The Sun.
London, England, 1856-01-21 00:00:00

Spirit of the Public Journals.

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GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY.—The
Directors hereby Give Notice that they will receive Money
en Loan, to pay off Debentures fallinr due, and are prepared to accept
Tenders tor the same for a period of 3,5, or 7 years, at 5 per cent.
per annum. Application may be made to the undersigned.
By order of the Directors.
CHAS. A. SAUNDERS, Secretary.
Paddington Station, 2d November, 1855.

OTTOMAN CLUB, 14, Regent-street, 31st
December, 1855 —At the Ger eral Meeting of the Members
held this day, an explanation was given by the Proprietor of the
position and future prospects of the Club, which was considered
satisfactory. Certain alterations in the Rules of the Club were then
propo,e and the Meeting was adjourned till the 31st of January
next, at 3 o'clock p.m., for the purpose of confirming them, if
approved.
By order of the Committee.
C. A. CLTRWOOD, Hon. Sec.

In announcing to her Friends, Commercial Gentlemen, and the
Public in gen.ral that she has succeeded to the business of the above
Hotel, embraces the opportunity of tendering her best thanks for the
favours bestowed on her late Parents for the past twenty years, and
hops by strict at,ention and Moderate Charges, to secure an in-
creased share of their kind patronage.
GOOD COMMERCIAL ROOMS, LARGE STOCK ROOMS, AND

