The Sun.
London, England, 1856-06-09 00:00:00

THE SU N, LONDON, MON DAY EVENING, JUNE 9, 1856.

Spirit of the Public Journals.

(From the Daily News of this clay.)

Much surprise has been expressed during the
late war that a more effectual co-operation with the
allies was not afforded by Schamyl and the Circas-
sians, and that they did not avail themselves of the
opportunity which then presented itself for strik
ing some decisive blow, which might, to a great ex-
tent, undo the work of partial occupation which it
has cost Russia so many years and so many thou-
sand men to accomplish. Much of the disappoint-
ment felt on this score doubtless arises from the
general ignorance as to the relative positions of the
tribes of the Caucasus, and from the popular error
of confounding the Circassians,lwho have no known
leader, with the Lesghi and Tchetchenzes, who act
under the guidance of Schamyl.
A glance at an ordinary map will show that the
mountain range of the Caucasus runs in a diagonal
direction from Anapa on the north-west, to Baku
on the Caspian, the south-eastern extremity of the
range. The distance between these two points is
about 430 miles, the greatest breadth being under
200 miles. The Circassians occupy that portion
which lies to the north-west, and which has the
Black Sea for its boundary on one side, and the
plains of the Kouban on another, the northern. The
Russians have established on the sea coast a few
detached forts in addition to Anapa and Soudjouk
Kaleh, but most of them were destroyed during
the war, while the thick forests and deep ravines
of Circassia, so unfavourable for military opera-
tions, have set at defiance all attempts to establish
similar positions permanently in the interior.
On the north side a chain of fortified posts serves
to protect the road from Temriouk to Stavropol,
and to restrain in some degree the incursions of
the Circassians into the plains of the Kouban. '
Round Mount Elbrouz are clustered the Suaneti
and the Kabardians ; the former constantly
threatening Mingrelia, the latter holding their
independence with difficulty in the face of
the slow advances of the Russian outposts, and al-
ternately in a state of active warfare or hollow
truce with their opponents. Between these tribes
and those under Schamyl lies the country of the
Ossetians, a people who have been for many years
at peace with Russia, and who hold the famous
pass of Dariel and the defiles of Mount Kasbek,
through which runs the groat artery of communi-
cation between Southern Russia and Georgia.
From Kasbek to the Caspian the rugged hills of
Daghestan extend, inhabited by the Lesghi, Tche-
tchenzes' and other tribes, whose resistance to
Russia has been the most obstinate and deadly.
It is here that Schamyl exercises a sort of theocra-
tic rule, aided by his uaibs or lieutenants, making
descents sometimes in the direction of Vladikav-
kas, at others threatening the pass of Daniel, or
leading his murids into the fertile districts of Ka-
tchetia, and creating alarm in Tiflis itself.
It was in one of these forays that Schamyl, in
July, 1854, at the head of some thousand Lesghi
horsemen, crossed the river Alazan and succeeded
in carrying off from her house at Tsinondale, the
Princess Tchavtchavadze, her sister, the widow of
Prince Orbfltani, their children, a French gover-
ness, and a considerable number of other persons.
After sacking and destroying the house and the
adjacent villages, the Lesghis retired with their
prisoners and booty to their fastnesses in the moun-
tains ; the ladies and principal captives being car-
ried to the residence of Schamyl, where they were
detained about eight months before they recovered
their liberty. The information we possess respect-
ing the internal policy and condition of those moun-
taineers is so scanty that every addition to it pos-
sessing a character of authenticity is welcome. The
narrative of their captivity, published at Tiflis, is
consequently highly interesting ; although its state-
ments must be received with some caution, emanat-
