The Sun.
London, England, 1853-04-06 00:00:00

THE BURMESE WAR.

We are now in possession of more full and au-
thentic particulars of the late untoward occurrence
near Donabew, on the Irrawaddy, than could be
transmitted by the telegraph which communicated
the news of this disaster, and, although our previous
knowledge of the operations in which the British
forces in Burmah had been recently engaged enabled
us to conjecture with great accuracy what must
have taken place, the details of the event will still
be read with melancholy interest. It seems that a
portion of the Burmese force, commanded by a
chief named Moung-mya-toon, had possessed itself
of a strong position at Donabew and in the neigh-
bouring jungles, from which it was judged necessary
by the Deputy-Commissioner in Pegue to dislodge
it. In consequence of this determination the Com-
mandant of the garrison of Rangoon resolved to
detach a force, consisting of 300 men of the 67th
Bengal Light Infantry, on this service, and
Commodore Lambert ordered Captain Loch to
join the expedition, having under his command
185 seamen, 62 marines, and 25 officers from her
Majesty's ships Winchester, Fox, and Sphynx ; but
of these 42 seamen and 5 officers were left in charge
of the boats. This combined force was conveyed
from Rangoon to Donabew on the 2d of February
in the Phlegetlion and the ships' boats. They
landed at that place without opposition, and,
having procured some natives as guides, and to
assist in drawing two 3-pound field guns belonging
to the Phlethegon, on the following day they pro-
ceeded to march towards the position which the
enemy was supposed to occupy. It may here be
remarked that it was known at Rangoon before the
expedition started that the Burmese chief had under
his command 4,000 well-armed men, stockaded in
a strong position, with heavy guns and jinghals.
Nevertheless, the force detached against him was
considered amply sufficient by the senior officer on
the station, and perhaps the facility with which the
Burmese had on many former occasions been driven
from their guns had given rise to an excessive de-
gree of confidence.

The column marched all day on the 3d of Feb-
ruary along a pathway which lay through a deep
jungle of forest trees and brushwood. They en-
camped for the night in a deserted village about 15
miles from Donabew. The camp was well guarded,
but it was occasionally disturbed by the distant
shots and horns of the enemy. Early on the fol-
lowing morning the detachment moved on about
five miles further along the same path, until it ab-
ruptly terminated on the side of a broad nullal, or
creek; the opposite bank of which was high enough
to command the approach, and the whole well en-
trenched and armed after the manner of the native
fortifications of Burmah. The road at this point
had been narrowed by an abattis of sharp-pointed
bamboos, which rendered it impossible to deploy the
whole strength of the column ; indeed, the advanced
guard, consisting of seamen and marines, appears
to have been advancing with difficulty two or three
abreast, and the field guns were in the rear. At
this moment a heavy and murderous fire was opened
by the enemy upon the British troops, the Burmese
being wholly concealed behind breastworks, and our
men wholly exposed. Almost every man who ap-
proached the edge of that fatal creek was mowed
down. Lieutenant Kennedy, first lieutenant of the
Fox, and Captain Price, of the 67th Bengal In-
fantry, were among the first victims, and were killed
on the spot. Captain Loch led on his gallant fol-
lowers with the utmost daring, anti for 10 minutes
he still seemed, to use the expression of one of his
companions, " to bear a charmed life," for he stood
unhurt in the midst of that terrible fire. Twice he
made an unsuccessful attempt to lead his men
across the nullah to storm the post hand to hand,
but as he rallied the seamen and marines for a
third attack, a ball, fired by a man in a tree,
struck him on the left side, on his watch, and with
such force that it drove the watch itself into
hi

