The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-07 00:00:00

S NY DECEMBER 7, 1847.

GRANT TO THE NAVY FOR
THE RELIEF SERVICE IN IRELAND.
The Lords of the Treasury havin7 had under
consideration the services of her Majesty's' ships and
vessels engaged in the relief service during the recent
operations on the coasts of Ireland and Scotland, have
awarded the sum of 8,600/. to be distributed as gra-
tuities to certain officers, men, and boys employed,
according to the extent of their several .duties, as
compensation for their extra expenses, and for.the
wear and tear of the clothing of the working men
and boys.
The grant is distributed to no less than forty-seven
men-of-war arid other vessels of the navy, carrying
pendants, and to three victualling lighters, the Ant,
Swale, and Arthur, and the sums vary to the working
men from Si. to 1/.
The following ships having seen the most severe
duty, many of them in the partial famine of the pre-
vious year, viz :
The Alban steam- transport, Master- Commanding
Bradshaw; Rhadamanthus steam-transport, Master-
Commanding Aylen ; the Dee steam-transport, Mas-
ter-Commanding Driver ; the Stromboli, steam-sloop,
Captain Fisher; the Pluto steam-vessel, Commander
Lowe; the Blazer steam-vessel, Commander 'Win-
grove; the Lucifer steam-vessel, Lieutenant-Com-
mander Smith; the Comet steam-vessel, Commander
Johnson ; the Dasher steam-vessel, Comman
French; and the Zephyr steam-packet, Lieuten nt-
Commander Ladd, have had awarded to them 50/. to
the commanding officers. To the officers' messes of
all descriptions, a sum equal to 101. each. To the
working petty officers, seamen, stokers, marines,
supernumerary marines, &c., Si. each ; and to the boys
21. Mi., or amounts in proportion, according to the
time served and employed, except the Stromboli and
her crew, from its numbers, will share but 3/. per
man.

To the Gipsy, Mercury, Emerald, Lively, Cocka-
trice, Gossamer, and Swallow, Si. per man, and 201.
and 25/. to the commanding officers.
To the Firefly steam-vessel, Lieutenant-Com-
mander Buchan; Avon steam-vessel, Commander
Smith ; Porcupine steam-vessel, Lieutenant-Com-

mander Turn Our ; and Acheron, steam-vessel,
Lieutecant-Commander Dunlop ; commanding offi-
cers, 251. each ; officers' messes, an average of Si.
each; to the men, 21. 10s. each, and boys, 11.55.
To the following fire frigate depots :—Madagascar,
Master-Commanding Burney ; Andromache, Master-
Co,nmanding Thomas Johnson ; Andromeda, Master-
Commanding R. Thompson ; Belvidera, Master-
Commanding Wellington ; and 2Eolus, Master. Com-
manding Tucker, commanding officers, 25/. each ;
gunners, boatswains, and carpenters, 71. each ; other
officers, 51. ; to the men ss. per month for a period of
eight months ; and to the boys, 3s. per month for the
same time ; to the marines of the Devon lighter 21.
each, and to the Adventure 11.—the former having
been stationed at Skull, and the latter at Kenmare.

The following ships have had awards for the work-
ing men, to be equally distributed, share and share
alike. Boys half share :
'rhe Myrmidon steam-vessel, Lieutenant-Com-
mander Roberts, 50/.; Tartarus steam-vessel, Lieu-
tenant-Commander Cole, 50/. ; Urgent steam-packet,
Lieutenant-Commander Symes, 30/. ; Fearless steam-
vessel, Lieutenant-Commander Glyn, 20/. ; Sinbad
lighter, 101.; Lightning steam-vessel Master-Com-
manding Petley, 221. 10s.; Shearwater, Lieutenant-
Commander Sir Godfrey Webster, 30/. ; Centaur
steam-frigate, Master-Commander Davey, 75/. ;
Dauntless steam-frigate, Master-Commander M'Do-
mild, 50/.; Scourge steam-sloop, Captain Caffin, 100/. ;
Geyser steam-sloop, Commander Brown, 1001.;
Avenger steam-frigate, Commander Potbury, 100/. ;
Bull-dog steam-sloop, Commander Davies, 50/. ;
Terrible, and Dragon, steam-frigates, Captains Ram-
say and Hall, 100/. ; Odin steam-frigate, Captain
%V. J. Williams, 751. ; Birkenhead steam-vessel,
Commander Ingram, 30/. ; Portland, 50, frigate,
Commander Schomberg, 751. ; Tyne frigate, 50/.
The victualling boys Ant, Swale, and Arthur,
employed on the coast of Ireland share in the grant—
The masters, 10/. each; mates, 71. ; men, 5/. ; and
boys, 21. 10s. And the Portsmouth hoymen at the
Royal Clarence-yard have not been forgotten, but
have also been duly compensated.
The master millers, bakers, leading men, &c., of
the Deptford, Clarence, and Royal William victual-
ling yards have had awarded to them for their extra
duties during the relief operations sums of 20/., 15/.,
and 10/. each; and the two bakers' boys that were
injured by the machinery have had liberal gratuities
granted to them.