ing, as t'ley do, foal a hostile source, and having
passed through the hands of the Russian censors.
Katchetia itself, the scene of the incursion of
Schamyl, Is a remarkably rich district ; neverthe-
less, the captives are loud in their admiration of
the beauty and fertility of the valleys which they
crossed in their journey through Lesghistan to
Dargui Vedeno, the head-quarters of Schamyl
since the destruction of Dargo, his former resi-
/ence, by the Russians in 1845. This journey
occupied 22 days, and they were finally installed
in the harem of Schamyl as prisoners, to await his
arrival, in order to discuss the terms of their ran-
som. Curious as the pictures of the domestic life
of the prophet chief are, we pass them over, the
more striking and important part of the narrative
being that which details the negotiations for the
release. It will be recollected that a son of
Schamyl, Djemel Ed-deen, had long been a pri-
soner in Russia, and that various rumours were
current during the past year as to his having been
exchanged. It was precisely at this juncture that
he was restored to his father, and that restoration
I facilitated very considerably the liberation of the
Princess Tchavtchavadze and her companions.
The authority of Schamyl is evidently partly
military and partly religious, his body-guard of
murids being not only picked warriors, but a species
of disciples, much employed, like their chief, in
religious exercises. It nevertheless appears that his
power is by no means uncontrolled, even at Dareui
Vedeno, for he carefully abstained from putting for-
ward the restoration of his son as a prominent con-
dition in the treaty, adhering obstinately for a long
time to the terms most popular with his murids and
naibs, or lieutenants, namely, a million of silver
roubles, a sum of which those mountaineers had
heard, but of which they were unable evidently to
form any clear idea. Finally, the bargain was struck
for 40,000 roubles, or about 6,0001., and Djernel Ed-
deen was, at the'same time, given up to his father,
so far Russianised that although remaining a Mee-
sultnan,he had entirely forgotten his native tongue.
It is tolerably clear that although for defensive
operations, and for such forays as we have alluded
to, the means at the disposal of Schamyl are very
formidable, the absence of artillery or infantry,
and the habit of fighting without any unity of ac-
tion, render the Caucasians powerless beyond their
mountain defiles and precipices. Nor does their
political condition, resembling in many respects
that of the Scottish Highlands in former times,
offer facilities for combining the operations of the
Daghestan tribes with those of the Circassians.
Gradually the Russian forts are surrounding them,
and narrowing the limits of their natural fortres-
ses ; but the information derived from every source
would seem to show that except by devastating
their immediate frontiers, or by harassing the
convoys passing by the road of Dariel or that of
the Kouban, little aid could have been expected
either from the Circassians or from Schamyl,
while the communications by the Caspian offered
to the Russians an alternative route, though
longer, for the supply of troops and munitions to
Georgia. It would appear that the only useful aid
that could be given to the Circassians or to the
warriors of Daghestan must be in the form of money
and of such munitions of war as they can use and
understand, leafing the business of fighting to bo
carried on by them in their own fashion, alone, as
it would be impossible to combine our European
system of tactics with the operations of their irre-
gular and undisciplined cavalry. The long siege of
Sebastopol in all probability increesed their hesita-
tion to run any unusual hazards, and it was a
stroke of policy to send back Djemcl Ed-deen at
that moment, to disseminate his impressions of the
power and invincibility of the Russians, whose gold
and whose power of fomenting dissensions and jea-
lousies among the chiefs are to our thinking the
great perils, of the Caucasians.

