The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-03 00:00:00

THE GALES.

PORTSMOUTH, Jan. 2.*
The Norwegian ship Oscar, Captain N. 0. Bull,
from Shields for Alexandria, with a cargo of 95 keels
of coke and bricks, was towed in here to-day leaky,
with 'boats smashed, decks swept, and otherwise
damaged seriously by the violent gale in the Channel
on Sunday last. The ship had a remarkable escape
from total loss, with the lives of all on board, on
Sunday. Captain Bull had decided early in the
morning to give up further contesting the gale, and
run back for the inside of -the Isle of Wight for
shelter. The gale was blowing furiously from about
S.S.W., with a tremendous sea running, and the
ship was enveloped in such a whirl of wind, rain,
and spray that nothing could be seen twice her length
ahead. All hands kept a sharp look-out, and at
about 11 30 a.m. the captain saw, to his horror, close
ahead of the ship, a man walking on land with a
child in his arms, and a white stone tower on the
ship's starboard beam. The ship was running in dead
under the cliffs near Black Gang Chine, where the
Clarendon Indiaman was lost, and scores of other
vessels before and since then, and the white tower
on the starboard hand was found to be the lighthouse
on St. Catherine's Point. Immense breakers were
tumbling in astern of the ship over Rocken End Reef,
while ahead the sea was dashing itself in mighty
rollers on the face of the cliffs. There was but one
chance of escape for the ship, and this was grasped
and followed with the true seaman's instinct by
Captain Bull. The human voice was powerless to

convey orders over the ship's deck, but signs were
sufficient, for all saw the danger readily enough,
and also saw the door for their escape if the ship
could only weather the rocky point of St. Catherine's
with its ghostly-looking tower. The ship's helm was
put down, port braces hauled in, and the ship laid
as close as she would to the wind, when the point
was seen to show itself slightly under the lee of the
ship's bow. It was life or death to all on board.
The ship might, by the aid of a favourable puff and
the steadiness of her helmsman, pass to windward
of the point, where she would be safe, or, with less
favourable conditions, she would go ashore and
smash her frame at once in a hundred pieces on the
huge rocks which occasionally lifted their heads
above the foam. The Oscar did pass, but not un-
scathed. Three times she struck the ground heavily,
but, fortunately, on neither occasion did she lose her
way, keeping her course close in and parallel to the
cliffs from St. Catherine's towards Ventnor. Twice
the sea took possession of her deck and threatened
to sink her by its sheer weight, but the ship shook
herself free of the water, and held on her way gal-
lantly. On the first sea rolling in upon the ship in
a terrific wall of water the crew rushed below, and
the captain and mate sprang in the mizen rigging at
the moment it broke aboard. There was a dreadful
crash, boats and bulwarks were smashed, and the
ship's deck was left covered with shingle, which the
sea, in its fury, had torn from the beach at the foot
of the cliffs. A second time the ship was assaulted
by the sea and land combined in this strange man-
ner, and a second time emerged safely from the
shock, although again bearing marks of the fray.
The great danger was now passed, however, a safer
berth further off from the land was soon afterwards
reached, and in abouttwo hours more the Oscar was
safely riding to her anchor near the Nab lightship.
A pilot boat took in to the Norwegian consul at
Portsmouth, M. L. A. Vandenburgh, the news of
the critical and damaged condition of the ship, and
that gentleman having applied to Sir M. Seymour,
naval commander-in-chief, for assistance, the paddle
steamer Sprightly was at once placed at his disposal
and towed the Oscar to a safer anchorage at Spit-
head, whence she was towed into Portsmouth har-
bour yesterday morning. The Oscar is a ship of great
strength of frame, having formerly been a Danish
Government transport, and to this fact she doubtless
partly owes her safety when striking the ground in
passing St. Catherine's Point. The wind has mode-
rated to a stiff breeze from south-west, south of the
Wight to-day, but the barometer is unsteady, and
the weather now—sunset—looks as wild and unset-
tled as at any period during the present gales.
'I he Scotsman says of the storm in Scotland :
" The wind, which blew pretty fresh from the south-
west throughout the day on Saturday in the south-
eastern counties, increased gradually in violence after
nightfall till about midnight, when it was raging
with the fury of a hurricane, driving before it rat-
tling blasts alternately of hail and rain. Fortunately,
owing, no doubt, to the lateness of the hour when it
raged in its greatest, violence, the gale has not, so far
as we have learnt, caused injury to life or limb ;
but from the direction whence it blew, and the heavy
showers of rain that fell at regular intervals, it sent
down both the Tweed and Teviot on Sunday morn-
ing in tremendous flood. The water spread over the
Teviot-road leading up by Springwood, rendering
it all but impassable, and inundated the lower flat of
Maxwellheugh-mill, injuring a considerable quan-
tity of grain and flour standing there in sacks. The
flood carried down a good quantity of turnips,
branches of trees, and the usual floating wreck washed
down in inundations. On Monday the rivers had
much subsided in volume (marking in the afternoon
a little above 2ft.), and the weather, which was
clear and cold in the afternoon, became overclouded
after midday, and several heavy showers of snow
fell at intervals. On Saturday the steamer Islay
landed at Greenock the crew of the ship Lexington,
which had foundered at sea, off Islay, on Tuesday,
the 26th ult., one of the crew going down with
the ship. The Lexington sailed from Liverpool
forHavannah some daysprevious to the catastrophe,
and experienced very heavy weather after leaving
port. When off the coast of Islay on Tuesday, a
fierce gale blowing, an attempt was made to "wear
the ship," when she became unmanageable, and the
sea breaking heavily over her the master ordered the
boats to be got ready. Before the boats were launched,
however, the ship began to founder, and the majo-
rity of the crew had barely time to get away when
the vessel went down. One member of the crew
was carried down along with the vessel. The sur-
vivors were buffeted about all night in the small
open boat, but on the following day succeeded in
reaching the island of Islay.

