The Sun.
London, England, 1838-11-06 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

Sir,--Every friend of the Navy, and well wisher to his
country, must view with pleasure your exertions to draw
the attention of the public to the increasing maritime force
of other nations, and to the ccmparative decrease of ours.
I read with great interest your article of the 10th of Sep-
tember, in which I quite agree with you, as well as with
what you have stated in yesterday's Times, and it is much
to be regretted that there should have appeared in a French
Government Paper an article that could almost
.be con-
strued into an insult. Should such a confederacy ever take
place against this country as you describe, and take place
it will, sooner or later, I tremble for the consequences ;
and if something is not done, and that speedily, to increase
our naval strength,"England will cease to be the queen of
the Kean, and her very existence as a nation will be endan-
gered.
It is not, however, just, Sir, to throw the whole blame
on Lord Minto ; you ought to go further back. During
the long administration of Lord Melville, the only wi,e
thing his Board ever did was cutting down several bad
74's into rod frigates. Not one step worth mentioning
was taken for the encouragement of seamen to enter the
Navy, or towards a permanent system of manning it with-
out having recourse to impressment.
Sir James Graham at once got rid of the Navy Board
and their system, and began building real good ships, which
Lord Minto has followed up ; but it is not in Ships alone
that our safety depends. It is on officers and men ; and,
unless we increase our force, and adopt a permanent sys-
tem of manning our fleet, we shall neither have one or the
other.

Three•and-twenty years ago I recommended the regis-
tration of seamen in a pamphlet I addressed to Lord Mel-
ville, which was only put in force the other day. It has
already done some good ; but it does not .go far enough,
and the present Admiralty do not seem disposed to carry
it further. In fact, Sir, Boards of Admiralty go by coach,
when all the world are going by railroad.
I quite agree with you, Sir and the Journal des Debats,
that Algiers is a naval question, and will be settled sooner
or later by fleets ; but it was under the Administration of
the Duke of Wellington that Algiers was occupied by the
French, and I trust the present Government will take care
that they do not play the same game with Mexico. The
eastern question began in the Administration of the Duke
of Wellington; he allowed the Missians to cross the
Balkan, and the present Ministers allowed a Russian fleet
to be called in to the assistance of the Sultan. One seems
to me to be as much to blame as the other.

The observations of the Duke of Wellington about the
state of the Navy is most true ; but his Grace ought to
remember that Sir Robert Peel reduced it 1,000 men, and
the present Administration have increased it 5,000.
The aspect of affairs I admit are changed. We are
threatened with war in India ; are not quite at our ease in
Canada ; France blockades Buenos Ayres, and Mexico ;
and Russia is ready to pounce on Turkey.
The season is now too far advanced to have any alarm
from the Russian fleet in the Baltic ; but • I do think, if
Government do not manage to have at least ten sail of the
line ready for sea in England next spring, they do not
deserve to be intrusted with the affairs of the country.
I shall not' cover myself under an anonymous signature ;
it is quite indifferent to me whether what I have written
displeases Whig, Tory, Radical, or economist ; the safet)
and honour of the country ought not to be a party ques-
tion.—l am, Sir, your obedient servant,
CHARLES NAPIER, R.N.
Murchistoun•hall, Hem Dean, Nov. 2.