(From the Morning Post of this day.)

The death of the Bishcp of Gloucesterand Bristol,
which has for some time been expected, took place
at Stapleton on Friday last, to the great grief of his
lordship's personal friend. and the clergy and laity
of an extensive diocese. He was one of the compa-
ratively few Bishops who owed his elevation solely
to his great merits and essential fitness for so high
a station and so immense a responsibility. His early
career is associated with men who have since be-
come great. Many have, like himself, been promoted
to the episcopal bench, while others have been con-
spicuous in other offices of the Church, in Parlia-
ment, is diplomacy, or at the bar. He is one of a
large number of Cambridge men who adorned the
beginning of the present century. At that period
the mathematical tripos was the sole road to hon-
ours, and great in many and various ways were the
tripos men of that day. The century began with
D'Oyly, Lo Bas, and Vice-Chancellor Shadwell.
The following year gave us Henry Martyn, Sir
Robert Grant, and Lord Glenelg. Dr. Stanley,
late Bishop of Norwich, and the late Lord Can-
terbury come next, followed, a year later, by
names still spared to us, Archdeacon Hoare, Lord
Wensleydale, and the Bishop of Peterborough.
These all graduated in the undergraduacy of Bishop
Monk. The year 1804 produced Dr. Kaye, late
Bishop of Lincoln, and Dr. Monk, the Bishop whose
death we now lament. The next year gave us the
Bishop of Ely, and the next Chief B iron Pollock,
followed the year after by Lord Langdale, Dr.
Bland, of equation notoriety, Professor Sedgewick,
and the Bishop of London: It was amongst such
men that Dr. Monk early took a high place for
scholarship, industry, and research. Although dis-
tinguished for classical attainments of the highest
order, he did not confine his reading to that
branch
of learning. History and divinity were in high
favour with him, and ho pursued them with the suc-
cess that might have been expected from his perse-
verance
and original powers of mind. The cause of
classicallearning at Cambridge is greatly indebted to
him, for ho it was, in conjunction with Dr. Kaye and
others, who first urgently pushed forward the insti-
tution of a classical tripos, although it Was not

until 1824 that their great desire was accomplished.
It was mainly to his own merits, as a laborious and
accomplished scholar, and an earnest divine, that
Dr. Monk owed his elevation, first to the Deanery
of Peterborough, and afterwards to the see of Glous
cester. His high academical standing, his publica-
tions on classical literature, and his effective
preaching at Whitehall, recommended him to Lord
Liverpool and the Duke of Wellington. Promo-
tion followed in due course, and he became Bishop
of Gloucester. Upon the translation of Dr. Allen
to Ely the diocese of Bristol became united to that
of Gloucester under an Act of Parliament procured
by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners.
In his position as Bishop he laboured with all
his natural energy, rarely interfering with politics
and Parliamentary strife, but addicting himself
chiefly to the wants of his diocese, and particu-
larly the promotion of education, works of charity,
the improvement of poor benefices, the building of
parsonage houses, and the enforcement of resi-
dence on the part of his clergy. One of the latest
objects of his life was the re-erection of the church
at Stapleton, winch he undertook entirely at his
own cost, and which is now rapidly approaching
completion. It has not been permitted him to see
the conclusion of that undertaking, but the work
will remain a lasting monument of his zeal, muni-
ficence, and public spirit.
Only once in the course of his long, honoured,
and useful life did the voice of slan ier attempt to
say one word in depreciation of his merits. It was
in the year 1851, when it was the fashion to abuse
Bishops. The whole Church policy of Lord John
Russell's Administration had tended to bring the
Episcopal office into contempt. He had been se-
verely blamed for the appointments to Manchester
and Hereford, and, in return, he bitterly retali-
ated by stirring up an angry but popular feeling
against Church authority altogether ; by casting
upon it all the responsibility of the impudent as-
sumptions of Cardinal Wiseman and the Papal ag-
gression. From that moment it became the fashion
in the House of Commons to attack the Bishops,
charging them either with Popery, or with avarice
and oppression. Mr. Horsman, taking his cue from
the prevailing prejudice, singled out the Bishop of
Gloucester and Bristol for a bitter personal attack,
charging him with a dishonest administratian of
Church property, and holding him up as one unfit
to show his face amongst honest men. The Bishop
was then in Germany, and unable to meet in Par-
liament the charges so maliciously made against
him. At that time, though personally unknown
to his lordship—yet aware, as we were bound to
be, of the facts of the case, through channels
equally open to Mr. Horsman, or any other public
man or public writer—we had the extreme plea-
' sure of standing alone of all the London journals
in the defence of that injured prelate. We cor-
rected the leis-statement of Mr. Horsman, and
a7pealed to facts. Time went on, and the facts jus-
tified our appeal. The Horfield estate, which, it was
alleged, had been dishonestly diverted from the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners to Dr. Monk's own
family, turned out to have been conveyed to trus-
tees for the permanent augmentation of poor bene-
fices and the relief of necessitous clergymen. In a
letter to Sir W. Page Wood, the Bishop trium-
phantly vindicated every step he had taken in the
matter, and proved that, so far from he or his
family having been gainers in the slightest degree,
he had been a loser to a large extent by the outlay
necessary for carrying out his wise and benevolent
scheme. We have never heard that Mr. Horsman
made any a mende for the unconscionable wrong that
he had done to a man whose whole life had exhi-
bited qualities the very opposite to those which his
traducer had venomously ascribed to him. The con-
spicuous wickedness of that transaction, however,
lost Mr. Horsman his seat for Cockermouth at the
election that soon followed, and left him for some
time at his wits'-end how to get into Parliament
again. But good came out of evil, and the misre-
presentation made in Parliament had the effect of
drawing out the attachment of the clergy and prin-
cipal laity of the diocese, who rallied round their
diocesan with a display of confidence and affection
which must have more than counterbalanced all
that the anti-prelate party could possibly say
against him and his order.
After a long and useful life ho sleeps in peace,
loved and lamented as a Bishop should be, leaving
behind him a name to be remembered with reve
rence, and an example which his successors may
well endeavour to follow.

