The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-02 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

A compilation made from the official Navy List, pub-
lished yesterday, shows a number amounting to 456 ships
and vessels of every denomination comprising the British
fleet. Of this force 301 ships and vessels are in commissio❑
and employed in different ways, as 131-gun line-of-battle
ships down to the 1-gun, mortar, or gun-boat, and the
steam yacht mounting no armament at all. Ten years
ago we only had 233 vessels as a grand total of all classes
in commission, and nearly all those were sailing vessels ;
now the character of the service is so thoroughly changed
that nearly all are steamers, and such few sailing ♦es-
sels as are yet doing duty are being set aside as fast as
their terms of commission expire. Thus, this week we
have that noble three-decker, the Neptune, 120, Captain
Hhtton, laid up in ordinary, to make room for the more
modern steam bulwark the Marlborough, 131 ; and so
the work of change will progress, until a sailing man-of.
war will become as great a novelty in the British fleet at
sea as was the steamer at the time of the " venture" of
the little Comet. The staff of the fleet has also changed
with the growth of its metamorphosis, as will at once be
perceived by the following statistics, showing the divi-
sion and subdivision of the various grades since the ter-
mination of the war in 1816, i❑ which year there were--

Flag officers
Captains and retired
ditto
Commanders and re-

Medical officers 1,537
Pursers
I Naval instructors ...... 0
Chaplains
Mates
' Second masters 0
Acting assistant-sur-
' goons
56.

tired ditto 894
Lieutenants 3,776
Marine officers
Masters

Flag officers (22 in
commission)
Captains (active)
Captains (retired) 164
Captains on reserved
list
Captains of Greenwich 4
Commanders
Ditto, reserved list
Ditto, retired list 349
Lieutenants of Green•
wick, and Naval
Knights of Windsor 14
Lieutenants

Ditto, oa reserved list 784
Mark 3 officers 435
Masters
Ditto, refierved list
Inspectors of machinery 3
Chief engineers .... .
Mates l9B
Second masters..., , ll6
Chaplains ............... 159
Navalinstructors...... 90
Medical officers 592
Ditto, retired 3Ol
Paymasters
Assistant ditto

It is estimated that we may count upon having this
summer, available for the purposes of war, 40 or mere
line•of-battle ships and heavy frigates of the right class,
upwards of 20 corvettes and heavily-armed sloops, and
upward■ of 170 gun and mortar-boats and batteries. The
Baltic alone, it is inferred, will have a fleet of nearly 250
pennants over steam, and it is rumoured that Sir Ed-
mund Lyons will be the grand Commander-in-Chief. In
glancing at the before given figures, it will strike the
reader probably as curious, that whereas at the close of
hostilities in 1316 there were 3,770 Lieutenants on the
Navy List, we have now, when in the midst of another
war, but a total of 1,97 i ; of this number, 1,778 only
are represented as on the active list.
The Polyphernu., 5, paddle steam-sloop, Cemmander
Warren, left Spithead yesterday morning for the coast of
Africa. The Transit steam-transport, Commander C. R.
Johnson, R.N., having had her damages repaired, left
Portsmouth again yesterday for Scutari, with the 2d
Light Infantry Regiment of the British German Legion.
The Great Britain and Prompt steam•transports left
Portsmouth yesterday afternoon for their several home
ports. The William Jackson sailing transport left Ports-
month yesterday afternoon for the eastward.
Her Majesty's ship Neptune, 120, Capt. Hutton, will
be put out of commission to-day and her crew granted
leave.

