The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-10 00:00:00

R. E. T. SMITI3'S BENEFIT.

It is no small affair, in these uncertain theatrical
times, to keep open a large theatre like Drury-lane dur-
ing the greater part of the year, paying punctually a
heavy reutal at.d the demands of an extensive salary list.
Many of late years have attempted it and failed ; but
Mr. E. T. Smith has succeeded, and we need scarcely
add that his success must be accepted as a proof of his
having satisfied the public by his management. Here,
then, is his claim (and a strong one, too) to the special
patronage which the public is invited to bestow upon his
annual benefit, fixed for Friday next. We sincerely
hope this well-grounded appeal will be duly responded
to, and that substantial proofs of regard will be offered
to the man who has contrived to keep our great national
theatre open honourably when, to judge by appearances,
nobody else could do so.

INIISS BESSIE DALTON.—This fascinating young artiste
has met with the most unprecedented success at Bir-
mingham, where she has been attracting crowded audi-
ences during the last three weeks. Amongst the moat
popular and favourite ballads by Balfe, ste.,
she has
been singing the new song in which she was encored at
St. Martin's•hall, entitled " Only room for two, and as
she has nightly received a well-merited encore we have
no doubt that on her return to London her charming
' and naive manner of rendering
will acquire for it that popularity which it bee already
gained at Birmingham, this quaint little ballad

DR. LIVINGSTONE.

trouble to neither friends nor foes. But they ex- I
petted more from Sir Charles. They thought he
The Rev. Dr. Livingstone is expected in London would strike a blow here and there ; that he would
this day. He arrived at Marseilles from Tunis on make the best use of his means, and then leave the
the 6th inst., and was then in good health. His responsibility of failure on the Government and
his country, that would not be content without
left arm is, however, broken and partly useless, it
something or other.
saving been torn by a lion. When he was taken We had a right to expect ,
that at all events he would make an effective
on board her Majesty's ship the Frolic, on the Mo-
diversion in the Baltic, and keep the Rus-
zambique coast, he had great difficulty sians in such a state of alarm as to detain
in speaking
a sentence of English, having disused it so long
on those coasts the regiments that were ulti-
while travelling in Africa. He had with him a
native from the interior of Africa. This man, when mately sent to the Crimea. Sir Charles did
I nothing that a man of no enterprise or ability could
ho got to the Mauritius, was so excited with the
steamers and various wonders of civilisation that not have done with half his fleet. So he may now
I write a letter a day and a pamphlet a week on this
he went mad, and jumped into the sea and was
subject, and he will only stamp deeper the impres-
drowned. Dr. Livingstone has been absent from I
. sion of disappointment which he has left on the
England 17 years. He crossed the great African
I British mind. He may not do much harm, for, to
continent almost in the centre, from west to east,
, use his own words, " he is not the Sampson to pull
has been where no civilised being has ever been
down the pillars of the State, and crush the Admi-
before, and has made many notable discoveries of
nistration beneath its ruins." But he will do no
great value. He travelled in the twofold character
good by his present course. If he really wishes to
of missionary and physician, having obtained a '
, be of service to the State, let him give it the beno-
medical diploma. He is rather a short man, with
fit of his experience by stating at length the wants
a pleasing and serious countenance, which betokens \
of the British navy. Supposing this unfortunate
the mosCdetermined resolution. le continued to
; hitch in the execution of the treaty leaves U 3 all
wear the cap which he wore while performing his our work still to do, and next summer sees another
wonderful travels. On board the Candia, in which fleet, in the lialtic, what suggestions has he to of-
he voyaged from Alexandria to Tanis, he was re- fer . We do not want a pamphlet of mere abuse in
markable for his modesty and unassuminc, man- the plausible form of advice, but distinct and simple
ners. He never spoke of his travels except in an- propositions for the improvement of the British
ewer to questions. The injury to his arm was sus- navy, and its adaptation to the various kinds of
tanned in the desert while travelling with a friendly work expected from it. We will assume his pro-
tribe of Africans. A herd of lions broke into their I positions to be good ones ; in that case, if they are
camp at night and carried off some of their cattle. adopted, then his credit is redeemed. If, on the
The natives, in their alarm, believed that a neigh- other hand, they are disregarded, and some disas-
bouring tribe had bewitched them. Livingstone
trolls result shows the wickedness of that neglect,
taunted them with suffering their losses through
in that case, too, Sir Charles's wisdom will be
cowardice, and they then turned out to face and.
justified, and posterity will draw the conclusion
hunt down the enemy. The doctor shot a lion,
that he did wisely himself to attempt nothing with
which dropped wounded. It afterwards sprang on
such inadequate means.
him and caught him by the arm, and, after wound-
ing two natives who drew it off him, it fell down
dead. The wounded arm was not set pro-
perly, and Dr. Livingstone suffered excruci-
ating agony in consequence. Great honours
await the doctor in this country. Lieut. Tickell,
the Admiralty agent of Candia, and the fellow-
passenger of Dr. Livingstone from Alexandria to
Marseilles, arrived at Southampton yesterday, awl
immediately called on Mrs. Livingstone there, to
deliver messages from her husband, whom she has
not seen for four years and a half. Before that
period she shared with him some of his African
labours and dangers. She is staying at the resi-
dence of Edward Randall, Esq., one of the magis-
trates of the borough, and has been sufferinc, much
from anxiety on account of the delay in the arrival
of the Candia. Some time previously her husband
had been mourned as dead for months. She was
almost overwhelmed with emotion to hear of the
safety of her husband after so many perils, and
was deeply grateful to Lieutenant Tickell or his
kindness and attention. As she is unwell, it is
thought likely that Dr. Livingstone, after pre-
senting himself to the London Mission House, will
proceed to Southampton, where probably he will
narrate his interesting experiences.

