The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-16 00:00:00

GUN AND MORTAR BOATS.

Sir C. NAPIER moved fora return of the names of the gun
and mortar boats with the short bolts, and the names of the
builders; and of those which were now fit for service. He
could not, he said, see why the Admiralty should screen
the contractors who had built vessels which were dangerous
to human life. Probably the contractor himself knew no-
thing of the insertion of the short bolts, which might have
been put in whilst he was sitting in his office, but still, con-
tractors who carried on business so carelessly should be
published and exposed. It might be hard to publish their
names, but it would be much harder to drown MO men, who
after going to sea in full confidence in the strength of their
vessel found her go to pieces in the first gale of wind. On
the former occasion the noble lord made no objection, and
he (Sir C. Napier) did not see any reason why he should
now change his opinion. It would in his judgment be

c4,tui b. He
wanted to know also how many of those boats were fit for
service ; 164 had been mentioned in another place, of which
two had been broken up. He believed that the whole would
bo found to be in a bad state. Sixteen, they were told, had
been repaired, and ho wanted to know why at that time the
inspectors of the navy did not examine them and report the
result to the house. It was said that the Admiralty were
going to:prosecute ; if so, let the house have the names.
He knew the names and would hand them out. The builder
of the Caroline, which had 100 short bolts, was Mr. Green,
and if it was not Mr. Green, let the noble lord tell him who
it was. This story of the gunboats was a very serious thing,
for he very much feared that many of the larger vessels of
recent construction were as bad, and it was of importance
that it should be known whether the sail of the line we had
were efficient or not. He was in company the other day
with a gentleman, one of the largest shipowners of Ame •
rice, Mr. M'Coy, who told him that he had recently been
travelling in France with a Prussian gentleman; that he
visited the port and dockyard of Toulon, and that our dock-
yards bore no comparison with what he saw there. There
were employed in Toulon dockyards, according to this gen-
tleman's statement, 116,000 men ; the works were tremen-
dous ; they wore fitting out, and could fit out and send to
sea in a fortnight a fleet of 20 sail of the lino. They had
also at their command all the steamers belonging to Passa-
geres, or those employed for post-office purposes and the
conveyance of passengers. They had an immense amount
of material collected, and they had besides a number of
transport boats, 260 feet long men, capable of carrying a
large force of men and horses. He (Sir C. Napier) asked
Mr. M'Coy, " Can you tell me, or do you know of your
own knowledge that they could at Toulon within a fort-
night not only fit out these vessels but send 30,000 men to
sea in them ?" " I have not the slightest doubt of it," was
the reply. Then he asked, " And suppose they were to
send on by railroad all their men from Cherbourg and
Brest to man the fleet, could they in that case do it sooner?"
The answer was, " Considerably sooner." Well, that was
the position in which we stood as regarded Franco. The
right hon. gentleman told them the other day that the coun-
try was not in a very safe state, and they had since heard
that Russia was collecting an army on the banks of the
Truth, with what object it was not difficult to guess. The
late Emperor of Russia was looking out for the death of
" the sick man." But the sick man, by the aid of
France and England, recovered for that time; but
was there no reason to apprehend that the sick
man might not be again ready to receive medi-
cine, and that a severe dose might not be pre-
paring for him ? What security had we that Russia
might not propose the same game to France that she wished
us to join in ? It might be France had declared she would
enter into no arrangement for the dismemberment of Tur-
key ; but they could all recollect that last year France de-
clared she would not attack Austria, but she did, and de-
prived her of one of her fairest provinces. Again, they had
been assured that the Emperor Napoleon had no designs
upon Savoy and Nice, and yet shortly afterwards they saw
those territories actually in his possession. (Hear, hear.)
In the same way he might now tell us that he was not
going to do anything in the East, but had we any reason to
trust him ? Suppose there were a secret design on the part
of Russia and France against any part of the dominions of
the Porte—Egypt for instance—the first news we should
hear of it would be that an expedition had sailed for Alex-
andria, and perhaps had landed. We had a respectable
naval power in the Mediterranean-12 sail of the line—but
th t would not be sufficient to cope with the 30 sail which
France could iu a few days equip and send out from Toulon
fully manned. It was well known that the first news we
had here in England of the first Napoleon's expedition
against Egypt was the intimation that he had landed there
with an army of 40,000 men ; and at that time, be it remem-
bered, there was nothing but sailing ships ; and now, when
the motive power was steam, the army might be transported
there in less than a quarter the time. lie thought the
Government ought, at least, to be able to satisfy the house
and the country as to what was the exact state of our navy
—how many ships were efficient and sound, and how many
they could man in case of sudden emergency. In his
opinion, we could not man many more than we had now
in commission. The Government had not carried out the
recommendations of the Manning Committee—indeed, they
had done little or nothiiig towards it. He was mistaken
the other night when he said that we had a reserve of 7,300
coast-guard men. He found we had only 3,200 regular
coast-guard men, good seamen, fit to be embarked ; then
they had only 1,900 district ships' companies, that was
to say, men to man the old hulks, and they had 1,500
revenue men, mere civilians, totally unfit to go on board a
man-of-war ; and they had, besides these, 600 men on board
the revenue cutters. The result was that--instead of a re-
serve of 12,000 men, as recommended by the committee
they had at most between 6,000 and 7,000 real good men.
It was said they could not fill up the coastguard reserve,
but they might easily do so if they reduced the qualification
to seven years service. It was said the other evening in
the House of Lords that we could get as many sailors as
were wanted—that they were coming forward freely. If so,
how was it they had not got the 4,000 men which the com-
mittee recommended should be always in our ports ready to
be put on board ?
The SPEAKER begged to remind the hon. and gallant
member that the question was whether a return should be