The Sun.
London, England, 1854-12-21 00:00:00

THE THETIS FRIGATE.

In the frigate Thetis the Christmas-bob slipped
by the English Ministry into the coy, but unctuous
hand, of the jovial Majesty of Prussia ? The cus-
tom of " boxing" may not be-without its advan-
tages, but, like other good customs,
it should not
be pushed to a ridiculous excess. Why give away
a frigate from the English navy in a mere fit of
official prodigality, when a revenue cutter, and,
say, a couple of lighters, would have sufficed ? We
have never yet heard of any one who has passed
Batik post-bill for 1001. into' the hdrnfhand of a.
railway porter for simply carrying _ garpet-bag
along the Arrival-platform from a train to a Hansom
cab. Why should he ? The'man is well content
with his illegiOnate sixpence, and there is an end
of the transaction, There must be some uncom-
mon inducement, of which we have yet,no hint,
which has led Sir Janes Graham to oclepart so vio-
lently from the usual laws of barter, and so ludi-
crously to outstrip the most liberal givers of hia
time. There was an Indian Prince one rainy day
last week, who scattered a cari:iage-full of caps
and hats among the astonished population of
a French town ; but then an English frigate, fully
armed, is surely worth the stock of many hatters.
What can it mean ? Is it that the King of Prussia
has resolved not to join the alliance without a sub-
stantial trink-geld or tip ? And is the unfortunate
Theti,, the douccur necessary as the price of his
participation in the policy of the Western Powers t
Does the English Admiralty, on the other hand,
imagine that the Prussian Monarchy is on the
eve of one of Prussia's great mistakes, and that
the graceful Thetis must in a few weeks inevi-
tably revert to her original owners? That
would be some excuse, but then it would have
been just as easy to take the two gunboats
which we are to receive as a cousideration for our
poor frigate as to recapture her. Conjecture must
necessarily be fruitless upou such a subject. It is
a State mystery. Our present rulers are prone to
mystery, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hun-
dred is simply a veil thrown over a worthless pic-
ture, as many groaning shelves of blue.books are
there to testify. For the time we can only know
what Sir James Graham is pleased to tell us, Which
is, that he and his colleagues have delivered over a
magnificent frigate, fully armed, into the hands of
a Power which in six weeks may be involved irk
hostilities with England as a point of honour.
Really this is too bad. It is our earnest wish non
" to pick holes," as the common phrase runs, in the
coats of men who are directing the action of Eng-
land at a most critical period of her history with-
out strong reason, but the cession of a British ship-
of-war into the hands of a neutral, almost of a hos-
tile Power, at such a moment cannot be slurred
over or concealed from public observation. The
little that we know is most unsatisfactory, and.
evidently betrays a consciousness of much previous
and painful blundering even on the part of the man
who was stating his own case. Thus, however, it
was that Sir 'Tames Graham endeavoured to purge
himself and his colleagues from the blame of wan-
ton waste of the public property
In the month of June last, as Siri,James in

formed the house, the King of Prussia inquired
of the English Government whether they would
be willing to give a couple of old corvettes in ex-
change for two gun-boats which had been built in
this country for Prussia by Mr. Scott Russell. We
can understand that at the time England might
with sound policy have given her gold for Prussia's
brass ' • a few gun-boats for Baltic service might in
June last have been cheap at any price. The gun-
boats were duly inspected, and the Prussian Go-
vernment were informed in due course that the
English Admiralty had no objection to effect the
exchange. As the season for Baltic operations
dwindled away to nothing the English negotiators
evidently cooled upon a bargain to which the
keener-witted Prussians were resolved to hold
them fast. At length in the month of Sep-
tember, a compromise was effected, upon what
terms Sir James Graham himself must explain :
" The Prussian Government acceded to a proposal
which we made, that, instead of two corvettes,
an old frigate should be taken for the vessels in
question. . . . . The Prussian Government
intimated that they thought the honour of the
British Government was pledged to the exchange,
and it was not thought desirable to involve
the question in a difficulty of that kind."
Had not, then, the honour of the British
Government been involved, or deemed so to
be, the bargain would not have been con-
cluded. Sir James Graham, in fact, had made a
bad bargain, but was held to his word. Let us,
however, leave this consideration for a moment out
of the question, and simply ask what is the real
character of the ship which Sir James Graham so
contemptuously characterises as "an old frigate,"
and which we have been giving away in exchange
for the two gun-boats Nix and Salamander 7 "The
Thetis, 36, was launched on the 21st of AuguA,
1846, at Devonport. She was designed by Messrs.
Chatfield, Read, and Creuze, of the Naval School
of Architecture, and is of 1,524 tons burden."
This young frigate is spoken of by naval connois-
seurs in terms of great admiration, and has ap-
peared to give great satisfaction in the Channel,
and the Pacific, and wherever she has been em-
ployed.__ The suggestion is, that Sir James Graham

has
h really madoa blunder, and has mistaken a
younger for au older ship, and the English nation
must pay the penalty. The case is one which calls
for very earnest inquiry, although such inquiry
may be without practical result. A Prussian cap-
tain has arrived in Plymouth to take the poor
Thetis home to her new masters. Englishmen feel
about their ships as Arabs feel about their horses.
It is impossible to part with one of them without a
pang, even when the bargain is, commercially
speaking, a good one, and how much worse in a
case like the present ? Let us add that all Down-
ing-street is ready enough to snort with official sa-
tisfaction when the correspondent of a public
journal is caught tripping, oven upon an unimpor-
tant point ; perhaps some one of the heroes of
bureaucracy will be good enough to point out a
blunder made by a public journalist equal to that
of the First Lord of the Admiralty in his betrayal
of the Thetis to a foreign Power.--Tines.