is body. He instantly felt that he was mortally
wounded, but had still strength and self-posses-
sion to fall back about 15 paces to the rear. The
command of the naval force, which had hitherto
sustained the brunt of the action, devolved by the
death and wounds of the senior officers on Com-
mander Lambert, the son of the commanding officer
on the station. Tho attack was again twice re-
newed, but in vain. Captain Lambert received
four balls through his clothes, though he fortunately
escaped unhurt ; but a large proportion of officers
and men were already wounded. It therefore
became indispensable to provide for the retreat of
the column by the road by which it had advanced the fire of the enemy being still severe, and the jun-
gle impervious in every other direction. The native
Dhooly bearers and guides had, for the most pa
decamped, not without suspicion of treachery,
arnd it became absolutely necessary to employ every man
who could be spared in carrying the wounded.
The dead were unavoidably left upon the field,
and, as it was impossible under these distress-
ing circumstances to carry off the guns, they
were spiked and the carriages destroyed. The
enemy kept up a distant fire,-
_but. never ventured
to approach within fighting distance of the rear,
which was manfully covered by the Grenadier
company of the 67th. For 12 dreary hours this
dejected band, who displayed in adversity the same
courage, discipline, and good-will they had so often
exhibited in success, advanced ;towards Donabew.
Two of the mates, themselves painfully wounded,
succeeded in keeping up the spirit of the men
during this long march, under a burning sun, with-
out water, and heavily burdened with the wounded,
Whom they had to carry for nearly 24 miles. Cap-
tain Loch was removed to the Phlegethon, where
he expired on the morning of the 6th of February,
about 40 hours after he had received his wound,
and he was buried, near the great Pagoda at Rim.

LLOYDS' SHIPPINO-(THIS DAY.)

LONDON, April 6.—Wind this day at Noon, W., light
breeze, and mild weather.
DEAL, April s.—Wind, W., fine. Arrived—Amaranth,
New York ; Devoishire, Mauritius ; Fanny Mitcheson,
Demerara ; James M`Queen, do. Sailed—William, Syd-
ney, N.S.W. Put back—Clontarf, Sydney, N.S.W. ;
Antilles, Melbourne.
LIVERPOOL, April s.—Wind, W. Arrived—Simoom,
Singapore ; Jamaica, New Orleans ; Marchioness of Clydes-
dale, Charleston ; Hope, Bombay ; Petrel, Africa ; Eliza
Boli, Port-au-Prince ; Plencia, Matanzas ; Helena, Mara-
caebo ; General Taylor, New Orleans ; Agamemnon, Mo-
bile ; Montezuma, New York: Sailed—Pridsey Dawson,
Bombay ; Sir Colin Campbell, Coquimbo ; Pilot Fish, Rio
Janeiro ; Fidget, Nassau ; Imperial, St. John's, N.B. ;
Gipsey Queen, Haifax ; Favourite, Quebec ; John Frances,
do. Off Port—Triton, Lady Franklin, Timely Yacht,
Excelsior, Gynasure. A. derelict vessel of about 500 tons,
with painted ports, and a female figure head, was passed
on the 23d of March, in lat. 47, long. 40. (See Southamp-
ton paragraph, about March 27.)
FALMOUTH, April s.—Wind, W., moderate. Sailed—
Bertha Koehn, Rio Grando.
PLYMOUTH, April s.—Wind, S.W. Arrived—lda,
Buenos Ayres.
OFF WEYMOUTH.—Sir RobertTeel, New York.
SobteßnsborßoouugGhHeinAapridlesre.—licTthe. Hope (sloop) of Colchester,
has
QUEENSTOWN, April 4.—Arrived—Olivia, Callao.
BEAUMARIS, April s.—Wind, S.W. Sailed—Avon,
Quebec.
BELFAST, April 4.—Wind, S. Arrived—Blizabeth St.
John's, N.B.
SHlELDS.—Arrived—Meg of Maldon, Iquique. Sailed—
caWstlien,d for W ;eNp.airsW. , Arrived—Ata-
Secret, Hong Kong ; John George, Bombay.
HARWICH,Londonfo
Aprilr
having been in
collision with the Laura Ann (schooner).
CLYDE.—SaLIOd—CUIdOe, Batavia and Singapore.
DUMFRIES.—SaiIed--John Wilson, Quebec.
D UNDEE.—Sailed—Earl Powis, Quebec.

MARKET NEWS-(THIS DAY.)