The clerks in charge of her Majesty's ships, as
compensation for their trouble and responsibility in
the care and custody of the relief supplies, and for
the extra expenses incurred, have been awarded sums
varying from 25/. to 101. each, in addition to their
shares of the grant for their respective ships' com-
panies.
The Treasury have made their awards from the
extent of the services performed. Of the fifty Go-
vernment vessels enumerated, the meal and bread
stuffs carried and distributed by each varied from
3,200 tons to 50, and from 80 trips of distribution to
one. The work, risk, and labour, fell upon the small
and not largely-powered steam-vessels, with crews
from 30 to 70, and consequently the larger gratuities
have been granted to them, while her Alajesty's more
powerful and gigantic steam• frigates, such as the
Terrible, Dragon, Odin, &c., with competent crews,
made but a trip or two direct from England to Ire-
land ; but the task of relief fell upon the Blazer, Comet,
Lucifer, Dasher, Zephyr, and the small sailing craft,
to put to sea in all weathers for the distressed and suf-
fering parts of Cork, Kerry, Galway, &c. And it is
truly remarkable that during the 18 months' famine,
and the presence of 40 men-of-war on the coasts, not
an accident or mishap occurred, while to the foreign
and coasting trade the shipwrecks were many and
disastrous. This speaks volumes for the efficiency of
her Majesty's naval service, as the estimation in which
the coast of Ireland was held during the war must be
in the recollection of some of our gallant officers, now
admirals. Liberally have the Lords of the Admiralty
marked their sense of the service performed by the
promotion of two commanders, four lieutenants, two
clerks, and we hope it is in contemplation to promote
some medical officers and second masters, and not

fiirgetting, at the same time, the " working petty
officers."

To Captain Layton, late in command on the coast
of Scotland, the sum of 10s. per day (the allowance
to a commodore of the second class) has been granted.

PUBLIC PETITIONS.—The second report of the
Select Committee of the House of Commons on petitions
has jest been published. It appears that up to the 30th
ult., twenty-two against the removal of Jewish dis-
abilities, with 932 signatures ; while four, with sixty -
tit ee signatures, were presented in favour of such remo
val. Against coercive measures (Ireland), five were
presented with 229 signatures, and 13 with 10,836 sig-
natures, with a similar prayer, but also requesting that
measures of amelioration should be enacted for Ireland.
Of these petitions, one was presented by Mr. F. O'Con-
nor, from Wigan, with 4,924 signatures; one from
Bradford (Yorkshire), with 3,032 signatures, presented
by Col. Thompson; and also one from Heaton, York-
shire, with 1,005 signatures. One of these petitions,
from the " United Ladies Boot and Shoe Makers of
London," with 97 signatures, also prayed for a repeal of
the legislative union between Great Britain and Ireland.
Some petitions were presented for inquiry into the case
of the Raja' of Sattara, with 4,156 signatures. One
petition from Bristol for the abolition of the punishment
of death had 3,200 signatures.
PROtOSED CHANGE IN SUTHERLAND.—We lately
announced the intention of his Grace the Duke of
Sutherland to break up the large farms on his estate as
soon as the present leases shall expire. We have since
learned that the propriety of such a change was fully
acknowledged by the late Duchess Countess of Suther-
land, and would have been acted upon when the existing
leases were renewed, but for the consideration that her
Grace was in reality unable to meet the great cost of
the proposed measure. The leases so renewed were the
first that were given subsequent to the original or first
letting after the introduction of sheep farming on an ex-
tensive scale. The farms were then laid out, not on the
best system, but on the best that could be adopted under
existing circumstances. The present size of some of
the farms was the result of necessity, not of choice. On
occasion of the next letting, however, all such anemo-
nes can be removed, and the patriotic wishes of Ban
Mhorar Chat—the illustrious lady of Sutherland—and
the intentions of the present benevolent representative
of the noble family be fully carried into effect.—lnverness
Courier.

