The Sun.
London, England, 1860-11-30 00:00:00

THE WEATHER.—Sux Ormaz, Nov. 30, 1860,

THERMOMETER, V.!Z THE SHA.DB.
44—highest since noon yesterday.
42—lowest this morning and during the night.
49—this day at noon.
BAROMETER-29.63; falling.
WlND—South-Easterly; light, with dull rainy weather,

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
THIS DAL—Morning, 2h. 44m.—Afternoon, 3h. 2m.
To-moßßow.-Morning, 3h. 20m.—Afternoon, 3h. 40m.

The narrative of these late events out at the
seat of war in China, towards which our attention
has during the past week been so eagerly and almost
uninterruptedly directed, has now happily been com-
pleted by the official record coming to us, by way
of France, through the columns of the Moniteur.
This official record by on r Allies, extracted from that
Paris Gazette, the org An of the Imperial Govern-
ment, we have given elsewhere in our impression of
to-night—doing so me rely in order that our readers
may thereby gain re idy access to the latest frag-
mentary intelligence in regard to these late occur-
rences. Not by any means, however, in these
accounts published in the Moniteur, can we recog-
nise any very material novelty in the way of addi-
tional information. It has its value, however, in
spite of that, in the mere fact of its being thus
distinctly corroborative of the records already
received and published here in England. The
French official narrative confirms only too pain-
fully all that had been previously told by us in
reference to the base and flagitious proceedings of
the Chinese army and the Chinese Government.
It confirms, moreover, quite as distinctly, the
descriptions already furnished through English
sources of those contests, which had illustrated so
signally between Tien-tsin and Pekin the absolute
powerlessness of the Asiatic hordes when opposed
to the serried ranks of the highly-disciplined and
formidably-armed Europeans. As a thrice-told
tale, however, this narrative from the Moniteur
will be read in this country with the liveliest inte-
rest, if only for the sake of those brave fellows of
ours, English born and English bred, whose lives
are thus, each and all, staked upon the hazard of a
die in dealing with that ruthless and treacherous
race of the Chinese.

A letter from CIALDINI'S head-quarters, by the
special correspondent cf the Daily News, gives by
far the most precise information which the public
has yet received respecting the state of things
before Gaeta. From his account, there is evidently
a great deal of hard work to do ere Gaeta can
be reduced—provided the garrison defends it with
vigour. In regard to the general position of
besiegers and besieged, it is very similar to that
of the same place when besieged by MASSENA in
1806. The sea was then kept open by the Eng-
lish, and with a garrison of 2,900 regular troops
and 2,000 convicts, and 174 pieces of artillery, the
fortress was defended for six months against the
French General. Both besiegers and besieged
increased their strength during the siege ; the
former more than trebling theirs; the besieged capi-
tulating at lakt with 6,200 men and 178 pieces of
artillery, and MASSENI having before the town
12,192 men and 134 guns.
LICIALDINI has a much severer task before him ;
of men and guns he can, we suppose, have all he

needs, but he has a very different number of both
to contend against. The garrison amounts to
18,000 men, which enables them, of course, to
relieve each other with ease, and they have no
fewer than 800 pieces of artillery. But there is
another cause of delay. A large rounded hill, at
the base of
,which the town ;of Gaeta ',lies, has
been included in the defences of the fortress, and
strongly fortified with numerous powerful batteries.
Two other more distant hills must be gained, and
batteries erected on them, to get possession of the
first hill, by which alone the right side of the town
can be approached; and these latter hills could
only be reached by constructing a road with great
difficulty and trouble where none existed before. ,
At this road the army were at work, at
the date of the letter (the 20th), and
were making progress which astonished our Gene-
ral CODRINGTON who saw it. The Piedmontese
are in thorough good spirits, but the task before
them, though it is one in which they know they
must succeed, is not one to be accomplished in a
day. The construction of the road, the erection
of the batteries, and the reduction of the first hill
referred to, will be a work of some time ; and it is
only then that the real siege works will be com-
menced. The writer says that the intention of the
Piedmontese General is to open fire with 90 heavy
guns; to spread terror among the demoralised
gunners ; and thus to frighten them into compelling
the King to surrender.