There remains ona duty which seems now to de-
volve upon the clergy and laity. It is well known
that the late Bishop earnestly desired the re-con-
stitution of the See of Bristol. He found, as every
one who succeeds him must find, that the joint
diocese was too unwieldy, and, in point both of
population and territorial extent, was far beyond
the energies of ona man to govern properly. The
clergy and laity must have felt the same convic-
tion. They have now to bring the matter under
the notice of Government, and endeavour, by a
short act, to get the partition made. The Ecclesi-
astical Commissioners know where to find the
money. The question of a seat in the House of
Lords is disposed of. There is no constitutional
difficulty. The only obstacles are those arising
out of supineness and indifference to the welfare
of the Church.

ANOTHER ATTEMPTED MURDER ON
BOARD THE STIRLING CASTLE.

PORTSMOUTH, JUNE 7.
On Wednesday another attempt at murder was made
on board the Stirling Castle, convict hulk, in this har-
bour. The person whose life bas been placed in jeo-
pardy on this occasion was a warder, John Howarth,
and mho it appears about seven or eight o'clock on the
morning of the above day was unlocking the cells to
allow the prisoners to go on to the upper deck. Whilst
so engaged a convict named M'Donald rushed behind
Howarth and inflicted a stab upon him at the back of the
ear. The wound was at the same part of the head as
was inflicted by the convict Jones on the unfortunate
Mr. Hope, surgeon of the Stirling Castle. The wound
was inflicted by the blade of a knife attached to a wooden
handle. The instrument has not been found.

M`Donald, after inflicting the wound, ran up on deck,
and there, mixing up with a namber of convicts, he en-
deavoured to escape detection. Mr. Howarth, how-
ever, had identified him, and at once proceeded to give
information to Mr. Williams, a senior officer. Captain
Warren, the governor of the hulk, immediately ordered
M•Donald to be brought before him. This was done, on
which the miscreant commenced crying bitterly, and ex-
claiming, "I did it." Captain Warren banded him over
to the county polce, and he was taken bef,re the county
bench on Thursday and committed to Winchester. Dr.
Wilson was on board, and immediately took Howarth
under his care. In the course of the day he was removed
to his home in Gosport., where, we are glad to say, he is
getting on favourably.
M'Donald is 22 years of age, was convicted of felony
in December, 1854, at Bolton, and sentenced to four
years' penal servitude.
Howarth is a married man, but has no family.

