The Sun.
London, England, 1854-11-27 00:00:00

militia force, and the demand for permission to
send certain regiments out of the British Islands,
may form the plausible pretext for convening
Parliament, it does not follow that the business
transacted will be restricted within such
narrow limits. Our representatives are , not
tied down to matters brought forward
under official sanction, or restrained from
taking the initiative whenever occasion may re-
quire. There never was a more urgent call for
the most determined efforts, and we are con-
vinced that " the chosen" of the English will
prove themselves, like the British soldiers, adequate
to any emergency, and ready to perform their
duty under any circumstances, however adverse.

Early in the campaign we pointed out the mili-
tary necessity of destroying Odessa, or, at least,
of rendering it useless, as a base of military ope-
rations, and, while it was contended by others
that Sebastopol was too serious an enterprise, we
showed that, even if it were, Odessa and Nicho-
laieff were neither impregnable nor unessential.

The past, of course, cannot be altered, but we
presume to ask whether it would not be most
desirable even now to demolish everything
Russian between the Sulina mouth of
the Danube and Sebastopol itself ; axd, further

to dredge the mouth of the river and make it 1
practicable at least for our smaller war steamers ?
It has proved, as we always contended, that if
Odessa was not a powerful fortress, it was a most
serviceable base of operations for the army of the
Danube ; it was the grand depot for supplies of
provisions and other necessaries of an army. We
ought to have demanded the destruction of every-
thing military in the town, and the transportation to
Turkeyof all stores of corn and provisions in whose-

soever hands they were found, as being, under the
circumstances, the most important materials of
war. This, or to be laid in ashes, was in truth
but humanity to all who might suffer directly or
indirectly by the too lenient conduct of the war.
The error of our fatal mercy was too soon ap-
parent in the loss of the Tiger ; and is now more
awfully to be seen in the prolonged siege of Se-
bastopol, and the losses of our gallant army in
repulsing the "reinforcements from the Danube."
Had we turned the cowardice of the Russian
navy to its proper account, and while its
ships were skulking behind stone walls
have employed ours in demolishing Odessa
and destroying Nicholaieff, the Danubian
battalions could not have been transported so
promptly to the Crimea, and probably Sebastopol
would have been taken before they could have
arrived at all. We have, therefore, not only the
villany of Austria, but our own half-heartedness,
to thank for our losses. Even our Cabinet must
now be convinced that tenderness to Russia has
been repaid only by the slaughter of our men ;
and the return for sparing Odessa and sending
the Russian wounded, there has been the
bayonetting of our own fallen soldiers. Mercy to
barbarians is ever cruelty to ourselves. They
cannot comprehend it. Let them feel, then, the
full consequences of provoking our strength. Let
us fairly destroy everything belonging to Russia on
the Black Sea which can shelter her troops, or
afford them means of transport from place to place.
We deeply pity the innocent victims of this cruel
necessity ; but let them know that their god,
NICHOLAS, cannot at the same time use them as
instruments of his accursed ambition, and save
them from being involved in its punishment.
We trust, therefore, the statements respecting
the renewed activity of OHEII. PACHA on the Pruth,
and the sending of part of the French reinforce-
ments to his aid against Bessarabia, are founded
lin truth. Of course the first thing is to estab-
blish an unquestionable superiority for the Allies
in the Crimea ; but hardly second to this, even
'now, is the detention of the Russian Danubian
army to the west of Kherson, by operations
against Bessarabia. We have but played at war
all the summer ; we must now make amends
for it, alas ! during winter. We have
vessels which can brave the winter
winds of the Euxine. NICHOLAS will cer-
tainly avail himself of the impunity afforded
by the ice to his Baltic coast to pour down his
forces to his southern shores ; but we can also,
while our commerce is protected from his frigates
by the same ice, send our Baltic steamers to try
their broadsides upon his ports and towns in the
south. The splendid seamanship which brings
home such a feet safe from the shallows of the
Baltic will know how to handle our ships amidst
the winter dangers of the Black Sea. Measures
like these, war on the largest scale, must take the
place of the system of dalliance which lasted till
the expedition against Sebastopol. The whole
question is now vastly enlarged. It is no longer
whether Turkey shall be safe or not. That ques-
tion must be settled in the Crimea, and it will be;
but, though the overthrow of Sebastopol will
utterly destroy the military prestige of Russia in
the south, NICHOLAS will only be the snore infu-
riate. The Baltic must also be denuded of Rus-
sian fortresses and Russian men-of-war next sum-
mer, and by that time there can hardly be a
doubt that Poland will have its turn. The Rus-
sian maritime means of offence against Europe
must be first annihilated, and then every voice
will pTonounce that Poland must be its
own, and be no longer Russia's out-works
against us all. By that time all Europe may
be in the flame of revolution, and it may be-
come the welcome duty of France and England
to bid the nations be free, and, as an act of un-
deserved mercy, to send a batch of Royal and Im-
perial despots to meditate on their folly and
perfidy on the rock of St. Helena.
One word more to our administrators, civil and
military. It was hardly a mere joke when the
after-dinner proposal was made that the two great
contractors for the Crystal Palace should contract
next with Government for the taking of Sebastopol
or Cronstadt. Sir JOSEPH PAXTON gave us at
least, quite seriously, a useful hint at Coventry,
the other day in the same vein. War is more
than ever become dependent on engineering
science ; and our men of routine must not be
above accepting the aid of the men who have
proved themselves equal to any engineering feat.
Some thouiands of our navvies would, as Sir
JefarK suggests, have saved our troops most in-
jurious fatigue in earthworks, and been thus prac-
tically a large addition to our army. Nor can
we doubt that, while the face-to-face and hand-to-
hand attack upon the foe must always be left to
disciplined courage and skill, our civil engineers,
were the responsibility thrown upon them, would
develops unexpected and most wonderful re-
sources. Russia has no such ability. It abounds
in England. Let not official pride overlook our
national advantages. The battering down of
Cronstadt, with little loss to the invaders, would,
with the architect of the Menai Tubular Bridge, be
a matter of definite calculation. He would soon
compute for how many hundred thousand pounds
he could do it ; aye, and very likely could
tghe
et
profitsplenty
of
his
contract. persons
t was
oabkse shares e r
ved t o
us
i,lt the other day that steam now can be got to
any pressure in three minutes ; and that if PER-
KINS' steam-gun could have poured its unceasing