( Front the Weekly Dispatch.)
The world had thought that there was " nothing like
leather." The world is deceived ; there is nothing like
the League and the Manchester School. Our friend the
Peace pamphleteer exposes the world's deception ; if in
rather a queer fashion, why genius is eccentric some-
times. We had thought he Was a Free-trader. So had
he. He is a sort :of -politico-econoinical Vicar of Bray
without knowing it. England is miashid to prosecute
the war, it seems, solely from the resources furnished by
free trade. Russia sustains her defence exclusively from
the effeots of her policy of restriction, prohibition, and
monopoly. Had the "country party" here triumphed
we could not have gone to war. Had Peel's " recipro-
city system" penetrated to Russia she would have been
totally defenceless ! Seeing that our meditative friend
regards our assault as a calamity, awl the triumph of
Russia as a "consummation devoutly to be wished,"
the success of his argument is destruction to his theory.
He has really done his best to prove that independence
upon foreign States is " the cheap defence of nations,"
and that open ports are the surest provocative to war,
on the principle on which the character mentioned in
the Scriptures was moved to pride, of whom it is said
that " when he waxed fat he kicked." We are now as-
sured that the foreign trade of Russia is insignificant,
and has been, dispensed with by our enemy without any
materially appreciable deprivation. Formerly the same
autleor informed us that the foreign trade of Russia was
very valtiable to us, and far superior in importance to
that of Turkey. In fact, we have only to collect Mr.
Cobdeu's propositions and place them in naked succes-
sion, deprived of their intermediary rhetoric, in order to
find them as pliant and accomemiating as that sword
of Hudibras, of which it was said that it,
" Was fit fOr any use— '
To fight, scrape trenehere; ezeclean i'hoes."
Russia, it seems, has lost nothing—we have lost every-
thing, our character included, and, we presume, we will
be told she has at last yielded our demands from the
sweetness of her temper. Her trade, it scorns, is better
than before the blockade ; she has carried en the war
at scarcely any cost, finding and paying everything as
she vacs. Her armies thrive on monkey's allowance,
" nothing a day and find yourself ;" her population can
supply, not merely an indefinite, but an unlimited num-
ber of soldiers. No treaties will bind her ; therefore it
is useless to fight for four, or any other number of points
of diplomacy ; therefore we should gracefully retire, and
see what will come next ! We have no other course
left than to come to the magnanimous conclusion of Sir
Andrew Agueeheek—" An I'd ha' known he'd been so
cunning of fence, I'd ha' seen him d—d e'er I'd ha'
challenged him !" We really begin to doubt whether
the "Manchester Manufacturer" any longer writes for
the public. His brochures seem more tied more to be
addressed exclusively to one individual—himself—as to
whose convictions he seems not to be altogether satis-
fied. The Irishman asked his friend to dismount just
to take a look at himself on horseback. Mr. Cobden
appears to write really only to look what dialectic figure
he cuts in print. And that figure gets poorer and poorer
every day. We are at a loss to divine what possible
object he can have had in view in the publication of his
last escapade. Its only effect is to raise the hopes of
the enemy, and to urge him to refuse all terms of accom-
modation ; or, at least, to afford him the means of per-
suading his subjects that his prosecution of the war is
just, necessary, and certain of success, even by the ad-
mission of his enemies ; a somewhat awkward position
for an autocrat who has actually given in. Himself it
can not deceive. No one better knows than the Czar
that he has already lost the flower of his armies, and
that he is reduced to the rubbish of his subjects. He
feels that, whenever he ceases to sustain his position by
all the appliances of military science and strategic art,
his troops will be annihilated ; and that, while he meets
the cohorts of the four allies, with their means of civi•
lised warfare, the cost to him, crippled in credit, bare of
capital, and blockaded on his frontier, must be greater
than to us. If France, England, Turkey, and Sardinia
have together expended three millions per week, the rule
of three will lead the humblest disciples of Cooker to
"count the cost" to the Czar, the loss of his sunken
fleet, the ruin of his captured citadel, with its 6,000
cannon and vast military stores and ammunition. We
have been warned, indeed, with oracular solemnity, of
the dangers of a Baltic campaign ; we have been im-
pressively reminded of Moscow ; Napoleon the Third
is authoritatively summoned to take note of the fate of
Napoleon the First and his monster army before
General January and Field-Marshal February. But
that Old Bogy has ceased to frighten any who
can muster a tolerably competent knowledge of geo-
graphy. We all begin to know that Moscow in
the interior is not St. Petersburg on the coast—
that our fleets can land the largest armies with
ease, and without effectual opposition, on the shores
of the Friendly Northern Powers, within ten days'
march of the Russian capital, leaving Cronstadt behind,
and pressing forward to St. Petersburg, a place without
any naturat ;military defences-, Oncfs established on the
Netsooseascsimyrri eiourertitieneirif *sty well knows,
fresh forces from the `Baltic ; and we are on the high
road to Poland, to which kingdom will be sent, in the