The above attempt at murder is evidently an outburst
of that insubordination of which Jone,'s case was of so
murderous a specimen. Both these acts of violence were
cool and deliberate, without the slightest provocation
existing. There would appear to be some truth in the
statement thatlhas been made by more than one convict,
to the effect that there is an organised conspiracy on
board the Stirling Castle to take away the lives of the
officers one after another. One of the convicts has re•
cently told a warder that it was intended to serve three
or four other officers in the same way. Capt. Warren,
the newly appointed governor of the Stirling Castle, has,
as far as was possible in so short a period of time,
effected some improvement in the state of things on
board. He has procured an additional force of warders,
six having come down from Milbank prison yesterday.
The warders are, however, very awkwardly placed ; they
are not even allowed a stave for their own defence, and
there is not a sentry on board for the preservation of
peace or the protection of the ship.

A GRADUATED SCALE OF HUSBANDS,—" Two days
ago," writes the Paris correspondent of Le Nord,
"there died at Versailles, in complete obscurity, a
personage who has a name in history—Count de Born-
belles, who, after Napoleon I. and the Count de Niep-
perg, was the third husband of Marie Louise."
[ADvsicrissmssr.]—ASCOT RACES.—Siour AND Ers,kaiNo._
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By leer Majesty's Royal Letters Patent for valuable and
extraordinary improvements in the most powerful and
brilliant Telescopes, Camp, Racecourse, Opera, and Per-
spective Glasses, to know the distances of objects viewed
through them—of great importance to the army, navy,
and others. These telescopes possess such extraordvinaary
.
powers that some three and a-half inches, with an extra eye.
piece, will show distinctly Jupiter's moons, Saturn's ring,
and the double stars ; with the same telescope can be
seen a person's countenance three miles and a half distant,
and an object from 16 to 20 miles. They are of larger ani al.
sizes, with increasing powers accordingly ; while their ry
ino• from 4 to 6 inches enable us to discover more than the
above, and the Georgian, with his 6 satellites, ke.___T„ Royal
Exhibition, 1851.—Valuable, newly-invented, very small,
powerful waistcoat-pocket glass,the size of a walnut, by which
a person can be seen and known 1 S miles distant ; they answer
every purpose on the race-course, and at the opera houses,
country scenery, and ships are clearly seen at 8 to 10 miles.
They are invaluable for shooting, doer-stalking, yachting, to
sportsmen, gentlemen, gamekeepers, and tourists. Opera,
race-course, camp, and perspective glasses, with wonderful
power. Newly-constructed Spectacle Lenses of the great-
est transparent power. The valuable advantage derived
from this invention is, that vision becoming impaired is
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ing power—and they do not require the frequent changes
to the dangerous effects of further powerful assistance.
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assistance that possibly could be desired.-39, Albemarle.
street, Piccadilly. Observe—opposite the York

OVB RELATIONS WITH AMERICA.

(Prom the Examiner.)

