The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-23 00:00:00

glories of maritime England during these late pro-
cracted ,!
campaigns against Russian domination.P,
Bomarsund grappled after a comparatively]
bloodless struggle, for the most part by the braved
soldiers of Gaul shipped out to the nortl seas for a
few weeks' fighting, under the command of Mar-
shal BARAGMLY D'HILLIERS ! Kerbeh— fairly
trapped (without any phlebotomy at all to '-.}
speak of during the process of trapping)
with all its stores of grain, and ammunition, -:
And archwological curiosities, medals, bronzes, ',-
gimcracks, gewgaws, and all sorts of antique
lumber and mediaeval rubbish! Voila tout !
Hake the most of them—mouth them to the
uttermost—Kertch ! Bom-ar-sund ! There are
Nur triumphs in the North and. in the East—and
for these we suppose we have to-day been having
this tremendous kick up in the way of a grand
maritime demonstration ! ,
Elsewhere than in regard. to the two hole-in-
the-corner
successes here mentioned, it is impos- .:
sible, we maintain, to discern even the smallest '.
pretence for naval exultation. Odessa ?—Well, ..
Odessa we only blazed away at, for a few
hours at a time, to leave at last compa-
ratively .1
unharmed in undisputed. possession
of its Muscovite inhabitants 1 Sweaborg ?
Well Sweaborg also we favoured with a shower of
cannon balls and bombshells, thrown at it from a
safe distance of two miles or thereabouts, and never
seem to have dreamt of getting nearer to it by
A ship's cable-length afterwards I Sebastopol ?
Well, even Sebastopol we treated. from. the sea in
the same lubberly half-fashion, battering, and rat-
tling, and hammering at it, with broadside after
broadside, only to haul away from its fortifica-
tions towards evening, with nothing definitive said
3r done as to the bare possibility of its ultimate
subjugation by the iron-storm of our war-vessels ! ...
Nicholaieff ? Revel ?—Riga ?—Helsingfors ? =
Cronstadt ?—Well, perhaps the less we say about
,
those the better. Untouched, unharmed, unat-
s-
tacked, they are a standing satire upon this day's '
lemonstration off Spithead I They are at this :l
moment painfully stupendous commentaries in ;
stone and metal upon that braggadociose signal to
she Baltic Fleet—" Sharpen your cutlasses !"
sharpen their cutlasses ? Be hanged to it—if our •
gallant Jacks have been polishing away at them.'
'or these two years past, the blades
must have been pretty well worn down
'-,o the hilts by this time I " Sharpen
'our cutlasses ?" Pshaw ! It was not after this
llusterous, fire-eating fashion that glorious Jack
,vas signalled to victory in the grand old times,
,vhen we had, so to speak, Giants for our Admi-
cals ! Then—NELSON'S signal for bearing down
upon the enemy off Cape Trafalgar (we all know
;t) was, " England expects every man will do his
luty !" Then—HosTE's signal while leading his
)rave tars to glory at Lissa, was sententiously,
significantly couched in those two thrilling words

—" Remember NELSON 1" Now—Bah ! the
miserable contrast !—" Sharpen your cut
'asses !" Sharpen your fiddlesticks, quotha !
preparatory to getting into a " scrape !" Or
rather sharpen your wits a little, Sir CIIIRLES, be-
:ore indulging in bombast—instead of a bombard-
nent ! It would, however, have been rash, every-
oody tells us, to have run our heads against stone
yells, by venturing to attack such very formidable
strongholds as—say—Cronstadt or Helsingfors !
Rash ? Did PELLEw hesitate through any fear of
rashness before taking his ships of war into the
hay of Algiers, as into the arena of an immense
amphitheatre, and there thundering down into ruins
chose gigantic batteries, ranged tier upon tier from
;he water's edge to the summit of the great forti-
ied city ? And so, too, in regard to NELSON'S
,wo earlier victories—that of the Nile, fought a-
.nchor as well as at midnight, and that sanguinary
out glorious triumph won by him in spite at once
)f both the sea and land defences accumulated by
she hardy Danes before Copenhagen. Rash ?
rue great sea captains of old—{we speak of the
;imes of our grandfathers as of the days of anti-
pity they seem so far removad from us
)y contrast with our more prudent (might
we not say more timorous ?) generation]
lever pleaded rashness as an excuse for
lot, at least, attempting something in the
vay of hard-fighting. Rashness ? It was an ,
'xcuse unknown to MAKE—incomprehensible to
,his day, we undertake to assert, to our glorious
I,nd veteran DITNDONALD ! Yet by reason of a
,error of doing anything—[we can hardly blurt
;heword out, it sounds so strangely in connection
vith the British Navy]—rash, Ye Gods ! by
-eason, we say, of a terror of doing anything
LASH, our Admirals have brought their enormous
beets home Tote safely to get glorified by the
).,ueen and by the People (for doing absolutely
VOTITING) through the unparalleled incident of
his day's grand maritime Demonstration !

A very few hours must now bring the ratifica-
,ions of the so-called peace, and, what is far more
mportant, the terms of the inauspicious Treaty,
,he consummation of England's shame and Eng-
and's folly, and also the "cooked" protocols o
-,he several conferences by which so unfortunate

result was produced. The Parliament of Great
Britain will then have the - anxiously-looked•for
, )pportunity of discussing the entire question of
he War, and its most lame and impotent con-
Ausion in all its varied details, and of endeavour-
' ng to trace the workings of the secret and
.inconstitutional influences that paralysed the
thied Powers at the very moment when a
• teavy blow and great discouragement could be
' Inflicted on the enemy, and the future peace'
,nd tranquillity of Europe placed on a per-
,nanent and satisfactory foundation. Whe
•rher the real delinquents can be detested it
4 impossible to say. Great precautions have
doubtless been taken to secure impunity for the
parties concerned, but it seems certain that the
interests of Great Britaix have been deliberately
racrificed, that England has literally been sold
iror the benefit of Russia, of Austria, of Prussia,
!and of Belgium, and also of the petty German,
Principalities. The principle of Germanism has
triumphed, its spirit has been clearly in the,
I Iscendant, even the motive power that set the?
!wheels of this intricate machine in action. But
probably, according to the approved precedent in
such matters, it will be declared that nobody is
in fault, that all the mischief must be ascribed to
the " system."

11 We must patiently await the ratification of our
-lown disgrace and humiliation. By the "system. "I
,he representatives of independent constituencies,
have been prevented from expressing their views, 1
i,,vhile there was yet time to avert the evil. By
tilat "system." they have seen a heavy expenditure'
4,iiithorised for rejoicings, in which the People will:
Onot and cannot participate ; and that without the:
'
, assent cf the so-called guardians of the public:
purse being obtained, or even invited. But i 0
'cannot prevent the expression of public opinion,
C,l ,r the disgust and indignation that must be felt
kat the deliberate slights offered to both Houses.
:It ill true that the Lords and Commons
4 will be powerless to prevent, but not to avenge)
,he misconduct. Their positions will be there
k.l,if professional men called in to an inquest, to!
trace if they
can the cause of death, but unable to'i
owro the clooiaed patient. Bgttlet us hope that]