van, the Polish Legion as a rallying point for their coun-
trymen and a refuge to Polish deserters from the Rus-
sian army. Our vast transport navy, too, would enable
us to threw our whole force on any given point before
the enemy could concentrate his troops, or march them
overland from the Crimea to the Baltic, or vice versa,
because it is the privilege of the assailant to choose his
point of attack, and the defect of the assailed that he
knows not where the stroke is to fall until it has actu-
ally been struck. The priesthood of Muscovy, too, who
care little for the Crimea, and who are all powerful with
the people who are their dupes, are, it is notorious, ter-
rified at the idea of the profanation of Holy Russia pro-
per by the hoof of invading infidelity ; and we may rest
assured that the sight of Pelissier and Codrington on the
high road to Petersburg would be like the pictures of
Cortez and Pizarro sent from the coast to Montezuma
in his capital. It is one of those mysterious dispensa-
tions of Providence which, "seeing as yet through a glass
darkly" we cannot explain, that sixty-three millions of
naturally harmless, homely, peace and hearth-loving peo-
ple, framed for gentle, kindly, good nature, should be
the slaves of a tyrant and the dupes of a superstitious
hierarchy, to their own destruction and the vexing of
the rest of their brethren of mankind. We feel—we have
always felt, the bitterness of the necessity which con-
strains us to the awful alternative and solemn responsi-
bility of war—to organise destruction—to plan waste—
to plot mischief—to reduce pain, poverty, ruin and death
to a science—to take upon mortal man, wfu se breath is
in his nostrils, the dreadful office of the Angel Azrael—
and sweep over the path like a hurricane, and ride on
the blast to breathe the palsy of the grave upset our own
likeness, dressed but in a different uniform. The very
thought of the fact that mankind has yet found no better
means of averting the curse of proud tyranny, and the
human ingenuity of the " monkey tigers" who play their
" fantastic tricks before high Heaven," makes us, al-
most in utter despair, abandon what seems to be a vain
attempt to "leave the world better than we found it."
He thinks most unjustly of his fellow-countrymen who
believe that it is not far more is sorrow than in anger
that we have been constrained to the self-protecting ne-
cessity of disarming the organised mischief that threatens
to overbear civilisation, public right, and the law of na-
tions, on the mere plea of the law of the strongest. Mr.
Cobden forgets that every fact he cites to show the int-
preenability of Russia only conclusively proves that her
million and a half of troops, her enormous stores of war-
like instruments, her large fleets, her endless fortifica-
tions, all advanced to the very frontier of her peaceable
neighbours, can never be intended for defence ; can have
for their object only burglary on the largest scale ; can
leave the rest of the community of States only the alter-
native of destruction or of being destroyed ; and that the
stronger and more formidable the array the enemy pre-
sects, the more pressing is the necessity of sapping her
power and crushing her forces. That has been our jus-
tification, that is the only justifiable ground for our ad-
vocacy of the prosecution of the war. The poor Russian
serfs, whose mild blue eyes and innocent looks, even in
the "torrent and whirlwind" of the fight, struck our
1 heroes with pity and melting kindness—
" We would carve out as a dish meet for the gods,
Not hack them for the hounds."
We rejoice, indeed, to think that " What next !" will be
very different from Mr. Cobden's prophecy, "and
next ?" .will diametrically reverse his yaticinations.
Russia is exhausted. She is alarmed thoroughly at the
prospect of a Baltic campaign, beaded by the Imperial
Guard, which has been recalled from the Crimea. In
her secret heart she is thoroughly sick of the war, and
has already been taught a lesson which will keep her
sincerely at peace for quite thirty years to come. She
has already accepted all of the points of the Conference
which it much concerns England and France to enforce.
The sage of the West Riding has been refuted by his
client's deeds, *sore conclusive than all the arguments of
his critics. The assertions of the enlightened cosmopo-
litan Englishman who has satisfactorily proved to him-
self that the Czar is certain of victory, just at the very
time it has "seemed good in his eyes" ignominiously to
give in, need so other commentary than the current facts
of history ; and if amid the general congratulations of
good citizens and generous patriots on the entire tri-
umph of their cause, and the glorious proof which has
just been given of the soundness of their judgment, there
is one fallen statesman for whose miserable position they
have no higher sentiment to express then the humilia-
tion of pity, and over whose reputation for " accereecY,
judgment, and common-sense they can only hum g
'Adess
or chant a requiem ; perhaps as Burns, in his dr
a dire
to the Dell," hopes that even Satan some day may be
pardoned, Mr. Cobden's countrymen, his affectionate
admirers, old followers, who still whisper—
" Cassio, I love thee,
But never more be officer of mine,"
may forget and forgive even his great errors, and reco-
ver their faith in his great powers, when, having con-
jured the Devil called a crotchet out of his mind into
the swinish multitude of Peace fanatics, they see him
once more going about "clothed and in his right mind."

