The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-20 00:00:00

—and, pleasing the future to grant such days
again, who are to form the night expeditions,
when whole boats' crews, deserting sinking boats,
clamber up a vessel's side, cut through the board-
ing netting. and gain the deck by sneer activity ?
Is it to be expected that your drilled artillerymen
will capture and run the prize out of a hostile har-
bour as well as a party of: half men, half monkeys,
who can put their hands on every rope iu the
darkest night and almost make sail by instinct ?
for I presume that the steam would not be handed
over with the exact working pressure, on by the
enemy's engineer, and that it might be expedient
to have recourse to the much-despised sails.
Colonel &almonds says that it is well known
"the best gunners on board ships of war at the pre-
sent day belong to the marines." I have been in
the navy since I was 13 years old, and have never
heard of such an opinion being expressed either by
a professional or an unprofessional man ; on the
contrary, those who have had an opportunity of
judging have ever held that the best shots afloat
were English captains of guns; as regards their
practice on shore, I would invoke the testimony of
any artillery officer who witnessed the Naval Bri-
gade firing in the Crimea.
To drop the hypothesis of the batteries being
mastless, I would ask Colonel Simmands how his
marine-manned line-of-battle ship is to execute
either of the orders- to "furl sails" or to " make
sail," supposing her boats to be away, manned and
armed, and such a not improbable proceeding to be
necessary. How they would furl sails even under
ordinary circumstances I do not understand.
If it be true that our only resource for manning
the navy is reduced to this, then it would be surely
wiser to diminish the numerical force of our ships,
and man only those we have men for, in the same
fashion as England has always manned her navy,
and to which fashion it is that she owes her naval
renown.
But I deny our having arrived at this strait. A
standing navy has not yet been attempted, neither
has a permanent increase of wages been established,
a very different matter from the spasmodic bounty
system. Were an American frigate to arrive at.
Liverpool with her 160 per annum for petty offi-
cers, and £36 for able seamen, she would encounter
little difficulty in filling up vacancies. There are
yet plenty of men to- be hired, but the marine can
never be a substitute.
More efficient, more serviceable corps than those
of the Royal Marines and Royal Marine Artillery
do not exist. It is in no spirit of disparagement to
them that I humbly suggest the trade of seaman-
ship to be still needful—requiring apprenticeship
and training as much as any other trade—and that
every marine is not necessarily a "jack of all
trades."
Trusting, sir, that a naval man's opinion on the
subject of manning the navy may receive as much
prominence as a military man's.
I have the honour to be your obedient servant,
FREDERICK A. MAXSE; Captain R.N.
September. 17.

Sir,—Thnpreposal of Colonel Simmonds, in the
Times of this day, to man our ships 'chiefly Nvith
marines would, I fear, end in a short time in a de-
ficiency of marines as well as sailors. It must be
remembered that the corpi of Royal Marines is no
modern experiment ; it has nobly stood the test of
all trials for- 150 years, and in the words of a recent
report to Parliament, it is an " efficient body of men,
second to'none in the service of the State ; they are
excellent troops both as artillery and infantry."
A marine, to be efficient, should have his service
equally divided between land and sea, and if too
long on shore he loses his "sea legs," and, on the
other hand, if he is too much afloat lie loses his
" land legs," and, is no longer the same useful, man
he now is, "per mare, per terram." It is this.
change that makes the Royal Marine corps a popu-
lar service. It is at all times readily recruited, and
no men have a finer esprit de corps. It is wise to
" let well alone." At this time there are 12,000
marines embarked, and if the present fleet is to be
our ordinary. establishment it is evident there
should be the same number of marines in reserve on
shore ready for reliefs, or for embarkation on an
emergency. The reserve is under 54000, including
the Axtiliery.
With 40,000 continuous service seamen, training
ships for boys at all the ports, 24,000 marines, and
the introduction of a law for ships' court-martial,
there *avid be no difficulty in- manning the navy.
—I am, &c.,
Sept. 16.

A COLONEL, ROYAL MARINES.

