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LONDON:
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1841.

The gallant Sir C. NAPIER is as untiring as he
is brave. Scarcely elected for Marylebone, he
made a sensible speech in Parliament; Sir R.
PEEL is scarcely in office, and the vigilant officer
addresses a letter to him (published by RIDGWAY)
on the subject of the navy. After pointing out
with great force many of the evil effects of the
present plan of making the navy at engine to
promote party purposes, which has gone far to
degrade that service into a means of
_pensioning
the younger sons of the ari3tecracy, the Gallant
Officer gives the following sketch of the plan
which he proposes for govzs.rning the navy. Our
quotati,in is perhaps long, but we cannot in jus-
tice to Sir CHARLES NAPIER abate one word-of it.
" I am of opinion that the navy should be ruled by a
naval officer, not a Cabinet Minister, with the title of
Admiral of Great Britain (that of Lord High Admiral
being perhaps too high for any person under royalty).
The whole of the patronage and responsibility should be
vested in him. He should be assisted by two flag offi-
cers, with the title of Vice and Rear-Achniral of Great
Britain (doing away the two sinecures of that name), a
flag officer or a captain with the title of Captain of the
Fleet, a civilian, and two secretaries, one a naval officer,
and the other a civilian.

" The Vice-Admiral should superintend the dock-yard
departments ; the Rear-Admiral the victualling and me-
dical branch ; and the, civilian the Accountant-Gene-
ral's department. All correspondence with either of
these departments should go direct to them, and they
should give their orders to the Surveyor, Store-keeper
General, Physician of the Fleet, and Comptroller of
Victualling.
" The Admiral of Oreat Britain would, of course, con-
sult with them when he thought it necessary, and give
what directions he thought proper. But his attention
would be particularly directed to the stationing of ships,
the prc motion and appointment of officers, in which he
would be assisted by the Captain of the Fleet and his
naval secretary.
66 The civil secretary should attend to the political
part of the business, which should only be known to the
Admiral and himself ; whereas, at present, there are
many transactions that ought to be secret, with which
the whole Board are acquair ted, and, in addition to
them, perhaps, one-half of the clerks of the Admiralty.
The inspections at the different ports should be
made by the Admiral, the Vice or Rear-Admiral ; they
should hoist their flags, and examine minutely into their
departments, and most particularly into the discipline of
the ships, which r.ever canabe propertacly
koe ddne
to by a Board
in plain clothes, with ecretary their tail,
running hastily through the departments in the manner
they have hitherto clone.
" I remember perfectly well the impulse that was given
to the service when the late king was Lord High Ad-
miral. He might, perhaps, have done too much, and
might not have been prudent in his communications with
the Government ; but no apprehension could be enter-
tained of any difficulties between the Ministry and an
Admiral who could be removed at pleasure, but who
ought most certainly not to be removed with every
change of Ministry. At present, not only the first Lord,
but all the Board, are political partisans ; and just as
they begin to know their business, they are replaced by
a fresh set, who have their lessons to learn, and inva-
riably entertain different notions from their predecessors.
Hence arise the constant changes that take place, ruinous
to the discipline and; the well-being of the service, and
expensive to the country.
" It may be thought great presumption in so humble
an irdividual as myself; making suggestions to a Prime
Minister .about to form his Administration ; but I do it
from a conviction that, if things are allowed to continuo
in their preseat state, a great catastrophe will befal this

country.
" You, Sir, are placed in a position supported by a very
large majority ; you may almost do what you please,
and I venture to say, if you adopt the suggestions I have
proposed, you will give satisfaction to llle country, and
to the Navy. They are a poworttul body, almost all on
the Conservative side, and their Opinions ought not to be
disregarded. I know, Sir,‘ :a. Minister may hesitate to
adopt my views, fearing to lose tha patronage of the
navy ; he may also have difficulties with his political
friends, who aspire to the place of the first Lord of the Ad-
miralty ; but, Sir, Mr. Canning broke through all these
difficulties, and I see no reason why Sir Robert Peel
should not follow his example.
There is no difficulty, sir, in choosing the man ;*
the whole service could lay their finger on him ; he is
one of your own politics, and no one will find fault if you
choose them all from the same school. It would cer-
tainly be better if it was not so , but I am not unreason-