The paddle-wheel steam-sloop Inflexible, from the
Baltic, arrived at Plymouth on Saturday and went into
Hamoaze on Sunday.
The screw steam-sloop Cruiser, 17, Commander the
Hon. G. H. Douglas, left Plymouth Sound on Sunday,
and the screw steam-ship Archer, 14, Capt. E. Heatboote,
on Monday, for Hamoaze.
The Albion, 90, just returned from the Mediterranean,
is ordered to be dismantled at Plymouth.
The freight-ship Ganymede, having embarked at Wool-
wich 160 tone of ammunition and shot for ballast, and
filled every available space in her hold with hogsheads
of winter clothing, and ambulance and other carts, and
wheels on deck, for the use of the troops in the East,
has .ailed for her destination.
The steam-transport Durham, No. 179, having shipped
an engine and boiler for Malta dockyard, Is now lying
off the Arsenal at Woolwich, and is to take on board 13
guns, destined for the East. She is also to take in winter
clothes, carts, wheel-t, &c., and will likewise embark a
quantity of live shell, for which purpose a magazine is
being built on board. The freight-ship Alma is also em-
barking military clothing, guns, &c., for the Crimea.
The paddlewheel steamer Devastation, Capt. Mar-
shall, has undergone thorough repairs in Woolwich
dockyard, and is now in a ♦ery forward state toward
completion.
The gun-boat Tickler, Lieut.-Commander Balfour, has
left Woolwich for Northfleet. The Sandfly is again
moored off the Arsenal, having received her stores and
amtnnnition some days back, when she was about to
proceed to Sheerness, and was run into by a coal brig,
carrying away her stern ports and damaging her bul-
warks. She has been repaired, and is now ready to join
the squadron. These gun-boats are all sapplied, prior
to leaving Woolwich, with their requisite number of
merines, varying from six to ten in each boat, under A
non-commissioned officer of the corps.
The surveying steamer Firefly, Capt. Otter, which ar-
rived at Woolwich about 10 days ago from the Baltic,
has been docked for the purpose of ascertaining the
amount of damage sustained by the explosion of the
Russian iniernal machine. Several sheets of her copper
are blistered on the spot struck, and come are ripped up.
The concussion, as described by the officers of the Fire-
fly, was very severe. The damages were principally in-
ternal, and were repaired at the time by the carpenters
of the fleet. They consisted chiefly of injuries done to
the sail-room, which was knocked away, and the balk-
heads were sent across the orlop deck, which was like-
wise started up three inches in various places. The
whole of the men's mess gear on the lower deck was
broken in pieces. The Firefly also experienced some
very severe damage in her lower timbers, and lost her
forefoot on a reef of rocks, while carrying on her recon-
noitring operations off Abo, near the Gulfof Finland.
The merchant FIAT) Elvira, of l'loiton, United States,
Capt. Croesby, which left New York on 7th Sept., ran
for shelter into Plymouth on Monday. She has had fair
wind during the passage, but so strong that she was
constantly shipping seas ; and on the 22d a gale from
S.W. blew so furiously that the ship could not run be-
fore it any longer, and the master was compelled to heave
her to, when she shipped several heavy seas—one which
swept away the bulwarks, and carried off the secend
mate and two seamen, who were unfortunately drowned.
The same sea bruised the master and injured several of
the men, two of whom are not expected to recover. The
Elvira has lost her maintopgailantmast and sense sails.
She is a new ship of 1,133 tons register, and has on
board 65,000 bushels of wheat and 300 barrels of flour
—one of the largest cargoesever shipped. The cargo is
supposed to be uninjured.
The following are the latest appointments made at the
Admiralty :
Lieut. J. L. Balfour, to the Victor ; Lieut. Lord E.
H. Cecil (on the 29th ult.), to the Calcutta ; S. Denny,
surgeon, to the Forth ; S. E. Poyntz, midshipman, to
the Conqueror; A. F. Collier, midshipman, to the Forth.
The following letter from tha War-office, bearing date
the 21st of December, has been addressed to command-
ing officers and paymasters of regiments, and depots of
cavalry and infantry, depot battalions, &c., at home :
" Sir,—l am directed to inform you that the personal
part of bounty admissible for men of the regular cavalry
and infantry nho desert before final approval, but who
on recovery to the service are pardoned and forwarded
to their regiments or depots as recruits, will in future
be as stated below, the same to include the portion pay-
able in the district.—l have the honour to be, sir, your
obedient servant,

" s, Hems.
" For a cavalry pardoned deserter recruit, 51. ; for an
infantry pardoned deserter recruit, 41."
Lieut.-Colonel Lord Adolphus Vane Tempest left town
on Friday last to rejoin his regiment, the Scots Fusilier
Guardf., in the Crimea.
Mr. Penrose Julyan, an officer in the Commissariat
service, has recently introduced a new method of pre-
paring field forage, which, besides its advantages in
other respects, is likely to prove of much importance in
facilitating the mobilisatio❑ of the army. It e mixes up
the hay, bruised oats, and bran, or whatever other de-
scriptions of food are considered desirable, in certain
proportions, and then suljects the whole mass to so
enormous a pressure as to get the ton weight into 50
cubic feet of space. It then becomes so solid that it
can be cut like wood by a circalar saw into square blocks
of a given size without any trouble. Each block contains
half a day's ration for a horse, and net only is it an immense
economy in freight and land transport, but, being at once
fit for use, does away with all the waste and inconvenience
atendant on the old system. According to that system
the hay, corn, kc., was sent out separately, the former
in bulk of 180 cubic feet for every ton, and it is impos-
sible to exaggerate the difficulties and loss arising from
imperfect storage in wet weather, from breaking bulk,
weighing, &c., by the Commissariat to supply the requi•
sitions of regimental quartermasters, and again from the
weighing and redistribution to the men. By Mr. Jul-
yan's plan all these inconveniences are avoided, and the
forage is prepared in portions occupying the minimum
of space, not subject to waste, and in such a shape that
there is not the slightest trouble in serving it out on the
field. The tonnage alone saved by this mode of packing
far more than covers the expense attending its introduc-
tion.

Acting Assistant-Surgeons Bonnyruan, Shoolbred,
Wood, and Storey are under orders to quit Chatham,
the two former for Winchester, the latter for Woolwich.
Second-class Surgeon William Braybrooke leaves Fort
Pitt f.,r Woolwich.

Lieutenant Philip Harris, Royal Marines, Chatham,
has recently visited the School of Musketry at Hythe,
for the purpose of rendering any explanation or assist-
ance necessary for the practical tiial of the circular trig-
ger (Lieutenant Harris's own invention), now being
adapted, under the direction of Colonel C. C. Hay, the
Commandant, to 25 Enfield rifles.
The interment of Mr. M'Donald, of the East India
Company's Engineers, took place yesterday, at Gilling-
h tm. Independently of the officers of the Royal and East
India Company's Engineers, with a large party of Sap-
pers and Miners, Colonel Eden had expressed a desire
that the officers of the battalion and Royal Matinee
should attend. The funeral cortege was accompanied by
the Marine band, playing the "Dead March." Colonel
Henry Sandha.m and Colonel Henry Eden, with their
respective staffs, closed the long hoe of military. The
coat of another of the officers has been picked up.