The shipments of specie by the Peninsular and Chien.
tal steamer Euxine amount to 255,6411., of which
20,6901. is gold for Alexandria, Ceylon, and Madras ;
and 234,951/. silver for Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta,
showing that the check to the Eastern demand has been
only temporary

(From, the Times of this day.)
To those who have heard in the recent complaints
of military mismanagement merely,* democratic
cry it may be a 'consolation to find that' in a Re-
public there is also a " system" and a " cold shade
of aristocracy." England does not stand alone in
unpreparedness for the sudden outbreak of war ;
aged commanders, middle-aged subalterns, unre-
warded merit, disappointed hopes, and, we cannot
doubt, heartburnings, bitterness, and evil-speak-
ing, exist in the service of a State which- pro-
claims the equality of all and the extinction of any
aristocracy but that of nature. It is not with a
wish to retaliate the jibe's of Americans, and to
curb the exultation with which many of them have
regarded our failures, that we 'point to the testi-
mony of their own authorities to similar defects
among them ; nor, on the other hand, do we wish
to make it appear that such unfitness for war must
necessarily be the
result of a long peace, and that
our own country has Only passed through a phase
which was necessary, and might have been fore-
seen. The facts which :have just been published
concerning the American navy are valuable to us
as well as to the Americans' and we therefore call
attention to the narrative. Mr. Secretary Dobbin,
of the Naval Department, has addressed a long
report to the President of the United States. Very
volnminous is he in describing the doings of various
sloops and steamers scattered over the globe under
several Commodores. He then approaches the great
subject of naval reform. An act was lately passed
for the purpese of increasing the efficiency or the
'navy. Under its provisions 15 cabers' sat- as a
board of inquiry, and seem to have done their
duty with no light band. After a careful exa-
mination no less than 201 officers were found in-
capable of performing duty afloat. Some were
some on fur-
reserved on " leave of absence pay,"
lough pay," while 49 were altogether struck off the
rolls. The vacancies were filled up by promotions
"
in order of seniority. The meaning of this official
account is, that about half the officers of the
American navy were struck off active, service on
the ground of incapacity. We have also heard it
said that a large proportion of those who remained
were almost as inefficient, but that it was impos-
sible for the commission and the Government to
proceed further without almost extinguishing the
navy. The evil must have been great when the
remedy is so violent. It was said by the opponente
of the measure that only a small number of officers
were inefficient. " But, if that had been the case,"
says the Secretary, " would committees session
after session have pressed the measure ?" It ap-
pears that grave members even proposed to dis-
band the whole navy and to begin afresh. " The
press in every town and village fulminated its
thunders for reform." "It had become manifest
to all that something radical, thorough, and search-
ing must be administered to rescue the navy from
the dangers that imperilled it."
It is singular to find that among a people at
peace with all the world, busy with the develop-
ment of their country's resources, and with a firm
faith in voluntary efforts when war really comes,
there should have arisen au outcry for the reform
of the services almost as general as that which a
great war and the destruction of half an army has
caused in England. Yet the tone of the official
document we have quoted will show bow strong
must have been the feeling. If this be the style
of a report, what must have been "the thunders
of the press !" Indeed, some of the articles in
American journals resemble the British philippics
of a year ago. It is complained that the Commo-
dore and those who sustain him at home have no
world beyond the quarterdeck. "No one will re-
cognise in the common sailor the possible Lieute-
nant or Caytain." "Amidships there is a great
gulf fixed." Remove every barrier between the
forecastle and the cabin if you wish to have an
effective force. At present there is a degrading
