The Sun.
London, England, 1853-03-30 00:00:00

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

WHOLESALE DESERTIONS FROM OUR MEN
OF WAR.—THE REASON WHY
As we anticipated, the harsh sentence of the late
court-martial at Devonport on the boatswain's mate
Stapleton, who, although a first-class petty officer, was,
in spite of the naval instructions, which should have
protected him, ignominiously disgraced, after 17 years'
good and faithful service to her Majesty, by the inflic-
tion of three dozen lashes on his bare back—we say that
the carrying into operation that part of the sentence
of Capts. Seymour (who was president, andlwho has just
received the " good-service pension"), Nias, Lowe,
Chambers, and Ramsay, which condemned a first-class
petty officer to be flogged, has had an effect most dam-
aging to the best interests of the Royal navy and the
security of the country. We regret to hear that no less
than One Hundred good Seamen have deserted from the
men of war at the port at which Stapleton was tried
and flogged, and one or two of them from the very ship
to which the 'boatswain's mate belonged. Let the Ad-
miralty, take warning in time. Good men never feel
any sympathy for thieves and habitual drunkards on
board ship ; they look upon the flogging of bad characters
as a protectioi to themselves; but they never forgive the
disgraceful infliction of corporal punishment upon a good
seaman—a man of " very good" character, and whose
crime may be termed an accidental one, They never
forget such incidents as took place on board• a man-of-
war brig some time since, when the best man in the
ship was flogged at midnight, within half an hour after
he had committed the offence of answering his com-
mander somewhat impertinently upon provocation..
They feel that their skin is not safe from excoriation ;
that their families and connections on shore are not se-
cure from the disgrace of knowing that their relatives—
their fathers, husbands, brothers—no matter how good
a character they have acquired by 10 or 20 years faith-
ful servitude, have been stripped, exposed, tied up like
dogs, and flogged like poor Uncle Toni, the black slave.
They are men, have feelings, tempers, &tilts, and follies
like their superior officers, but they are honest and re-
spectable. Yet for one mistake they are doomed like a
Russian serf to the knout. The intelligent British sea-
men of the present day will not submit to it, and all the
verbose twaddle in reports of committees on manning
the navy will not persuade them that they are bound
not only to forego the advantages of higher wages, but
to sacrifice their skins to keep up what martinets call
"the discipline of the service. England cannot afford
to lose one hundred of her best men-of-war's men in a
week at this time ; and depend upon it John Bull will
call the Admiralty to a severe account, if they go on en-
tering 10 men a day and losing 100. At this rate the
Royal fleet will be in about the same predicament as the
American ships at California some time since.—Herald.
A Kum FOR THE ARCTIC SHIPS.—The Secretary of
the Admiralty requests that the following notification
may be inserted :
" Admiralty, March 30, 1853.
" Letters fcr any of the officers, seamen, and marines
serving in any of the ships now in the Arctic seas will
be forwarded by her Majesty's ship Phoenix, if sent to
the Admiralty on or before the 14th April."

We learn by the arrival of the Calcutta that her Ma-
jesty's store-ship Rattlesnake, Commander Trollope, for
Behring's Straits Arctic expedition, had arrived at As-
cension en route, all well.
Most of the ships at the home-ports are to be paid
wages down to the 31st, the end of the financial year.
Excellent, gunnery-ship, Captain Chads, C. 8., has
orders from the Admiralty to enter 100 stout landsmen
as supernumeraries. This ship, with her tender, the