The Sun.
London, England, 1866-02-09 00:00:00

The controversy between the Admiralty and
Captain COWPER COLES has been of long standing,
and never, perhaps, have the unfairness and preju-
dice -which too often characterise our naval adminis-
tration been more strikingly and painfully exempli-
fied. Here is a gentleman of great experience and
undoubted practical ability suggesting an important
alteration in the mode of constructing our -war
vessels, yet although the Admiralty officials cannot
refuse to acknowledge his claims, they practically
refuse to give his system a fair trial. They profess,
indeed, to be anxioas to see it tested, and
engage him in an official capacity, but only
to tantalise him with all the postponements,
interruptions, and innumerable vexations which
make the sickness of hope deferred so weari-
some to hear. When they had agreed to give
his method a trial, instead of allowing him to build
a new ship, they were seized with one of their
periodical fits of economy, and cut down
a wooden three-decker. Nevertheless, in
1 spite of all the difficulties and the de-
' lays occasioned by the very half-hearted manner
in which the work was carried on in the dockyards,
the Royal Sovereign played her part so well that
she was a decided success. Rumour, always mali-
cious, whispered that she succeeded too well to
please certain parties at the Admiralty, and accord-
ingly there was a decided unwillingness to send her
to sea. She was sent to Portland and other places
round the coast, but when cross-questioned in the
House, the Admiralty officials declared that she was
only a kind of floating battery, and they were afraid
to run the risk of sending her across the Channel.
This was certainly rather aggravating to Captain
COLES ; but nevertheless he has gone on, endea-
vouring to improve and perfect his system, which
at the first had only been imperfectly tried. How-
ever, at the close of last year, it was suddenly an-
nounced that the Lords of the Admiralty had be-
come so far convinced of the merits of the turret
system that they were going to build a turret ship
themselves, the turrets to be of remarkable strength,
plated with armour of extraordinary thickness,
and carrying Armstrongs of 600 pounds
calibre. The most astonishing part of this
intimation was that Captain COLES, the redoubted
promoter of the turret system, was to have nothing
to do with this new sea monster, but that
Mr. E. J. REED, the chief constructor, was to be
the designer of it, and this after Mr. REED had
been universally regarded as the champion of the
versus the turret system, and after the Admiralty
had pooh-poohed and discouraged Capt. COLES'S
vessels in every possible way. Upon this Captain
CoLEs, with a very natural indiscretion, addressed
a letter to a contemporary, complaining very justly
that neither he nor his ships had had fair play, that
he had never received encouragement or assistance
from the Admiralty, and that the treatment he had
received was neither fair to himself nor to the
country.

The grievances of a disappointed and ill-used
man seldom, unfortunately, attract too much at-
tention ; but there was a sting in Captain COLES'S
complaint which the Admiralty could not but feel.
otrictures cm ar. ships, the Enterprise