distinction between the man and the gentleman.
Why shall not " the rough-handed man-of-war's
man be summoned from before the mast to the fel-
lowship and converse of the Captain's cabin ?"
There exists no reason except the "strong pre-
judice of routine, of habit, and of aristocratic sen-
timent." It will be seen from this Utopian style
of writing that our brethren of the New World
have their demands for administrative reform.
Whether they will introduce any such changes as
the journalist whom we have q4otell pontemplates
we cannot tell, still less •cr.otsfti iFel 'venture to
assert that the means proposed would solve the
difficulty, but certainly there seems a necessity for
some plan which will supply a due number of
young and skilful officers. From the showing of
their own authorities, the Americans have allowed
routine and incapacity almost to destroy the ser-
vice of which they boast so much. On the in-
crease of the navy the Secretary has much to say.
He advises the immediate construction of steam-
sloops, each carrying about 20 guns, but with a
light draught of water. He points out the
difference between volunteer service by land and
sea, and urges his Government not to trust too
much to the sadden enthusiasm of the people.
The country, he says, is not better prepared for
war now than it was in 1812. He argues that a
weak navy is worse than none, for recent occur-
rences in Europe have shown that it may be neces-
sary to destroy such an insufficient force, to avoid
enriching the enemy by its capture. The Secretary
then passes to the political aspect of affairs. He
shares in a feeling from which few Americans are
exempt. The alliance between France and Eng-
land may not be confined to the eastern shores o
the Atlantic. Contrary to the expectation of the
world, this alliance was formed and has lasted
through trial and success for three years. Inter-
ference in the New World is not without a pre-
cedent. Indeed, it was with regard to the affairs
of Texas that the first notion of such a common
action was entertained. The American Secretary
therefore thinks it well to be prepared for danger.
" Our institutions," he says, "if they do not excite
positive jealousy among the European Powers, are
not the objects of a large share of their esteem,
and weakness may sooner or later invite the inter-
ference of those whose ideas of regulating the
balance of power may so expand" as to take in
American relations. Mr. Dobbin then enters into
the details of construction, and afterwards devotes
a long section of his report to the raising and edu-
cating able seamen
That a nation like the United States, which
possesses a vast commercial marine and posts on
two oceans, should be without the means of form-
ing a navy is, of course, impossible. The mer-
chant service must be the chief reserve in a
maritime war. States which, without commerce
or enterprise, call a naval force into existence to
gratify the pride of a Sovereign or the instinct of
aggression, only succeed in producing a feeble
exotic, which the first blast of war must destroy.
England and the United States are in a very diffe-
rent case. The one possesses actually, the other
potentially, a powerful navys In our case distant
colonies—fortresses on so many of the great head-
lands of the earth—unite with our neighbourhood
to great military monarchies in forcing us to keep
up continually a large armei force. The navy has
always been popular in this country, and, whatever
truth there may be in the complaint that land
armaments were stinted, yet certainly Portsmouth,
Chatham, and Plymouth can fear no comparison
with the naval ports of other nations. It is grati-
fying to hear on all sides that the British navy ss
in a state of the highest efficiency. Discontents,
of course, exist among those whose services no yna-
ro-
motion has rewarded, either through want of
• but there exists
tural energy or of family interest
a sufficient amount of zeal, education,
and patrioof these evils. It-
n
ism to overcome the effects
America the same or similar evils are found, while
the service has not yet received that impulse which
can raise it above them. It is probable, however,
that the report of the Secretary will receive the
approbation of the Government and
people, and
that the present year will be an era in the develop-
ment of a Transatlantic navy.