SIR CHARLES NAPIER.

SIR C. NAPIER AND HIS TRAIUCERS.

(Prom the Morning Advertiser.)
The generous and decided terms of approbation in
which Lord Palmerston speaks of Sir C. Napier,
in the correspondence which we published yester-
day, cannot fail not only to confound, for the pre-
sent, the calumniators of the gallant Admiral, but
to silence them for ever afterwards. Lord Palmer-
ston has, in the most handsome and manly manner,
calmly and deliberately declared, that the entire
conduct of Sir Charles during the protracted period
that he discharged the duties of naval officer, was
everything that could be wished—that it com-
manded his complete approval—and that with re-
gard to the circumstance of his not attacking,
Cronstadt, he displayed a sound discretion, inas-
much as it would have been impossible for
him to have taken that formidable fortress ;
had he unwisely made the attempt, the
British fleet would most probably have suffered
very great damage, and the Russian commander,
knowing the fact, would then have come out, and,
in the disabled state of our ships, might have
achieved a success alike disastrous to our naval in-
terests and discreditable to our naval name.

As the friends of Sir Charles Napier, we now bog
of that warm hearted, though not always—when on
shore—the most discreet of men, to repose hereafter
quietly on his laurels. He will never more be
called on to defend himFelf. Lord Palmerston has
triumphantly vindicated him, not only from the
charges which ignorant men, and, in some cases,
buffoons to boot, have thought proper to prefer
against him, but from all the charges which folly
and malevolence may hereafter bring forward. As
for Sir Robert Peel, if he had a spark of honour
or an atom of self-respect, he would at once resign
his situation at the Admiralty ; for it would not be
possible to imagine a more severe rebuke than that
which Lord Palmerston administered—by impli-
cation—to his ignorance, impertinence, and untit-
'Less for the office which he fills, when
declaring in the strongest and most explicit terms,
that the Gallant Admiral could not have taken
Crox.'-adt, and that he acted most wisely in not
maki g the attempt.