CORN EXCHANGE.

The supply of English wheat here to-day was very
limited, but in fair average condition. Although the
attendance of buyers was small, the demand for most kinds
ruled tolerably firm, at Monday's prices. For forward
delivery very little was doing.
From abroad upwards of 11,000 quarters of wheat have
. reached us. Selected samples were held at full currencies,
but all eller qualities wore dull in the extreme. In
floating cargoes very few transactions were reported.
Malting barley was in short supply, and fair inquiry, at
full quotations. Grinding and distilling sorts, including
malt, commanded very little attention.

We were fairly supplied with oats, for which the inquiry
ruled steady, at full prices.
Beans, peas, and flour moved off slowly, at late rates.
ARRIVALS THIS WEER.
Wheat. Barley. ( Malt.
740 370 ( 820

English ..
Irish ....
Foreign ..

Oats Flour.
1,3':0 560
7,040
2,960 10.x90 ak
2,990 brim

11:470 I 440

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

DEATH OF ADMIRAL SIR THOMAS LIVING-

STONE, BART.

Admiral of the White Sir Thomas Livingstone, Bart.,
died at his seat Westquarter, North Britain, on Satur-
day. The venerable and gallant officer succeeded his
father as tenth baronet, in 1795, and was heir and re-
presentative of the attainted Earl of Linlithgow. He
entered the navy in 1782, and served. afloat 25 years.
in the iNfonarch, 74, he witnessed the unsuccessful at-
tack 'On Martinique, in January, 1793. He commanded
Athdnienne, 64, in Sir J. B. Warren's pursuit to the
coast of Egypt of the French fleet, and when in com-
mand of the Renommde, frigate, captured the Vigilante,
Spanish brig, of 18 guns, under the fire of Fort Calla-
retes, in April, 1806. Ie was not afloat from 1808 to
1821, when he was appointed to the command of the
Genoa, 74, at Lisbon. Sir Thomas was a deputy lieu-
tenant for the county of Linlithgow and of the Castle of
Blackness. He married in 1809, Janet, daughter of
Sir James Stirling, Bart., who died in 1831. By the
decease of Sir Thomas Livingstone the following promo-
tions and removals take place :
To be Admiral of the Blue—Vice Admiral the Right
Hon. Lord Wm. Fitzroy, K.C.B. vice the Earl of Dun-
donald, G.C.8., to be admiral of the white,.
To be Vice Admiral of the Blue—Rear Admiral Henry
Hope, C. 8., vice the Right Hon. Lord Radstock, C. 8.,
to be vice of the white, vice Sir John Louis, Bart., to be
vice of the red.

To be Rear Admiral of the Blue—Captain George
Frederick Rich (July 1, 1823), vice Rear Admiral D.
Price, to the white, vice Rear Admiral Sotheby, to the
red.

A captain's good service pension is relinquished by the
promotion of Rear Admiral Rich ; and the appointment
of, Captain Superintendent of the Royal Hospital and
victualling establishments at Plymouth becomes vacant.
Sir John Hindmarsh (1831), becomes one of the senior
captains, and Captain W. Warren (1841) comes on the
12s. 6d. half-pay list.
The successor to Rear Admiral Rich, by a new-order
in Council, will not be allowed to count•his time served
at the hospital and victualling yard• for his active flag
rank.

PORTSMOUTH, APRIL 5.
The Duke of Wellington, 131, Captain H. B. Martin;
C. 8., got up steam again to-day in the basin in order to
give her engines another trial, and kept them working
the whole of the day. The result was -very satisfactory
in every respect.
The Agamemnon, 91, Captain Sir Thomas Maitland,
C. 8., rehoisted her ensign again this morning, and re-
ceived such of her crew as were passed as convalescent
out of Haslar Hospital. Fifty more of her crew were
sent to hospital from the Camperdown hulk this after-
noon.
The Persian, 12, Commander T. Mitchell, sailed from
Spithead last night for Sheerness to be paid off.
The Sprightly steam-vessel, Mr. George Allen, Acting
Master RN., commanding, embarked a party of Go-
vernment officials this morning, and proceeded with
them to inspect the fortifications commanding Stokes'
Bay and the Needles passage.
The Fire Queen steam despatch yacht, Master Com-
manding J. Paul, has been refitted and re-embellished,
and will quit the dock on Thursday, when the Conflict,
8, screw-sloop, will take the vacated space to complete
her refit.

