The Sun.
London, England, 1840-04-14 00:00:00

the Royal Marines, that they were denied certain
advantages of pay and promotion granted to corre-
sponding ranks in other branches of the military
service. Consistently with this origin, the inqui-
res of the Commissioners were mainly guided by
the complaints of the different classes of officers ;
and we admire the tender and scrupulous care with
which the Commissioners called officers before
them, inquired into their grievances, and into what
what they suggested as remedies. Some of these
suggestions were adopted, and some, for reasons as-
signed, discarded ; but, in all cases, though the
grievance be that promotion is not as rapid in one
service as another, or that the pay, according to the
rank, is one shilling a day less, the officers have
been listened to by the Commissioners with great
patience. That exemplifies the advantage of
being able to make yourself heard, for the officers
did but complain, and they were attended to ; the
seamen were obliged to revolt, and their revolt en-
dangered the public safety before the Admiralty or
Parliament thought their grievances of the least con-
sequence. There can be no doubt that the seamen
have at present far more serious grievances to com-
plain of than the officers, grievances that touch, not
a little factitious rank or a few pence a day more or
less, but the very life and soul of liberty and happi-
ness. But because the sailors are not electors, and
have no Parliamentary influence, their grievances
will be unnoticed and unredressed. By-and-bye,
v$ hen they again speak by a mutiny, as at the Nore,
or by some still more disastrous act of resistance,
they will be attended to, hut it is a disgrace to all
statesmanship that they must so speak before
justice be done them. We understand that the
seamen on board some of her MAJESTY'S ships
have not yet forgotten that language ' • and when an
Admiral or a Captain wishes to impose something on
them of which they disapprove, they can still give
the authorities to understand that they are not al-
ways to be trifled with.

Merchant seamen, also, have sent petitions to
Parliament, but they have found an unwilling
auditory, and their advocates have been coldly re;
ceivcd. We published, a few weeks ago„ a very
characteristic letter from the " Well-known Sailor
SWIFT," which accurately described, we believe,
many of the hardships to which the seamen are
subject ; but, for want of Parliamentary influence,
there will be no Commission to inquire into their
grievances. Individuals from the different men-
of-war, from the different sea-ports, from the dif-
ferent classes of seamen, from those engaged in the
home and those engaged in the foreign trade,
will not be invited to London to in-
quire from them what it is which makes the
naval service so distasteful to the seamen. Yet we
will boldly assert, that the public welfare much
more requires that the grievances of the seamen
should be inquired into, than those of the officers.
Whatever may be the disadvantage of the latter,
they have always been more numerous than was
required, while the former have always been ob-
tained with difficulty, and very generally they have
been exposed to the most revolting violence. The
present inquiry, however important, goes not into
'this question, but it presents us with some curious
Atatistics of the officers.

Without seamen we can have no fleet—with sea-
then' we have all the materials for officers ; the Le-
gislature has thought only of providing the latter,
and...allowed the former to be provided by chance.
The result is curious. There are about 10 or
12 Admirals employed, there are no less than
159 on the list, the youngest of whom is above
50 years of age. There are not less than 10 above
80 years of age, and 48 above 70 years of age.
There are only 50 who are less than 65 years of
age, and of the whole, considering that several have

not seen any service, that several more are, from bo-
dily infirmities, unfit to serve, we can safely assert
that long as is the list of Admirals, it presents a
woful deficiency of men who unite mature judgment
with sufficient vigour to entitle them to be placed in
the command of a fleet with the confidence of the
country. Our list of Admirals—we say it with all
respect for numerous worn-out veterans—is better
calculated, as the Earl of CHATHAM said of the
list of Generals, to make the country tremble than the
enemy. Notwithstanding the great number, the
difficulty, we believe, of finding an appropriate suc-
cessor to Admiral STOPFORD in the Mediterranean,
has for some time compelled the Admiralty unwil-
lingly to continue him, now a very old man, in that
important command.
Of the Captains, there are only 81 less than 43
years of age. There are 104 upwards of 43 and
less than 49. In all, of whom the ages are given,
there are 670, of whom no less than 135 are
upwards of 60 years of age. Now, applying to
the Captains the same observations as we applied
to Admirals, that many of them are actually worn
out, that many have seen very little service, and
many no service at all since the peace, we cannot
avoid concluding that, long as is the list, the navy
has at this moment comparatively few efficient Cap-
tains. Many of those at present commanding our
line of battle ships, have arrived at an age when
they cannot be expected to display the energy of
vigorous manhood. To what else, however, can the
safety of the nation be, with propriety, intrusted ?
The numbers and the ages of the Commanders
and the Lieutenants present similar results. The
average age of the former is 49 years, and of the
latter, 43. The Commissioners, therefore, properly
observe, " that the ages of naval officers are gene-
rally far advanced, in many cases exceeding the
possibility of expecting good and eficient service
from them, and there seemed to be an admission on
the part of all the naval witnesses, that a very
large potion of each class was altogether incffi-
cient for service."

We must copy some further curious statements.
The officers on full pay, are—Captains 1 in 11,
Commanders less than 1 in 10, Lieutenants 1 in 6.
By far the greater number of the two inferior classes
can have little expectation of ever being called on
for duty on the limited scale of the service in time
of peace. Not above a fourth, we believe, would
be employed in war. In June, 1838, the number
was, of

Captains
Commanders BO7 of whom never served as 313
Lieutenants
530

" About one-half of the officers of the navy,"
says the Report, " have never served afloat for more
than fifteen years, and nearly 2,000 have not
served afloat for more than twenty years."
For them to go again to sea would be to
begin a new life and new habits, at a period when
the elasticity and pliability of youth have long
passed away. " A very large number," indeed,
the Report properly observes, " may regard their
position as one of retirement on half-pay for the )
remainder of their lives."

With a *most extravagant expenditure on officers,
then, the result is, according to these statements,
that a very large portion, indeed, of our officers are
altogether unfit for service. The Commissioners
look on " extensive promotions, should war break
out, for which ample materials will be found in
numerous able and accomplished officers of every
rank in the fleet," to place the service in a state
of efficiency. We cannot, from the data supplied
by them, jump to that conclusion ; and we venture
to state that, as in past times, the navy never re-
lied exclusively on those educated in it to complete
its officers at the commencement of a war, so in
future the force employed during peace—particu •
lady if the peace be of considerable duration—will
never rear a sufficient number of officers to supply
the wants of a war. We are well aware of the pre-
judicem amongst naval officers of looking to the
war
rrciannetailkes mcuatri;ne to complete their ranks when
be the nurseryas übfuts,caams thatcu wseervikcneoiws expected to
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to enter the service by a prospect of reaching the
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the mercantile marine for a proportion of officers
as well as seamen at the commencement of a war,
and that th., peace establishment of officers should
be kept down in order to offer a large temptation
to good men to enter the navy whenever a war r:
qures their services.

In another part of The Sun will be found a state-
ment of certain proceedings relative to a Church-
rate in the parish of Bethnal-green. As the cir-
cumstances of the case are fully detailed in the letter
of our Correspondent, we shall only direct the at-
tention of the Church-rate payer to the successful
issue of
the case. We have no doubt that much