The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-04 00:00:00

NAVAL AND MILITARY INTELLIGENCE. the whole of the force may prove useful as bYingers, and
that for every recruit brought to any of the e nlisters, and
Intermediately or finally approved, you will be respon•
sible that they should receive the bringing money esta-
blished by regulation.—l have, &c.

The officers commanding the three depot batta-
lions at Chatham garrison.received orders from the
War-office on Saturday directing them to hold in
readiness all the available non-commissioned offi-
cers and men, under their respective command; to
embark during the present month for India, fur the
purpose of reinforcing the regiments now serving
in the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay Presidencies.
The three battalions can furnish upwards of 1,500
troops for India whenever the order for embarka-
tion may arrive. The whole of the troops at Chat-
ham now awaiting embarkation are equipped with
the Enfield rifle.

Upwards of 1,600 recruiti enlisted during the past
week for regiments serving in India ; this does
not include the volunteers for the East India Com-
pany's European troops—nearly 400 for the last-
named service having been enrolled during the
same period.
The following Captains have accepted the ret;ra-
ment of 18s. per day :—Ralph Barton' John
Simpson, G. C. Macdonald., and George Brown.
There are, however, still three vacancies on the
retired list.
The Diadem, 31, screw corvette, Capt. Moorsow,
C. 8., left Spithead on Saturday aternoon on a
cruise.
The Victor Emmanuel, 91, new screw t wo-decker,
was taken out of the steam basin at Portsmouth on
Saturday, and will probably be taken out for trial
this day. The 51-gun screw frigate Imperieuse
takes the vacant place in the steam basin, to be ad-
vanced for the steam reserve.

The Lady M'Naghten steamship, Captain Cow,
arrived at Spithead on Saturday from Gibraltar with
convicts whose terms of penal servitude have ex-
pired. She landed them and sailed for Deptford.
It is reported that Vice-Adrairal of the Blue
Arthur Fanshawe, C. 8., will succeed Admiral
Lord Lyons in command of the Mediterranean sta-
tion, and that the Royal Sovereign, 131, will relieve
the Royal Albert, 121, as flagship.
The screw storeship Industry, laden with naval
stores for Gibraltar and Malta, is- ordered to sail
from Woolwich to day.
Master Commander Allen has removed his pen-
nant from the Banshee and resumed the command
of the Vivid after repairs at Woolwich. The crew
have been granted Eight days' leave, prior to join-
ing special service.
The following appointments were made on Satur-
day at the Admiralty :
Thomas Warr, Second Master, to the St. Vincent;
W. Nichol, Acting-Assistant-Surgeon, to the Vic-
tory; and C. W. King, Clerk, to the Fisgard.

"B. H.4I.WES."

MR. LANGSTON AND MR. CARD WELL AT

The annual Druids' gathering took place in the
Town-hall, Oxford, on Friday evening under the
presidency of Mr. John Bacon. Mr. Langston and
Mr. Cardwell, the city members, were present, and
Mr. C. Neate, late M.P. and Professor of Political
Economy in the University of Oxford, the Mayor,
and many of the leading inhabitants of the city.
The health of the city members having been
drunk.
Mr. LANGSTON returned thanks, remarking that
when he had the pleasure of addressing them on a
formor occasion he assured them that he should
feel it his duty, as their representative in Parlia-
ment, to do all that lay in his power to carry out a
system of economy and retrenchment in the army
and navy. At that time there was no apprehension
whatever of a European war ; no one—he believed
not even the Ministers of the Crown—had any
idea of what was likely to happen in India. It
might appear to them a most extraordinary thing
that the authorities in this country should have
been so perfectly unprepared that an army con-
sisting of 100,000 men should break out into open
mutiny without the Government having any
knowledge of it. That such a state of
things should exist was most extraordinary, The
country had yet to learn what course the Govern-
ment pursued, and whether or not they had really
done their duty ; but without further adverting
to that subject the question to be decided was, on
what principle was our Indian empire hereafter to
be governed d It was well known that her Ma-
jesty's Ministers had announced their intention to
propose a great alteration in the present system of
administration in that country, and he sincerely
hoped that they would so well consider the question
as to be able to propose a plan which would place
the future Government of India on a firm and solid
foundation. That subject would, no doubt, occupy
so much of the time and attention of Parliament
in the forthcoming session that he was greatly
afraid the measure which Ministers had promised
for a reform of the representation of the country,
and which so many of his constituents were anxious
to see effected would be necessarilypostponed. They
had been assured by the Government that they would
be prepared to introduce a measure having in view
su;h an alteration in the national representation as,
in their opinion, was desirable fur the country at
large. He eiecerely hoped that such a measure
would be brought forward, and although there was

no chance of it baing carried so far as to become the
law of the land, no doubt the subject would be fully
discussed and the Bill be laid upon the table of the
house so that it might receive a careful consideration.
(Hear, limn) One other event had occurred during
the past year which would, no doubt, be long re-

membered, besides the mutinywhich had taken place
in India. That event was one of a very serious
nature to the whole nation, because it had inflicted
great losses upon persons connected with the t►ade
of the country,—be alluded to the difficulties and
disasters which had fallen upon the monetary and
commercial classes. They were aware that that
subject had been referred to a committee of the
House of Commons, and as it was one in which
his right hon. colleague (Mr. Cardwell) had taken
a leading part no doubt he would be placed
. .