• We believe the Gallant Commodore pc4nts to Sir G. Cock-
burn.

able enough to expect, on the first experiment, that you
should trust that power to men of a different political
creed from yourself."
We are reluctant to offer any opinion on a
question which we perhaps are not compeient to
judge of, but what we have of late seen of the
management of the Army in the case of the
Earl of CARDIGAN, compels us to say that the
most gross partiality, the most flagrant injustice,
the saddest perversion of an arm of national de-
fence to the gratification of titled arrogance and
malevolence, can be practised as well by a dis-
tinguished officer solely responsible for the ful-
filment of the duties of Commander-in-Chief,
as by a Cabinet Minister, with a Board to shelter
him. We do not say that the same would take
place under an Admiral, but we have shrewd
suspicions that a man bred up as Admirals gene-
. rally are in the exercise of ♦ery arbitrary pow-
ers, might make a most capricious governor of
the navy. Though a Cabinet Minister might
pervert appointments to political purposes, and
fail to reward merit, we are inclined to think that
thelpresence of a civilian at the head of the Navy
has a beneficial effect in tempering the some-
what arbitrary dispositions which are created by
the kingship conferred on every Captain.
We are not very well acquainted with the
history of the Navy, but we have an impression
that the rule of Lord ANsoN, Lord HAWKE, and
Lord St. VINCENT was neither very successful
nor very agreeable to naval officers. Lord BAR-
HAM was successful—we know not indeed that he
was originally a naval man— but it he were he
had been so long in the civil service that he
had acquired the habits of a civilian. We re-
peat, however, that we do not profess ourselves
competent to form an opinion on the Gallant
Officer's suggestion, and we have no doubt that
the whole navy will thank him for making it,
and provoking a diatcussion into the condition of
the service. We shall, in conclusion, quote an
opinion unfavourable to the present condition of
the Navy, which, we are taught to believe by

the Gallant Officer's own achievements is rather

the result of the recollections of his youth, when
every thing was painted more rose-coloured than
-what actually exists. We know for certain that
a complaint like that made by the ;Commodore
is at least as old as the time of SMOLLETT and
B.ODERICK RANDOM.

" In gun exercise we have improved, and so have
other nations, but in everything else we have gone

back ; and our ships, froin being ill-manned and ill-
found, are very little superior to the French. Our su-
perior officers are all old, theirs are all young. And
Parliamentary influence has not the same weight either
in France or America as it has with us. No man who
knows anything about his profession can view our pre-
smt position with indifference ; and when we see a
French fleet of twenty sail of the line sailing about the

Mediterranean, and Russian fleets in the Baltic and Black
Seas, M'Leod in prison for obeying the order of his Go-
vernment, and the Boundary Question still unsettled, no

man can tell how long we may be allowed to remain at
peace, and no naval officer who served during the last
war, and has served in the peace, can look forward to a
struggle with perfect confidence. Lord Collingwond
(and he ;as no bad authority) complained in his letters
of line-of-battle !ships not having more than two or
three officers who knew their duty. If that was the
case in war, how much worse must it be in peace. The

generality of the young men of the present Clay who ob-
tain promotion through powerful interest, consider them-
selves quite perfect, and the old officers are broken-
heurted and disappointed, and almost without the hope of
promotion."

One of the stock arguments hitherto used by
the Bread-taxers is, that if the bread-tax be

abolished, the country will be inundated with
foreign wheat, the soil will go out of cultivation,
the agricultural labourers will be thrown out of
employment, and the country will be ruined.
But suddenly a new light has broken in on
them, and those bread-taxing journals, the

Herald and Standard, have found out, as Mr

JACOB found out long ago, and as every person
of common-sense has long known, without the
help of statistical spectacles and Consular
Reports, for all the land on the Continent is
already occupied, and much time and prepara-
tion are required, before a system of agriculture
can be altered by a foreign demand—the bread-
taxing journals have suddenly found out that

the notion of being inundated by foreign wheat,
should the Corn-law be repealed, is a pure in-
vention of their own, intended to frighten the
credulous people into their harsh toils. Hear
the Herald itself :