PLYMOUTH, APRIL 4.
A court-martial assembled on board the Impregnable
this morning, composed of Commodore Seymour (pre-
sident), Captains Mitchell, Lord E. Russell, Nias,
Dacres, Lowe, Hutton, Freemantle, Goldsmith, Cham-
bers, Glasse, ,and Buckle, to try a seaman of the Hogue,
60, screw guard-ship, Captain Ramsey, named Jewell,
for deserting the ship. The seaman, who is quite a
youth, having been lately rated, pleaded guilty, stating
that his only wish was for a sea-going ship, and as a
proof he had joined the London for that purpose ; his
former character being very good, the court sentenced
him to three months in the county gaol. Court-
martinis are very prevalent. There will be another
here on Wednesday next.

CHATHAM, APRIL 4.
Commander Warren took up hia commission for the
Star, 8-gun brig, this afternoon, and immediately
hoisted the pendant.

The undeimentioned shipwrights, &c., bave been su-
perannuated :—James Bennett, leading man, 341. per
annum ; Thomas Foster, John Ethell, and George
Hammond, shipwrights, 241. each per annum ; Samuel
Hodges, labourer, 151. per annum.

WOOLWICH, APRIL 5.
PROMOTION.
Mate—William C. F. Wilson (1852), serving in the
Winchester, 50, flag-ship of Rear Admiral Sir Fleetwood
R. R. Pellew, C. 8., on the East Indies station, is pro-
moted to the rank of lieutenant.

The Fearless, steam-vessel, in charge of Captain Bul-
lock, recently employed in her on the surveying service,
is to be delivered over to the authorities at Sheerness.
The services of Captain Bullock, and the other officers of
that rank engaged in surveying duties on the home sta-
tions have been dispensed with, which will effect a sav-
ing of 1,400/. per annum. It is expected that the highest
rank of naval officers employed on the surveying service
on the home stations in future will be commanders, as
there are numbers of that rank in every way qualified
for surveying the coasts and rivers of th,s country.
It is not intended to appoint a successor to the late
Captain Edward Johnson, of the compass department, as
that duty will be performed by any of the masters sta-
tioned at Woolwich, who will be allowed a certain sum
for each vessel whose compasses has to be adjusted at,
Greenhithe. This arrangement will save an annual sa-
lary of 3001., and a house rent equivalent to 1001. per
annum, that sum being allowed to Dr. Burns, the medi-
cal officer of the convicts at the Royal Arsenal and
Dockyard, Woolwich, he having applied for permission
to occupy the house allowed to the late Captain Johnson,
instead of the 1001. he now receives to pay the rent of
the house he now occupies in Woolwich.

FLOGGING AND DESERTIONS IN THE NAVY.

Mr. Williams, the member for Lambeth, gave notice
on Monday night in the House of Commons of his in-
tention to put some questions to the First Lord of the
Admiralty relative to the flogging of Stapleton, the
boatswain's mate of the Vulture, and the desertions of
men from the Royal navy, said to be in consequence of
this disgraceful and barbarous punishment inflicted on
the boatswain's mate.
As the strictures on the severe sentence on the boat-
swain'ii mate, and the statements as to the desertions,
which have attracted so much attention, originated in
the Morning Herald, we deem it necessary to make a
few remarks on the subject, previously to any explana-
tion which may be offered by the First Lord of the
Admiralty. - . _