While reading this account it is impossible not
to feel indignant at the petulant intervention which
has strengthened the place by keeping the sea open.
If the French EMPEP.OR openly espoused the cause
of FRANCIS 11., we might be indignant at his aiding
the cause of a tyrant whom all the civilised world
regard as unfit to rule any nation—the young
BOMBA of Palermo; but we should not have to
reproach him with inconsistency. But by keeping
open the sea for supplies to Gaeta, and hindering
the Sardinian navy from co-operation on that side,
he is fully doubling the strength of the garrison,
and that against his ally the King of SARDINIA.
We know of no selfish advantage even which he
can hope for from his conduct. It is impossible
to explain it, except as an act of officious
vain-glorious intermeddling —an affectation
of displaying a power which all the world knows
he has, merely for the sake of the display. At the
date of the letter the garrison of the fortress were
afraid to venture on a sortie. The telegrams of
to-day mention, however, one on or about the 29th,
made with the intent of capturing the strategical
positions of the suburbs. Most probably the refer-
ence is to the hills, to which the Piedthontese were
constructing their road, with the view of placing
batteries to silence those on the hill near the town
the sortie was repulsed, it seems, with great
loss to those who made it. The work
of bloodshed will probably begin in a few
weeks at least, perhaps sooner; when, for
the sacrifice of life, whatever it may be, humanity
will hold Louis NAPOLEON personally guilty. But
for his encouragement, there can bellittle doubt the
King would long ago have left Gaeta.

Another NAPIER claims now at the hands of
>his nation—not for his memory, but from our
gratitude—a fitting public monument. His own
heroic, and in every sense historic fame, he has
himself long since imperishably commemorated. It
is due to the great Annalist of the Peninsular War
however, that some simple but majestic evidence
of his having been duly appreciated by his contem-
poraries should be raised forthwith in one of our
public places in the form of a solid and enduring
Testimonial. And it was solely and exclusively to
this end, for the sake not of his own fair fame, but
for that alone of his immediate contemporaries, that
upon the very morrow as it were of his lamented
death, now but a very few months back, a movement
was organised for the collection of funds enabling
his old comrades in arms to erect upon some con-
spicuous site in the capital of this Empire (the
heroism of which his sword, and his pen have alike
so resplendently illustrated) a colossal bronze statue
upon a giant granite pedestal. That was the
determination immediately arrived at by those
amongst us who honoured this lion-heart the most
earnestly. It was instinctively felt that an enter-
prise of this nature ought at once to be set on foot
and accomplished—in justice not merely to him
but to each and all of us in like manner livho appre-
ciated to the full his rare combination of valour
and genius as one of the most chivalrous among our
soldiers, and as a military historian whose writings
in that capacity have never been surpassed.
Already the subscriptions poured in—almost
without the publication of an advertisement--
amounts to very nearly one entire half of the
sum required for the payment of any expanses
that can be incurred in the erection of this
proposed monument. To the catalogue of these
eagerly-volunteered contributions, a catalogue pub-
lished elsewhere by us in another part of our
impression of this evening, we would very earn-
estly direct the attention of the public at large--
for that mere list alone amounts in reality to a
noble and enviable testimonial. It is a striking
attestation in itself that General Sir WILLIAM
FRANCIS PATRICK NAPIER is in very deed and in
very truth appreciated by the noblest among his
contemporaries. To that roll of gallant and illus
trious names we would now gladly see added, what

we do not doubt for one instant, what we canna

doubt for one instant, 'WILL be added—as it may be
remembered was the case in the instance of Sir
WILLIAM'S glorious elder brother, Sir CHARLES,

the Conqueror and Administrator of Scinde a
still longer catalogue of those " unnamed demi•

gods," the dauntless Private Soldiers of England

Who has ever earned a tribute of that kind
more nobly than that greatest of all our Military
Historians, to whose pen the whole empire

is indebted for the. deathless commemora-

tion of the most heroic achievements that
have ever illustrated the glory of British

arms ? To whom should the soldiers of England

ever raise a monument of love, and honour, and

gratitude if not to the military annalist of the

great war waged for six years between the legions

of France and England in the Iberian Peninsula !
For himself, Sir WILLIAM NAPIER has, in the
production of that resplendent historic master-
piece raised for the perpetuation of his reputation,
both as a soldier and as an annalist, the most lasting
monument ; one, in truth, are perennius ; one, in
effect
which is—thanks to the art of printing—
he might very
altogether imperishable. Eor himself, therefore,
well be regarded by his survivors
as a man who could readily enough dispense with
any such monumental commemoration as that now
proposed to be raised to his honour and in his
memory, as a tokeniof the admiration of his fellow-
countrymen. It is consequently alone for the
purpose of thus signally attesting the popular
appreciation of this the greatest of all England's
military that we are now about to erect,
in the itar
most
y
conspicuous spot of all in London, a
iil
'
statue of the dead Soldier-Historian, by way of
the most appropriate attestation of the nation's

instant gratitude, and of its enduring admiration.
There els; moreover, should this same bronze
statue be raised than in our English Forum, as a

companion effigy to the one already standing there

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THE SUN.
LONDON, FRIDAY, NOV. 30, 1860.