DISTURBANCE AT AN AUCTION AT WISBEACII.—
An auction of the stock of a company of travelling
drapers, on Monday evening, was interrupted by a num-
ber of young men, drapers and others, who, considering
these auctions, which are now very frequent, an infringe-
ment upon the fair trade of the established houses in the
town, assembled with the avowed intention of putting a
stop to it, which they succeeded in doing. A tumult
and pell-mell fight ensued, the worse consequence being
a broken leg ; this occurred to a mast-r draper, living on
the North Brink, Mr. Durrant.—lpswich Express.
RAPID PASSAGE.—On Friday last the Courier,
the last new vessel of the South-Western Steam Navi-
gation Company, made the quickest passage on record
from the Channel Islands to Southampton. The vessel
started from Jersey at ten minutes past eight o'clock A.M.,
proceeded to Guernsey, where the detention occupied
half an hour, and then pursued her voyage, and reached
Southampton at half-past five o'clock P.M. The pas-
sengers were conveyed to London by the train which
leaves Southampton at six o'clock.

[PRIG

,
,

AUTOBIOGRAPHY of a POACHER.
The following narrative is given in the chaplain's
report of the Preston House of Correction for the
present year. . It was written at the dictation of the
poaoher himself :
" When I first began poaching I lived with my
father, and we had a dog that was much given to
catching game; and sometimes when I was out he
killed me a hare. One time a man saw him kill one ;
this man kept a beer-shop. He said he would pay
me well if I would let him have it. I was to go to
his house at night ; he gave me a glass of rum and
Is. 6(1., and he wanted me to bring him another hare.
I stopped drinking till I had spent the money. He
told me that I should get some snares, and he brought
me some to look at and showed me how to set them.
I caught a hare that night, and took it to him ;
rand I had it all in drink but 6d., and that I bought
t some wire with to make snares ; and then I got
going to this house constantly, anti taking hares
there, and drinking ale and spirits of all kinds ;
and I think that beer-shop was the ruin of me; for
there I met with some young men that were follow-
ing the same game, and we got to shooting pheasants.
That night we shot 25 pheasants, and we sold them
to a gentleman, and he was a —, and we got 6s. a
,souple*eth (before the sale of game was le-
,galiedf:- 'as caught taking up snares, and got
14,-
sent for e months to the Preston House of Correc-
tion. e gentleman that sent me to prison wanted
my father to turn me out of the house when I carne
home again ; and because he would not, the gentleman
went to the landlord, and the landlord doubled the
rent that year, and gave him notice to leave ; he,
however, got it for another year, but 'he died
before the year was up. Our goods werc
sold off, and we were obliged to leave
home and get work where we could. I got
a job at a farm, and sent his keeper to the far-
mer, and told him that he was to turn me away; so
he paid me my money, and told me he must not em-
! ploy me. I had not been poaching then for more
than twelve months, for I thought about giving it
up, till this gentleman sent word to all the farmers
not to employ me; and then I was so angry that I
thought I would have some of his game if he would
not let me get my living by working. I bought a
dog and a gun, and got a lot of snares and nets, and
I followed poaching all that winter. All the gen-
tlemen were against me, and would not let their
tenants employ me, and I did not care what became
of me. I got to drinking, and got along with more
poachers in other parts of the country. Once we
went to --, in Yorkshire, and we stopped two
days and two nights, and had nothing to eat; we
slept in a barn in the day time, end at night we
went out poaching. We got as much game as we
could carry away, and we brought it into Lancashire,
to a man that we had sold game to before. He paid
us for it, and then we went to a public-house, and
stayed there till we had spent all the money. The
other man fetched his clothes from home and pawned
them, and we spent that; then we pawned one of our
guns, and then we asked for trust ; but he pushed us
out of the house, and said, ' You drunken black
guards, get off home—what do you want here with-
out money ?' I went part of the way home, and lay
down on the road and slept till morning, and was
almost starved to death. The next night I bor-
rowed 10s., and the other man fetched his cloak
out of the house ; and we got our gun again. We
went out that night and got eight pheasants. We
got 20s. for them from the same man ; and then we
went to the same public-house, and we were wel-
come when he saw we had money ; and when it was
all gone, he said we might go to bed for a few hours;
and we got up at three o'clock in the morning,
and we shot fourteen pheasants by six o'clock, and
we sold them for 1/. 155., and we went to the public-
house again, and stopped there till we spent it ; and
my wife came after me, and the landlord put me into
a back place, and told her I was not there. We
drank all that week till all my money was gone;
and, as I was sitting by the fire, the landlord said,
' What dost thou do here without any money ? Be
off home to thy wife ! thou bast had no ale since
dinner time.' Then I thought, this is the way that
poachers' money goes. So I thought I would leave
it off, and try to get some work. So I went to a
farmer that had some draining to let, and he said
he must not let me have it, unless I got a note in
writing from the steward, for he had orders not to
employ me. I went to the steward, :mil he told
me to go to the squire ; and he sail I should have no
work on his ground, and he bade me ha gone. I was
very badly off, and I began poaching again, and in
about a month I was caught, and I went. away, and
was away from my wife and faindy three years.
Then I came home, and got work at sonic water-
works, and was home nearly two years, and did not
go poaching at all ; but the squire accused me all the
time, and 1 was as innocent as a child ; and he would
not allow any of his farmers to give roe work, and I
agl
liov‘evne
dittuhlei
farmers to give me work. I carried on poach-
Ibneagna3t: paoatcilllni ne,g
ld
poach-
ing all that season. 'When the game was out
ialgathine. gentlemenll7l(7
of season the man would not buy any more
dead game, but said he hod a large order come
in for live hares, and he would take as many
as we could get alive. And this -- deployed
the man at the game shop to get men to go into otht r
people's preserves. We were in a preserve one Inorn-
ing catching live pheasants, and one man said, `There
is a deal more pheasants this morning than ever there
was ;' and I looked back, and said, ' There is a deal
more keepers.' Three of us got away, and one gut
taken, and sent to Wakefield House of Correction
for six months. That season we caught about 200
live hares, besides live pheasants and partridges, and
lots of pheasants' eggs; and there was another
we caught a deal of live game for,
and we took them to him ourselves, and he
paid us for them, and made us as drunk as pigs ;
and at the time we were getting some hares for
some gentleman near —, that kept a lot of grey-
hounds. They came to my house for the hares once
a week, and we kept them in a room till they came for
them. We caught them about 60 ; and I think that
pnowancey hingdi,dfomretmheoyre galwoaoydsthpaanidany that I
me
athomeev.er
Igot for
have
caught hundreds of live hares and pheasants, and sold
them to —; and now they have turned their backs
upon me, and cast me into prison. But for the time
to come I mean to give it up, and not go poaching any
more, for I think the three months will do me a deal
of good."

