The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-24 00:00:00

Ehentornt

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1849.

Nothing could more conspicuously illustrate the
folly of those financial innovators who, beginning at
the wrong end in their reforms, would diminish our
military and maritime power, than the discrepancy
existing between the French and English squadrons is
the Mediterranean. While the British line-of-battle
ships in that sea number merely seven, the French
have fourteen, exactly double. To one English
frigate the French have four. None of our corvettes
or surveying vessels have penetrated beyond the
Straits of Gibraltar; white our neighbours have, on
the contrary, an efficient representative of each class.
Both forces comprise, it is true, a couple of receiving
ships or transports ; but whereas the English have
two the French have three sloops. The difference in
the steam power placed at the disposal of France and
of England in the Mediterranean at this time is still
snore remarkable, as showing the superiority of
the former over ourselves, both in tonnage
and numerically. Undoubtedly our solitary screw
frigate may be taken as a sufficient tally to
theirs ; and the same may be said of the
screw schooners of which each possesses an excellent
repress ntative. Unquestionably, moreover, we may
claim the advantage, both in regard to screw cor-
vettes and to paddle steam gun vessels, the French
having neither the ore nor the other, whereas we
have one of the former and seven of the latter. Yet
that petty superiority is infinitely more than counter-
balanced by the circumstance that to our two-paddle
steam frigates the French have twelve, that to our
three-paddle steam sloops the French have six, and
that to our three-paddle steam packets the French,
have no less than the large total cf twenty five
Altogether the British maritime force now in the
Mediteri aneen is estimated at just 13 sailing ships
and 18 steamers, or a sum total of 31 vessels of all
classes; while the French maritime forces in the Medi-
terranesn consist of more than double that amount,
namely, of 24 sailing ships and 45 steamers, or a sum
total- of 69 vessels of all classes. Assuredly,
this simple, but striking, calculation is
eminently deserving of attention. It is
more than enough to indicate the correctness of
those arguments which have received the sanction of,
such a sea-captain as Admiral Sir CHARLES NAPIER
and of such a land-captain as Field-Marshal the
Duke of Wamsnsseroes. Remembering that they have
written so energetically against the rash reduction of
our two warlike professions ; remembering that one
has insisted upon themaintenance of the army,
Proper
and that the other has required a more efficient °r ga.
niaation of the navy, we have no fear lest, in endea-
vouring- to illustrate the necessity of that twofold
forethought, we may be accused of aspiring to the
notoriety of Alarmists. Such, indeed, we should
imagine, could never be considered of ourselves,
seeing that long before the appearance of the cele-
brated communication of his Grace the Commander-
in-Chief, and before the Conqueror of St. Jean
d'Acre had commenced his recent series of epistles, we
had enlarged again and again upon the absolute and
urgent demand existing for the due support of
both services, as well as the rashness, not to say the
insanity, of any wholesale diminution in the number
whether of our sailors or of our soldiers.
Precisely at this period we are overshadowed, we
will not say threatened, but overshadowed with the
chance of a war between Russia and Turkey, a v
which would inevitably eventuate in the siding of