upon that coalmittee. He hoped their united
labours would result in producing such a measure
that hereafter the banking and commercial interests
of the community would be placed upon a firmer
and safer foundation. (Loud cheers.)
The Right Hon. E. CARDWELL on rising met
with a most enthusiastic reception, the cheers from
all parts of the hall being again and again repeated.
He said ho returned them from the bottom of his
heart his sincere thanks for the honour they had
been kind enough to pay the members who repre-
sented them in Parliament,—to the chairman for
the manlier in which he had proposed the toast,
and to the company for the manner in which they

had been kind enough to receive his name. It was,
indeed, as the Chairman had truly told them, one
of the principal characteristics of this noble people
and this free Government that men exhibited all
the properties which belonged to civil conflict on
the occasions of conflict, but on occasions of
peaceful intercourse they could all meet in a
spirit of common friendship and individual
feeling to discuss and consider those subjects
which were the common property of Englishmen
and the common interest of every subject of the
Queen. (Cheer 3.) The year which had passed had
left upon the mind and heart of Engl'tnd deeper
traces of sorrow than any year that we had ever ex-
perienced or had ever read of. He could not bear
to dwell on those occurrences, and if he was able he
would erase them from his memory, for events had
occurred which had not only afflicted but disgraced
humanity. Let them rather turn to other things
and other subjects which arose from the same
transactions, and let them contemplate the

magnanimous courage of their soldiers acid the un-
paralleled fortitude displayed by English nrn and
English women, which had been unexampled in a!1
the nations of the world. (Loud cheers.) In former
years there were no pages of our history on which
we dwelt with more enthusiasm than those which
recorded the victories of Clive and Wellesley—the
days of Plassey and Assaye. That reminded him
of some old lines he had learnt in his younger days
which ran thus :
" Shout, Britons, shout,
" For the battle of Assaye !
" For that was a day,
" When we stood on our way,
" Like a lion turned at bay,
" And the battle cry
" Was ' Conquer or die.' "
(Cheers.) But, had they not seen those painful,
yea, harrowing events which had taken place in the
year that had just closed. They should remember
that a few men, scattered over a large district, had
firmly held their own against the sudden mutiny of

a united army, trained by ourselves in the use of
the weapons of Europe An warfare, and who had
used them, above all and more than all, with a
cruelty which unfortunately seemed to be the dis-
tinguishing chameter of Asiatic warfare. They
should remember. alse, that the city of Delhi was
for several months besieged by an army scarcely
so numerous as a garrison, while it was defended
by a garrison far more powerful in point of num-
bers than the besieging army. Then, again, they
had witnessed the advances of Havelock—(loud
cheers)—when every day there was a conflict, and
every conflict a victory. (Renewed sheers.) The
names of those who had accomplished those achieve-
ments had become household worth on the hearths
of every Englishman, and it was almost impossible
to particularise in one speech the names of those
who were .now invested, in all time and history,
with the panoply and reputation of heroes. But
it was not martial courage alone which constituted
the most striking achievinent of this eventful year.
Great as had been the victories of our soldiers iu
battle there was one other virtue that seemed to he
the attribute of our race, which he thought had
been exhibited in a still more remarkable degree.
He meant the patient suffering, the firm and steady
endurance of those who, having no weapons in their
hands—men, women, and children, who, when
there was nothing for them but to endure the ex-

the religion which we professed. And it was in
that spirit of justice, of mercy, and of truth that
the Government of the Queen of England over
200,000,000 of an alien race: must be administered.
(Cheers.) His hon. colleague had alluded to ano-
ther subject which in the course of the past year
had brought sorrow upon this land—he meant the
collapse of the commercial community, which I a
reduced great houses from apparent prosperity to
immediate distress, and had been the means in
some parts of the country of throwing honest work-
ing men out of their accustomed occapatiotis, de-
priving them of the wages of their labour, and
exposing them to those trials which had bean re-
current in our commercial history. But he hoped
and believed that scarcely any district had been
less affected by the calamity than the city and
neighbourhood of Oxford, and he was sure that if
the committee which had been appointed by Parlia-
ment to investigate the causes of that calamity
should have it in their power to suggest any means
by which its recurrence in the future could be pre-
vented, there were no persons who would more de-
serve encouragement than the honest tradesmen
and labourers in their efforts to discourage to so-
called facilities of commerce, too readily afforded—
than the citizens of Oxford whom he hud then the
honour to address. Let them hope that the Govern-
ment of the country might be effectually promoted
in the year which was then opening, and that other
nations, emulous of our commerce, would follow in
the same course, and that their better government,
where liberty was combined with loyalty and order,
might be greatly extended over other nations of the
world. (Cheers.) He had lately had the privilege of
visiting a country which in the late war was our
cordial ally—he referred to Sardinia, where institu-
tions similar to our own were working with succes.4,
where our commercial policy had been adopted, and
where, although bounded by France on the one side
and Austria on the other, that commercial policy was
firmly maintained. (The right hon. gentleman
resumed his seat amidst loud cheers.)