I
and Research, the Pallas and Bellerophon,
none of which have succeeded in combining
strength and speed, or, as a satirical critic
once more strongly put it, " can neither
fight nor sail," contained, unfortunately, enough
truth to be very unwelcome. The consequence was
that Captain COLES was called upon by the Admi-
ralty to acknowledge or disavow his letter, and
adopted the only course possible to him, see-
ing his name was affixed to it. Upon this
the Admiralty dismissed him from his official
position, on the plea that it was contrary to the
rules of the service for any officer employed in it to
enter publicly into controversies on matters con-
nected with the profession. So Capt. COLES is thus
quietly disposed of, and his invention is to be carried
out by others, who will, we presume, reap all the
glory if it should realise the expectations formed
of it. Certainly we English have a singular method
of carrying on our naval administration and of
encouraging inventors. Since the days when we
executed an admiral pour encourager les autres
we have gone on doing our best to disgust
men of independence and ability with the
service. Were it not for the strong inherent
love for the sea and interest in all connected
with it that characterise Englishmen we should
probably have succeeded in rendering the service
and the dockyard alike unpopular. The Admiralty
has a very comfortable fashion of receiving every
plan and suggestion, and making no sign, neither
giving it a fair trial nor returning it to the
inventor. By and by, when the unfortunate
suggester of the scheme is wearied out, his
invention, if it be a good one, appears in a slightly
different form as the Admiralty's own ; after the
fashion in which we sometimes see rival theatres or
publishers bringing out the same play or transla-
tion with trifling alterations. There was an in-
stance of this not very long ago with the Shoebury-
ness target, which the Admiralty appropriated as
their own design ! The turret system is to be ap-
parently a more conspicuous example, only un-
fortunately the name of Captain COLES is insepar-
ably connected with it by the very controversy
which the Admiralty have occasioned.
Sometimes this system of discouraging the inven-
tor is carried a little too far, as in the notable in-
stance of Captain BLAKELY and his guns, which are
now being made for a foreign Power, and may one
day be turned against ourselves. We regret very
much the whole affair, both in the public interests
and in the interests of justice and fair play. Capt.
COLES'S system may be imperfect, and fail to fulfil
his expectations; but let it have a fair trial, when
the question will very soon be decided. The ex-
pense of one ship is surely not so very serious, con-
sidering the amounts lavished in every department of
our dockyards. Again, it is manifestly unfair
to take the whole matter out of Capt-ain. COLES'S
hands (he remarks in his letter of Jan. 10th that
he has not even seen the drawings for the new ship)
when he has never been allowed to carry out his in-
vention in the manner he wished. This is not the
way to secure the services of those men who arebest
qualified to improve the efficiency of our service,
nor to bring our navy up to what it really should
be. But all the previous injustice and harshness is
intensified by the dismissal of Captain COLES, by
which hasty and ill-judged act the Admiralty lay
themselves open to the suspicion that they wish to
get rid of the inventor, while they appropriate
his invention. Among the many causes of com-
plaint which the House of Commons has against
the Ministry we hope this will not be overlooked,
but that the whole affair will be thoroughly in-
quired into. Sir J. PAKINGTON, if he will take it
up, will prove a powerful champion, and we hope
before long we shall have Sir JOIIN HAY again in
the house to call the Admiralty to account, as he so
well knows how to do. Surely a great public in-
stitution should be above all petty jealousy and
meanness ; and surely, too, a department on
which the whole safety of the country
depends should be conducted rather with
regard to efficiency than to favouritism or pre-
judice. The least that the Admiralty can do to
repair their injustice to Captain COLES would be to
allow him to design ships for Messrs. LAIRD or
some other of our great shipbuilders. We should
not be surprised if they provoke him into resigning
his ungrateful country, and, after the fashion of
Captain BLAKELY, carrying his services elsewhere.
If the abilities of our own men of genius are to be
turned against us it will not be very pleasant, and
if we have to meet a fleet of COLES' turret' ships,
armed with BLAKELY'S guns, with some of our
Admiralty contrivances, it will be more flattering
to individual ambition than satisfactory to the
country.

CORRESPONDENCE PROM PARIS.

(FROM OUR OWN COU,RESPONDENT.)
PARIS, Thursday Evening.

The Paris papers of to-day of course review her
Majesty's Speech, and most of them in a favourable
spirit. The Journal des Debats says :—" We believe
that the Royal Speech will be well received in Eng-
land. It is very pacific in its assurances, and it
presents in a favourable light the various questions
with which the country is occupied at the present
moment. These questions naturally are not very
interesting to us, being exclusively English, and we
remark that the only point upon which we should
desire information, the rupture of the negotiations
in regard to the treaty of extradition, is passed over
in silence. Does this mean that the English Go-
vernment accepts purely and simply this interrup-
tion, and that it does not recognize the pos-
sibility, as far as it is concerned, of changing
the conditions of the treaty ? 'We recall to recol-
lection that the passage of the Imperial Speech re-
ferring to this subject expresses only a vague hope
of the substitution of new treaties for old ones."

The Siecle says :—" It was, no doubt, with the
idea of exhibiting a polite discretion that the Speech
does not say word about Mexico. Its silence about
Prussia and Germany seems to prove that on both
sides of the Channel the determination is to forget
Poland, and that the accomplished facts in Schles-
wig are accepted. The Queen was quite right in
saying that the union of the fleets of England and
France had contributed to cement the friendship of
the two nations, and to prove their amicable accord
in the interest of peace. We should have wished
to see this accord exhibited in the interest of liberty
and the independence of the peoples."
The real business of the session is about to com-
mence. In the Senate, the discussion on the Ad-
dress may be a little angry, but entirely harmless.
The Marquis de Boissy has taken care to be the
first on the list of orators. He will speak about
Algeria, the meeting of the French and English
fleets, and the arming of the French navy. I was
about to particularise other subjects on which the
marquis will speak, but it would be easier to notice
the few existing points upon which by possibility he
may not speak. Your readers, no doubt, will re-
member that this marquis is particularly ad-
verse to England and the English, and that he
said last session that nothing would give him
greater pleasure than a war between the two coun-
tries, and that he should be happy to be placed in
command of any expedition against England. The
other members, whose names are inscribed as de-
sirous to speak, are Baron de Vincent and Cardinal
de Bonnechose. The Baron means to take up the
subject of public instruction. Of course, I presume,
the Cardinal will take for his theme the necessity of
maintaining the rights and privileges of the Pope.
Your sporting readers will, no doubt, be inte-
rested with the following items :—Vermouth is at
Chantilly, and will soon be able to reappear on the
turf. The number of horses belonging to Count
de Lagrange is no less than 160. Baron -de