with the view of showing that the
ticket-clerks might have made errors and issued
tickets with incorrect dates, was fully:committed
for trial at the next assizes.

FATAL ENCOUNTER WITH SALMON
POACHERS.

A desperate and fatal encounter with salmon poachers
took place at Brocklewath, on the river Eden, about eight
miles from Carlisle, on Wednesday morning. Edward
Atkinson and Robert Bowman, watchers for the Carlisle
Angling Association, had reason to suppose that the river
would be poached on Tuesday night, at a noted salmon-
spawning ground, at Brocklewath. They took with them
an assistant, named Irving, and a policeman named Cow-
men. About half-past six on Wednesday morning, a man
was seen standing in the river, about four or five yards
from the bank. He seemed to be making a sweep with a
net. Atkinson and Bowman went quietly along the bank
till they came opposite the poacher, who whistled and
called out that the net was " hankered." Thereupon,
Atkinson endeavoured to take him into custody and seize
his implements. The man turned out to be a no•orious
poacher, named Robert Robinson, a blacksmith, at Cum-
' Whitton. Robinson resisted, and Bowman followed into
the river. While they were engaged in putting the
" twitch"—a looped string and piece of wood, answering
the purpose of a pair of handcuffs—on Robinson, two
more poachers, who had been concealed among willows
on the bank of the river, came behind the watchers and
attacked them. One of the poachers lifted a heavy stick
with both hands, and coming down upon Atkinson with
all his might, felled him ; and Bowman was also knocked
down senseless either by the same murderous implement or
by the other man. The cold water appears to have
revived Bowman again, and he crawled out of the river
on his hands and knees ; but Atkinson's wounds were of
a more serious nature. He was found in a greatly dis-
figured state, on the bank about seven o'clock, but how
he came there is not known. He must either, like Bow-
man, have been revived by the water into Which he fell,
hanimd tohuet. n crawled out;
was he
otrenlsetatkheenptoo theache ho
poachers had
atried
Brocklewath, where he died in the middle of the day. It
appears that Irving and the policeman had followed
behind Atkinson and Bowman to the side of the river,
and were standing there while the two watchers were ap-
prehending Robinson. While they were there the two
other poachers rose from their ambush. Police-constable
Cowman seized hold of one of them, but while he was at-
tempting to make him a prisoner the other poacher came
to the rescue of his companion, and felled the policeman,
with a bludgeon. Irving appears to have gone off. Ro-
binson has been taken into custody, with his son, William
Robinson. Cowman being in a precarious state, his depo-
sition was taken. He identified the elder Robinson as the
man who had been fishing in the river ; and young Robin-
son was identified by Cowman as one of the two men
who had knocked him down. The police are on the track
of the third man.

LAND AND SEA FORCES OF THE
GREAT POWERS.

The following, according to the Almanach de Gotha, wag
the state of the disposable land and sea forces of the great
Powers of Europe in 1861 :
" FRANCE—Army on war footing, 767,770 men, 130,000
horses ; peace footing, 414,868 men, 72,850 horses. Navy,
600 vessels afloat, building and under transformation, car-
rying together 13,353 guns. Out of that number there are
373 steamers, of which 56 are iron-cased. The crews of the
fleet, who, on a peace footing, amount to 38,375 men, may,
in case of war, be increased to 60,000. The seamen forming
part of the maritime inscription are 170,000 in number.
The effective strength of the marines is 22,400 men in peace
and 26,879 in war. Custom-house officers or coastguard,
25,501 men.

" GREAT BRITAIN-Army, 212,773 men, 21,904 horses.
Navy, 893 vessels carrying 16,411 guns. The crews number
78,200 men, of whom 18,000 are marines and 8,550 coast •
guard men.

" RUSSIA.—Army, 577,859 men, regular troops; and 13
regiments of cavalry, 31 battalions, and 31 batteries of irre-
gulars. Navy, 313 vessels, of which 242 are steamers,
carrying together 3,851 guns. The Russian Government
has also 474 vessels acting as guardships at different places
and for transports.

" AIISTRIL-Army, 587,695 men. Navy, 58 steamers
and 79 sailing vessels, carrying together 895 guns.
" PRUSSIA.-Army, peace footing, 212,649 men; war
footing, 622,366 men. Navy, 34 vessels, of which 26 are
steamers. _ _

" ITALY.—Official effective strength of the army on the
10th June, 1861, 327,290 men, divided into 68 regiments of
infantry, 26 battalions of bersaglieri, 17 regiments of
Ncaavvyal7l,o96 ovfeassretillsleryear,
r2su2.ofgezogoi3neers, and 3 waggon-train.
guns, and 18,000 men."