( From the Morning Advertiser of this day.)
The clubs, and. the 'West-end generally, were last
night rife with rumours of every conceivable
variety. Among those which were most current,
was one to the effect, that Lord Palmerston and
Lord Clarendon contemplated resigning office im-
mediately after the meeting of Parliament. The
ground. assigned for the alleged intended return of
the seals of their respective departments into the
hands of her Majesty is, that they have been from
the first dissatisfied with the Austrian conditions
of peace, and that they had only given a reluctant
consent to them, because they were subjected to a
pressure from the Court, and from a majority of
their colleagues, which they could not resist.
It is right we should expretis our disbelief in thet
reported fact of the two noble lords having resolved!.
to resign, because they could not do so, with any
show of reason, on the ground alleged, after.bsving
given in their formal adhesion, however unvril.h.ngly
they may have done so, to the Austrian Propositions.
At the same time, however, we are assured, from
•what we regard as good authority, that both the

(From the Friss.)
We believe the peace to be essentially wise and
just. But how will it be received by the country ?
We fear with great dissatisfaction. The moderate
terms we have received fall so far short of the ex-
pectations excited, that we shall not be surprised
to find its conditions excite a frenzy of discontent.
Deception of all kinds, but political deception in
particular, commonly hears within itself the seeds
of chastisement. Probably it will do so in this
case.
Who was it that deceived the people with false
hopes ? Who promised them enormous political
results from the war ? Who spoke of remodelling
the map of Europe—of wresting the Crimea for
ever from Russia—of exciting a social and Govern-
mental revolution within her borders ? L9t these
men answer at the bar of public opinion for their
declarations, and let them stand -convicted of the
grossest insincerity or the simplest folly.
Those who were most forward in exciting immo-
derate expectations have, by a just retribution,
been the very men officially instrumental in disap-
pointing them. The general character of the peat
will satisfy the Conservative party—will it satisfy
the Ministerialists ? How curious has been the
destiny of the two last coalitions ! Lord Aber-
deen's peace Government against its will drifted
into war, and Lord Palmerston's war Government,
equally against its will, has drifted into peace. In
each case the reputation of England has somewhat
sunk through the want of principle on the part of
its rulers.

Equally strange is it that the Conservative Op-
position has supported both Governments in acting
tgainst their inherent convictions and principles.
We forced Lord. Aberdeen to engage in a war ne-
cessary to the honour of England and to the
Security of Europe ; we have forced Lord Palmer-
*ton's to-agree to a peace now that- the objects of
the war are accomplished. A few weeks back we
were threatened with a dissolution. What would
be the prospects of the Government with a disso-
lution now ?
In our future history this war will occupy a page
of mingled gloom and glory. It has been clouded
by faults of administration almost beyond belief
from their grossness, and by shameful timidity on
the part of the Executive. But it has its bright
side. The patriotic spirit of the people has never
failed ; they did not need the stimulants applied
to them ; and our army, notwithstanding that it
constantly moved in fetters, sever displayed more
invincible heroism. Above all, this war has de-
stroyed for a generation to come the miserable fal-
lacies of that school of politicians who, in their
silly eagerness for peace, would. deprive us of the
arms which give power to enforce it—who would
rob us of our best possession and. dearest birthright
—our high place among the nations of the world—
and expose us to become the scoff and prey of States
with more martial instincts and keeuer insight into
the nature of humanity and the history of man-
f kind.

GOVERNMENT ONE-POUND NOTES.

In political circles, 'and even on 'Change, it is said
with the emphasis of more than the usual authority for
such on dits, that Mr. Jas. Wilson, the Secretary to the
Treasury, and who ought to and will be Chancellor of
the Exchequer some day, after he has undergone a
lengthened Treasury probation, has arranged a plan of
finance to meet the current exposes of the war, which
has received the adoptive sanction of the Treasury.
Twenty millions of State one-pound uotesare to be issued,
not convertible, but to be made a legal tender for all
duties and taxes of the Government. This, in fact, will
amount to a loan t) the State without interest. Of course
terms are fixed at which these not& are to be redeemed
in gold. We are told that this scheme has the sanction
of all practical men, although it in loudly denounced by
curre-icy theorists of the Peel school. All banks have
a considerable portion of their c4ital in Consols. This
plan will raise that security at least 5 per cent. It can-
not fail in, perhaps, a greater proportion to raise railway.
stock ;nd debentures and other shares ; it must make
money more easy to the merchant, and relieve pressure
on the springs of industry. Abe " little shilling" inte-
rest of Birmingham will, no doubt, see in the scheme an
acknowledgment of the principle for which they have
so long contended ; but, if so„ why that will be only one
more section of the currency doctors whose support it
will conciliate. At the Stotik Exchange the project h
caused a good deal of talk and some action. The ris
in Consols oniWednesday.
,rsay. be traced partly to that
cause. Now, however, that the prospect of peace may
render further loans unnemtssary, it seems.to be doubted
whether the measure, well adapted to a war footing,
may be further entertained. It must not be forgotten
that we have further bills to pay, and that we have
already incurred a heavy debt in the shape of "dead
i weight" or pensions.—Wcekly Dispatch.