A paper has just been laid before Parliament which
throws some light, though of an imperfect description, on
this part of the subject. It is entitled " Correspondence
relative to the price at which foreign grain could be im-
ported into England," and contains the replies of the
British Consuls of the ports of northern Europe, the
Black Sea, the Elbe, and Sicily, to questions from the
Foreign-office, intended to make out an Anti-Corn-law
case. From these documents the probabilities of a
greatly increased production of grain in the countries to
which they refer may be reasonably doubted ; and, at
all events, that production would be chiefly confined to
those countries whence the smallest reciprocity is scarcely
to be anticipated. _ _ _

Our contemporary then quotes a considerable
number of specimens of the Consular Reports, of
which these are examples :
Our present supplies of foreign corn are chiefly de-
rived from Dantzic. The grain exported thence is prin-
cipally the produce of Poland, and, says our Consul at
Dantzic, " The effect a change in the British Corn-laws
might produce among the corn-growers of that country
would, in some measure, depend upon what way of
Government it may in future experience on the part of
Russia." " But," adds Mr. Plaw, "as regards this part
of Prussia, it is considered to be at present in such an
advanced state of cultivation, that a larger shipment could
not be expected ; at least not to any greater extent than
the last three years have supplied."
From Konigsberg, the Vice-Consul writes, " The quan-
tity of corn produced in this part of Prussia, and the
adjoining districts, is not likely to be materially increased,
as most farmers produce but a certain quantity of grain,
which they cannot well exceed, and they have been a good
many years since accustomed to turn and devote their ex-
ertion more towards breeding sheep, horses, and cattle,
which, particularly by producing wool, it appears answers
them better than growing corn."
From Stettin a reply of the same nature is received :
" The production of all kinds of grain and corn has these
two or three years been extended to a considerable
degree ; it is therefore not expected the landholders can
much augment the same, the cultivating of additional soil
not being in their system of agriculture."
Irom Memel we have the like answer :—" The qua-
lity of the land in this district would for some time
prevent the sowing of more wheat than is at present the
case."

Odessa is, after Dantzic, the next important port
whence we receive foreign corn, and the answer of Mr.
Consul-General Yeames is very remarkable and decisive
as to the increased exports to be derived thence in conse-
quence of the modification of our Corn-laws.
" There would," writes that gentleman, "be no ma-

terial increase, and certainly notin a short space of time,
Ist. Because in Podolia and Kievy, whence Odessa de-
.

rives its principal supplies, the greatest quantity possible
of grain is at all times produced without regard to
price. 2dly. Because the plains called steppes, adja-
cent to the Black Sea and Asoph, are thinly peopled,
so that in years when crops are abundant they are seen
suffering on the ground for want of reapers. idly. Be-
cause on these steppes crops are exceedingly precarious,
by reason of drought, the common calamity of this
climate, &c.
From Riga Mr. Consul Baker says, "There are
causes which would probably operate against any very
considerable increase of exportation."
From Liebau Mr. Consul Keintitz writes—" Thz.,
quantity of grain could not be materially increased" for
exportation. Colonel Barnett, from Warsaw, states that
" the deficiency of manure, the scarcity of hands, and
the want of skill in the cultivation of land, would operate
against any large immediate increase from the interior
of Poland.'
From Hamburgh, Mr. Consul-General Canning, whose
services are now lost to the country, considers the ex-
portation of corn could not be increased :
"Because as much land is already appropriated in this
district to the growth of corn, as the system of hus-
bandry established in these duchies and the encourage-
ment given to grazing in them will admit of."
The total quantity of wheat which the port 3 before-
mentioned could, with the most favourable harvests,
annually export, concludes our Contemporary, is ABOUT
TWO MILLION OF QUARTERS.
Of course, as our people must still be fed, and
no person for one moment supposes that their
number will be diminished by abolishing the
Corn-laws, the absurdity of supposing that the
importation of every grain of wheat the Conti-
tinent can supply us with would put our land out
of cultivation, is palpable , and when we
know that it is made the basis of maintaining a
system which starves the people, it is shocking.
On the strength, however, of the possible im-
portation of 2,000,000 quarters of wheat, a Lord
Cosmo RUSSELL has been quoted as an authority
for the astounding assertion that the abolition of
the Corn-liws would throw 2,000,000 acres of
1
land out of cultivation. But the reasoning of the
bread-taxers will appear still more shocking
for its absurdity, on account of the Cruel purpose

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