It is impossible that two great nations with interests
so connected can go to war for such causes, is in every
mouth, with reference to our American differences.
But, unhappily, these very words remind us of the same
reliance, so signally falsified, as regarded Russia. Who
thought that war possible ? When no escape from it
could be shaped out in imagination, yet the hope of
peace, or the faith in peace, lingered in men's minds.
The ambition of one wilful man brought upon the
world the calamity of the war just closed, and precisely
the same cause threatens us with the same evil on a far
larger scale. The vices of despotism and democracy
thus tend to the same end. There are men, says Bacon,
such self-lovers that they will not scruple to fire their
neighbour's house in order to roast their own egg in the
embers. President Pierce is one of this class, and would
not hesitate to set the world on fire for so paltry an end
as a renewal of power for four short years. This man's
use of power is to prolong his power coute qui coute. To
play his selfish game thousands may perish, and thou-
sands more brought to ruin in both countries. Can such
wickedness be suffered to prevail ? Will not the good
sense and feeling of the American people revolt against
such atrocious extremities ? We are bound to trust they
may, but we cannot shut our eyes to some ugly facts.
A certain recklessness is a strong American character.
istic. They do not look before them as we do, they
have not our care of consequences. A man in the United
States builds up his fortune easily, and as lightly throws
it down, to build it up again. He goes ahead heed-
lessly, because he falls easily, as children fall. Of clever-
ness, enterprise, and activity there is superabundance,
but little forethought and prudence in our sense of the
words. The Americans are indeed ♦ery much the
spoiled children of circumstances ; they have been for-
tune's favourites, and are too likely to make the mis-
takes of those whose heads are turned by a course of
prosperity and success.
Much hopeful stress is laid on consanguinity, the com-
mon stock, and the common language. Upon the effects
of the last circumstance we have much doubt. Barriers
to the communication of ideas have their advantages as
well as the contrary. The mass of the French people,
the Germans, the Russians, have no knowledge of un-
complimentary mention of them in English print or
converssticn, and our commonalty for the most part
are in the same blessed ignorance of offensive comments
in foreign languages.
Peace gains something by these barriers of foreign
tongues. The language in commen with the Ameri-
can Union has served, not as it ought to have done,
as a means of concord, but as a ground of offline in
common. They see everything that is said in the
English press disagreeable to their self-love, and we as
regularly have brought under our view whatever they
retort disparaging er insulting to ue. On each side ir-
ritation is kept up, and national vanity is in a per-
petual fret. The Americans complain that the British
are the only people in the world who ridicule their
peculiarities, and find faalt with their habits and man-
ners. The fact is not so, but they do not see or bear
how they are handled in foreign languages, and we,
therefore, falsely appear to be their only censors or
detractors. Hence a vast deal of undue resentment
and spleen. We believe that nothing would tend so
much to peace between the two countries as the confu-
sion of tongues falling upon them for the space of two
or three years. It is because we understand each
other verbally so well that we understand each other
substantially so ill. And, perhaps, if the diplomatic
relations are suspended, arid the two Governments sulk
and cease to speak to each other for a season, good may
come of the interruption of intercourse.
The belief that nothing would provoke England to
go to war encouraged ,the late Emperor Nicholas to
the aggressions which terminated in the event which
Russia has had such reason to rue. We trust this
example will not be lost on the people of the United
States. England has an immense stake in peace with
America. She knows how to measure the vast cala-
mity cf war, but there are evils to which she is pre-
pared to submit as necesiities, like pestilence and
famine, if there be no honourable means of escaping
them. Our Government has proposed arbitration upon
one question, has expressed regrets and offered apo-
logy respecting another. If it has been in the wrong
inadvertently in the enlistment affair, it has put itself
in the right by its conciliatory conduct. There are
bounds, however, to concession, especially when there
appear to be no bounds to exactions and pretensions.
The world has never yet seen such a war as would be
the war, strange, foul, and unnatural, between the
United States and England, for the world has never be-
fo.e seen two nations with the same identity of interests,
having between them, besides, the ties of kindred
and free institutions, the tie of the very largest commer-
cial relations. The annual value of our trade with
America is equal to the whole national revenue of
Russia.l Sure scandal would it be to humanity if two coun-
tries which so serve and enrich each other should turn
their powers to injuring each other, which they wofild
unhappily do in far greater proportion. How the evil
spirits of the world would rejoice at such a spectacle
of the fallibility of the free institutions. We have been
told that war is a game Kings would not play at if their
people were wise. What, then, must be the people
who permit the chief officer of their state to play this
wicked game for his own separate and particular interest,
bidding for a renewal of his power by abusing it ?

AQUATICS.

THAMES UNITY BOAT CLUB.

The first match of the season over the usual course,
from Putney-brido to Barnes, for pieces of plate, will
take place on Monday, June 30, with the following
crews :

Black—Messrs. Blineko, C. Mining, Mills, sen.,
Dillon, and Simmons (steerer).

White--Messrs. Bates, Hazlerood, Cross, Fox, jun.,
and Fox, sen. (steerer).
Red—Messrs. Sullivan, Paul, Parker, Barnard, and
Whittaker (steerer).
Y 4. w—Messrs. Richardson, Hodges, Gough, Glover,
and Williams (steerer).