The storms from the south-west have continued
with great severity in the Irish Channel. A late
telegram received at Liverpool from Cape Clear re-
ports that yesterday morning a full-rigged ship was
seen to go down.

PLYMOUTH, Tuesday Evening.

It has been blowing strong for several days. A
heavy gale commenced this morning from the south-
west, and veered with increased force to the south-
ward. The storm signal, a cone reversed, has been
up all day. The frigate Galatea, lying just inside
the breakwater, with top-gallant mast struck, parted
a chain, but was soon brought up again. All the
merchant ships in the Sound have two anchors down.
The ship Zimi, which left Liverpool a month since
for Bombay, put back here this afternoon leaky,
with loss of boats, bulwarks, and one man drowned.
The screw steamer London, from London for Mel-
bourne, due here to-day, has not arrived. The
Duke of Cornwall, ready to start at 4 this afternoon
for Dublin, is detained.

ADVERTISEMENT.I -Avoid medicines: they always ag•gra-
vate chronic complaints, but Du Barry's Delicious MOW-
Restoring Revalenta Arabica Food, which yields three times
the nourishment of the best, meat, saves fifty times its cost
in other remedies, and invariably restores perfect digestion.
strong nerves, sound lungs, healthy ilvo,r, pure blood: re-
freshing sleep, functional regularity, and energy to the most
disordered or enfeebled. We extract a fcw outtof 00,0e0
Cures :—Cure No. 58,216, of the Marchioness de Brehan,
of seven years' liver complaint, wastin4 away, debility,
nervousness, with a nervous palpitation all over, bad diges-
tion, constant sleeplessness, and the most intolerable nervous
agitation.—Cure No. 1.771. Lord Stuart de Decies. Lord
Lieutenant of Waterford. of many years' dyspepsia.—No.
19,832. " Fifty years' indescribable agony from dyspepsia,
nervousness, asthma, cough, constipation, flatulen:y,
spasms, sickness, and vomiting.—Maria Joily."—Cm e No.
16,270. Mr. James Roberts, of Frimley, Surrey, •of thirty
years' diseased lungs, spitting of blood, liver derange-
ment, and partial deafness.—Cure No. 47,121. Mies Elizabeth
Jacobs, of 'extreme nervousness, indigestion, gatherins, low
spirits, and nervous fancies.—Cure No. 54,816. The Rev. Jas,
'l'. Campbell, Fakenham, Norfolk, "of indigestion and torpi-
dity of the liver. which had resiste 1 all medical treatment,"
In tins,l lb., 2s. 9d. 21b., 4s. 6d *; Mb., 11s. ; 121 b., 225. ;
40e.—Barry )u Barry and Co., No. 77, Regent-street, London ;
also Philli tea dealers, 9, King William-street ; likewi-e
at 61, Gracechurch-street ; 4, Cheapside ; 49, Bishopsgate-
street Within ; 63,154, and 298, -Oxford-street ; 330, Strand;
54, Upper Baker-street ; 103, Tottenham-court-road ; 96,
Upper-street, Islington, N. ; Harvey, Notting-hill ; Close
lirothers, 65, High-street ; and Stubbs, Queen's-terrace, St.
John's -wcod, London ; and all respectable grocers aria die
wistis.—Beware of spurious imitations.