REVIEW OF THE BRITISH CORN

TRADE.

The step taken by the Bank directors on Thurs-
day in reducing the minimum rate of interest from
7 to 6 per cent. has not as yet tended to render dis-
count of the usual run of mercantile bills much more
easy, and affairs still wear rather a gloomy appear-
ance. The rates which continue to be demanded for
money are far too high to admit of parties availing
themselves of the accommodation for general business
purposes, and this is more particularly the case as
regards the corn trade. There has consequently been
no improvement in the demand for Wheat ; indeed
buyers have, if anything, displayed increased caution
in their operations, and the amount of business done
since our last has been unimportant. Owing,
however, to the very scanty manner in which far-
mers have brought forward supplies, and to the pre-
vailing belief that no further arrivals of consequence can
take place from abroad, more firmness has been ma-
nifested by holders than might, under existing cir-
cumstances, have been expected. The growers have
shown a decided unwillingness to part with their
produce at present prices, which is probably in a
great measure owing to the fact that they hold little
or no Wheat of previous years' growth, and that
they do not wish to hurry their new wheat to market
before its condition shall have been improved by an
interval of frost; at all events, the deliveries have not
increased, and so little has been brought forward at
several of the principal markets in the agricultural
districts, held during the week, that needy buyers
have bad to pay an advance of ls. to 2s. per qr.
Whilst this has been the case in those districts depend-
ing entirely on the farmers for supplies, the tendency
of prices has been rather downwards at the ports
,where
there are stocks of foreign. At Liverpool, on r ties-
da 3r, the trade was decidedly dull ; and tolerably
good supplies of new Irish wheat and flour having
come to hand, the former article was quoted 3d. to
4d. per 701b5., and the latter 2s. per sack, lower than
on that day se'nnight. Fine wheat, whether of
home or foreign growth, was not cheaper ; and for
the best American flour 30s. per barrel ha-1 con-
tinued to be asked. Later in the week the unwil-
lingness to buy rather increased, and on Friday even
the best sorts of wheat were 2d. per 701bs. lower •
whilst oats, oatmeal, Indian corn, and Indian • con
g
meal, were all cheaper than on the preceding market
et
day. At the leading towns in Yorkshire the supplies
of wheat have scarcely kept pace
with the demand,
AtHull,
restricted as has been the latter. on Tues-
day, the finest qualities were quoted ls. to 2s. per qr.
higher than on that day week
and though no ad-
vance could be established at Leeds, previous prices
were very firmly maintained. The reports from
Wakefield of Friday describe the trade as quiet, with
the turn in favour of the buyer. By our advises
from Scotland we learn that fully as much grain had
appeared at the leading markets as had been required,
and that the value of most articles had receded. At