( Prom the Times. )
Sir Charles Napier is the fire-eater of the old
comedy, who, in the utter absence of achievement,
contrives to keep up an immense amount of cha-
racter. Had he only displayed against Russia a
tenth of the fury he has wasted on his own coun-
trymen the Baltic would not be now so inglorious.
Give him the provocation of a random word and
put a pen into his hand and he will scribble till he
goes to the bottom before he will . haul his flag
down. In this bloodless and waterless field he has
never shrunk from a battery, and never feared
either wind or current, rock or shoal. When the
exploits of our great admirals come to be written
Sir Charles Napier's career will be a splendid addi-
tion, not to the naval, but to the literary annals
of our country. Unfortunately, he is a piece that
will not go off when it is wanted, but is no sooner
taken up to be examined than it incontinently
bursts, and blows away all the fingers, or the eye,
or the jawbone of whoever is unfortunate enough
to touch it. He has a passage of words with the
Board of Admiralty in general, and Sir James
Graham, Admiral Berkeley, and Sir Robert Peel
in particular ; with nearly all, if not all, the press,
and with more others than we can remember. He
was very anxious to obtain his command, but no
sooner was he afloat than he began to abuse all
his captains and crews, and by the time it was
too late to correct the deficiency he began to abuse
his ships also, decaring that without another de-
scription of armament he could do nothing. Such
a course has not procured him much credit or con-
solation at home, and in despair he has attempted
to re-establisu his character by two rather unusual
appeals—the first to that 4‘ frank, open-hearted
sailor," as Sir Charles coaxingly calls him, the
Russian Imperial Admiral ; the second, to one of
his " best friends" our Premier. Sod) of these per-
sonages, evidently entertaining a profound horror
of Sir Charles's pen, are immensely civil. The Grand
Duke Constantine admits Sir Charles's account of
the conversation between them, and adds, that he
did not say a word to Sir R. Peel about Cronstadt.
Lord Palmerston says that, in his opinion, Sir
Charles "acted with sound judgment in refraining
from attacking Cronstadt with the fleet under his
command." The iirst accomplishment learnt by
men in high power is to express their meaning by
silence ; and what, perhaps, they don't mean, by
words. Accordingly, the Grand Duke does not say
a word on Sir R. Peel's real statement, which
was a general allegation, founded on common
report, that from the lowest midshipman in the
Russian navy to the Grand Dune there was only
one opinion of Sir Charles's want of enterprise.
Sir Robert Peel did not allege that the Grand
Duke had said anything about Cronstadt to him,
but only spoke of his opinion as a matter of
common report. As to the Grand Duke's con-
versation with Sir Charles, of course he would
naturally enlarge on the difficulties of an attack
upon Cronstadt, and could do so with perfect sin-
cerity, for nobody disputes those difficulties. Not-
withstanding the kindness of Lord Palmerston's
consolations—sipposing Sir Charles to have given
us a fair selection from them—we beg to call the
Admiral's attention to the significant fact that the
Premier does not justify Sir Charles's doing nothing
at all in the Baltic ; and as little does he account
for having himself consented to supersede him in
the command.

_ But there is another point which Sir Charles
himself has never yet explained, necessary as it is
to his justification. Why, in the world, did he
take
acommand which must be inevitably void of
result?____
.. Why undertake to attack Cronstadt if it
was impregnable ? Why scour the Baltic with a
huge fleet if it was to be au idle demonstration ?
Rad Sir Charles declined the command on these
grotnifi, he
h.would have rendered a real service to
Is eritintry by
supply the fatal e, inPelling
the Administraion to
defects of our navy. He and a
few of hissebrvrohetelatirf Admirals would have done a still
greater
difficulty was only years ago, when the Russien
had urged the y looming in the distance, they
formationcreek
kw of a flotilla adapted for
shore and
orahrfare. What Sir Charles may
have whisper
for
at on this subject does
not much signify,rairahr it is notorious that there
never was an ad
sea-captain who was not
icor
always for the build
of big ships ; always the
bigger the better ; mour:
and room above. -yriiand more tonnage below
to build more, in the
line rotting the cry eme`Butirte had 50 ships of the
;tsfracat..that all the signal
face of the notorious aneihe
victories had been won
Sir Charles
ones. Indeed, as far as we
call ships over lam)
all
question when he took
knew all the elements of the can "e,
wase world knew,
the command. He knew, for
what sort of a place Cronstadt > and the ap
proaches to it. If there was an
respective
of the
any error it
circuitous
the Russians had industriously magnified was that
line
usitous
the clan_
gers. The island of Cronstadt, the nature
north and south passages, their
and depth of water, the narrow and
channel that alone admitted ships of the
of the island, the fortresses that commanded south
tutah
different points and protected one another, theirt
triple tiers of guns—in a word, everything as it
stood at the beginning of the war, had been (lc_
scribed by every traveller, for they could not but
be seen on the way to St. Petersburg. Everybody
knew that Cronstadt was impregnable in the com-
mon sense of that word, and everybody had the
best reason to know that the forethought which
had made it so would not neglect any other great
port of the empire. What, then, did Sir Charles
mean by undertaking to do anything at all,, and
whatdid he suppose he undertook when he accepted
' th__ e command of the fleet ? Our own expectations
ne re _by no means highly raised ; and when Sir
Charles's friends went into those extravagances at
the Reform Club we ventured on me (;antis re-
so , ,
monatranawagainst a too confident tone. Sir
Charles,
expect that he
ever, himself did lead the country to
would do something—something
more than
sho
nothing, after abusing ingenious reasons for doing
using in turn the officers, fleet, I Admiralty,Government, and everything of his own
country.
Sir Charles may ,ovr
just as well swallow quietly
all that bas been said about him, for every word
his
more that comes from
knows
swill be so much sus- i
plusage. All the world
the
dhhffiocw it. was. They i
knew well enough that
un-
dertaking were immense, but then they
of the
thew.
expected a i
Napier to find a way to surmount But for 1
would
:Li/ found
this hope Government could easirni: e
many a plewnter fellow, who get
.on I
smoothly with his officers and •ea u
en, and (eve

.. ~~