Sir William Hutt and the Austrian Treaty.

To Sir William Hutt and his colleagues will
always be due the credit of having, with much
labour and ability, negotiated the first step Of this
great treaty, which, if concluded, will form a se-
quence to the one with France, for which Richard
Cobden gained such renown. We think that Sir
W. Hutt has hardly received at the hands of the
public and the press of England the gratitude he
has thus well merited, and we fancy that this
may have arisen in some degree from a mis-
interpretation of his withdra.wal from Vienna
at a time when the negotiations were appa-
rently at their height. The, -facts of the case
were these :—Sir W. Hutt was sent to Vienna, from
the Board of. Trade, as chief of the English portion
of an Anglo-Austrian Commission, formed to dis-
cuss the relative systems of trade of the two nations,
with a view to a commercial treaty. The labdurs
of this commission progressed very favourably till
the end of June, :bringing before the eyes of the
Ministers of Austria many principles of commerce
of which they were totally ignorant ; and, by dis-
cussion and comparison of statistics, showing forth
on all hands the advantages of our unprotected
system. Towards the end of June a split in the
Austrian Ministry took place, and the Minister of
Finance and several members of the commission—
among whom was their chief, Baron de Kalchberg,
the minister of commerce—resigned office. The
commission was therefore temporarily dissolved,
with the understanding that it was to resume its
labours in October, when the Austrian Ministry
should have been reconstructed and the vacancies in
the commission filled up. The official position,
therefore, of Sir W. Hutt and his colleagues in
Vienna was, until the Austrian portion of the com-
mission should be re-formed, at an end. They were
accordingly for the time recalled to England. But
the new Ministry, more liberal in their views than
their predecessors, considering the investigations
already made by the commission to be satisfactory,
desired at once to enter into the practical discus-
sion of the treaty. The entire commercial com-
mission was therefore formally dissolved, and the
carrying on of the negotiations (now become, to use
an official phrase, purely a Foreign Office business)
fell into Lord Bloomfield's hands in his capacity of
ambassador.

It was felt, however, that the information gained
by our English Commissioners during their labours
ought not to be entirely lost, but should be brought
to bear in some practical way on the treaty. Mr.
Morier and Mr. Mallet remained therefore at Vienna
in a strictly private capacity, to give to Lord
Bloomfield the benefit of their experience in the
difficult negotiations of which he had the official
management ; and Sir W. Hutt was retained at
home to advise Lord Russell, in a similar manner, on
the various questions submitted for his decision.
The treaty just concluded is, with few exceptions,
identical with that originated by Sir W. Hutt, and
we feel that while due credit is given to Lord
Bloomfield and his assistants in Vienna, for their
share in its negotiation, the gratitude of the public
will be as freely bestowed on Sir W. Hutt, whose
able services her Majesty's Government have most
frankly acknowledged, not only by creating him a
K.C.8., but by formally communicating to him
their thanks " for the great ability with which, under
circumstances of much difficulty, he has conducted
the negotiations entrusted to him."—Morning Post.

THE POPE AND THE FRENCH ARMY,

ROME, JAN. 1.

The Pope, on receiving the congratulations of the
French officers, presented to his Holiness by General
Montebello, expressed his fatherly affection and
gratitude towards the French army in Rome, and
added, "This year especially I must express my
thankfulness, it being, perhaps, the last in which I
can bestow my blessing on them."
His Holiness, in conclusion, said
.that after the
departure of the French army the enemies of the
Church and of the Holy See would, perhaps, come
to Rome, but, remembering the example of Christ
in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Pope would pray
for the French army and the Imperial family and
the whole of France, and even for poor Italy,
afflicted by so many evils.

LONDON GAZETTE—Last Evening.

FOREIGN-OFFICE, DEC. 29.

The Queen has been pleased to approve of Mr. J. M.
Bailey as Consul at Glasgow for the United States of
America.

DOWNING-STREET, JAN. 2.

The Queen has been pleased to appoint Major-General
Sir Henry Knight Storks, G.C.8., G.C.M.G.; Russell
Gurney, Esq., Queen's Counsel, Recorder of the City of
London ; and John Blossett Maule, Esq., Barrister-at-
Law, Recorder of the town of Leeds, to be her Majesty's
Commissioners for the purpose of inquiring respecting
certain disturbances in the Island of Jamaica, and the mea-
sures taken in the course of their suppression.
Her Majesty has also been pleased to appoint Charles
Saville Bounden, Esq., barrister-at law, to be Secretary to
the aforesaid Commissioners.