We trust that Sir James Graham will meet the ques-
tions of the hon. member for Lambeth candidly and
fairly, without any equivocation, evasion, or mental re-
servation. The right hon. baronet may attempt—we
hope he will not do so—to defend the sentence of the
infliction of corporal punishment on a petty officer, who
had served a great many years with credit and distinc-
tion, on the ground that his.offence was one most sub-
versive of discipline on the part of an officer to whom
was confided the great responsibility of maintaining
order, and of punishing disorder, and that it was impe-
rative on the Admiralty to punish corporally the boats-
wain's mate for the sake of example. But we trust Sir
James will be reminded of the fact, that the man was not
habitually a drunkard, but that having committed one
offence by becoming intoxicated, and the officer of the
watch having been made acquainted with that circum-
stance, as he must have been when he ordered him in
charge of the sentry for contempt, the officer of the watch
was answerable for the subsequentgrave offence of striking
the sentry, inasmuch as he neglected to comply with the na-
val instructions, and did not immediately place the drunken
man in irons ; had he done so, there is no doubt that
there would have been no court-martial, a good man's
skin would have been saved the torture of the lash, and
the whole body of petty officers of the eavy—the best
and finest men in the whole world—would not have
been disgusted and shamed by the disgrace inflicted upon
one of their class. Again, Sir James must be reminded
that it Vi oul d surely have been punishment enough to,
have degraded the man by disrating him, and by de-
priving him of his claims for a pension, for the commis-
sion of an offence so grave as that with which he was'
charged ; and the Admiralty must be impressed with the
fact that the public look upon flogging a free-born, intel-
ligent Englishman in a different light altogether from
that in which it is viewed by their naval lordships. The
British public regard the infliction of a certain number.
of lashes with a cat-o'nine-tails on tho•exposed naked
back of a British subject—a fellow-citizen—perhaps a
voter for a member of Parliament, or the father, son, or
brother of a voter, as one of the most beastly, most dis-
gusting, most disgraceful punishments, for which no
after compensation in any shape can atone. The free-
man who has been flogged like a dog is i degraded.
pitiable outcast of society, and in the estimation of men
of right feeling, ruin, starvation, nay, death, is preferable
to the debasing exposure of a man's naked skin, to be
cut through and stripped off his back by whip-cord.
But we believe that there are noble, high-minded, inde-
pendent men in the House of Commons, possessed of
sufficient moral courage and humanity to tell the Admi-
ralty that British sailors—honest, free, open-hearted,
hard-working Englishmen, who have borne a " very
good" character for 17 years—shall not -be treated worse
than American sailors—shall not be reduced to the level
of the poor black slaves of Cuba, Brazils, and America,
and flogged within an inch of their lives—shall dare the
British Admiralty, indeed, to inflict any such punish-
ment in future on an honest Englishman. So much for
the flogging.
Now for the desertions. Sir James Graham may, and
perhaps will, point to the Police Gazette, and show, that
insteal of 100 seamen having deserted last week from
our men of war, the flue and Cry contains official de-
scriptions of only some len or twelve; but the facts, if
they are worth procuring, may be got at by Sir James
Graham informing the House of Commons how many
men were reported as " absent without leave "at Devon-
port, on Tuesday last, the 29th of March, 1853.
It is only fair to state that our Devonport correspon-
Ain t,, dating from that part yesterday, says—" A great
ninny a those reported absent have returned ; but still
the repeated desertions of petty officers, since Stapleton,
the boatswain's mate, was flogged, have been unprece-
dented ; and now there is not a ship in Plymouth Sound
that has her full complement of petty officers and Sea-
men." And, moreover, as a proof of the feeling of the
petty officers against the service on account of Staple-
ton's punishment, we may state that no less than 40
men have not returned to the best and most comfortable
ship in the navy, the Prince Regent, although

term of leave has expired some weeks since, and the
ship is now in Plymouth Sound still short of hands.
It is useless to disguise the facts ; the men are running
from the service in all directions, else why keep an
armed steamer and armed boat's crew at Gravesend to
board the merchant ships in order to search for and to
apprehend_ deserters ? And run away they will, at all
risks, and refuse all offers to enter her Majesty's ships,
where they are liable, after good-conduct service for 17
years, to be flogged like Stapleton, the boatswain's
mate.—Morning Herald.