Sir,—All wise men must admit that when you
are in real difficulty there is nothing so fatal as at-
tempting to "shirk " it. We are now face to face
with a riddle which we as a nation must either
solve or die. The questisn of manning the navy is
well understood by every thoughtful person in the
country to be that on which our political existence
depends, and it is the duty of every one to do what
he can to prevent the public from being led off on
a false scent. As I cannot but think that Colonel
Simmons has. with the best intentions, done some-
thing of this kind in your columns, may I be alloWed
a few words of criticism ?
How are we to find the means of meeting on the
sea a nation which has its whole maritime popula-
tion under an efficient system of inscription ? This
is the question, or rather only one part of it, I'4 it
may be our fate to have more than one such nation
on our hands. We have had quite lessons enough
to show us that this can be no longer left to chance,
and your columns, Sir, have con4ained many excel-
lent suggestions on the subject. Those which are
at all likely to be useful may be resolved into two.
We must either subject our seafaring classes tb a
system of registry and ballot,,apply the same prin-
ciple to the whole non-seafaring population for the
supply of local militia, or we must induce by very
high pay a large number of men to enter the ranks
of a permanent reserve force. I should myself pra-
fer the former, and believe it to be quite feasible.
No one has much hope from the plan which the 'Au-
thorities are about to adopt at present, and which
is neither one n6r the other. But Col. Simmons
proposes that we should cease to trouble our heads
about seamen at all, and supply their places to a
great extent by Marines. This would be, indeed,
an easy solution of the problem, if it were a solu-
tion, for Marines are the cheaper commodity e.nd
more easily obtained.
But has Colonel Simmons really considered what
the effects of such a wholesale change would be ?
Take his own ease of 700 Marines out of a crew of
1,000 in a line-of-battle ship. He must be well
aware that we dare not reduce our masts and
sails on board ship, in spite of :he introduction of
steam, because in war time coal must be reserved
for action, and the cruising must be under Bail.
When he has taken the officers, the engineers, Ithe
ship's boys, and the so-called " idlers " out of .the
300 who are not Marines, how many will he have
to go aloft ? He would, I suspect, be very sorry to
be in such a ship on a lee shore. Merchant ships
afford no parallel. They have not to brave the risks
of cruising men-of-war ; their safety does not de-
pend on celerity of movements ; as it is, many of
them are lost for want of a proper number of
hands. Or, take the manning of the ship's boats
into consideration. Who is to perform this duty ?
There will be but a small number of the 300 avail-
able, and it cannot be expected of the Marines. If,
indeed, it is meant that the Marines are to do the
duty of sailors then we shall have to call them
by their right names. They must have the same
pay, and will belong to the same class of men.
Their distinctive character as sea-soldiers, in which
they perform so admirable a part, would then dis-
appear, and the service would sustain a very grie-
vous loss.
But, it may be said, that Col. Simmons has over-
stated his case, and that instead of a proportion of
about one-fourth Marines in a ship's company, as
at present, we might safely increase it to one•third,
or even one-half. Mr. Lindsay differed from the
rest of his brother commissioners on this pI intbe, and
proposed something of the sort. Mw,believe
that a change, even to this extent, would be most
dangerous. We shall be called upon to match our-
selves against a fleet manned for the most part by
seamen. It will be a fatal error if we oppose them
at sea with soldiers. A Marine may be excellent
at gun drill under ordinary circumstances, and as a
small-arm man ;he will be also, at least those who
have been embarked, proof against sea sickness, but
in the emergencies of a general action, and especi-
ally in bad weather, it cannot rationally be expected
that he should have the qualities of one to whom
the sea is his natural element. The thousand critic it
contingencies which may occur under such circum-
stances demand the activity and the resources of a
man trained to depend on himself in a life-long con-
test with the winds and waves. The very qualities
of the Marine which make him so valuaole an
auxiliary on board ship and so useful when landed—
his training to act as part of a machine and his
excellent discipline—interfere with the power ht
is required to exert as an individual. Let any one,
for instance, study our naval actions in the great
war and ask himself whether soldiers could have
performed such fetes as our seamen in boarding the
enemy. Steam can make no essential difference in
this respect, nor the long-range guns. As in the