The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-13 00:00:00

Naval and Military Intelligence.

An Admiralry order was received at Portsmouth
dockyard yesterday to prepare the ironclad frigate
Royal Alfred, of 3,726 tons and 800-horse power
(nominal)*of engines, as the flagship of Vice- tidmi-
.ral Sir G. R. Mundy, the appoiertsd suc-
cessor of Vice-Admiral Sir J. Hope, K.C.8., in the
command of her Majesty's ships on the North Ame-
rican and West India station. The Royal Alfred is
a wood-built vessel, has her hull below the water-
line coated with Muntz metal in the usual way, and
is, therefore, for an ironclad, a peculiarly suitable
vessel for service in Westlndian waters. Her broad-
sides are clothed centrally with 6-inch armour plat-
ing, and her bows and stern with 4i-inch plating.
Her armament will consistof 10 12-tou 9-inch rifled
muzzle-loading wrought iron guns, mounted behind
her central broadside 6-inch armour-plating, and
eight 7-inch rifled muzzle-loading guns as upper
deck and bow and stern guns.

Capt. T. B. Lethbridge, at present commanding
her Majesty's screw troopship Simoom on foreign
troop service, has been selected by the Admiralty to
command the screw troopship Himalaya, now fitting
commissionfirstofthe at
aPrmoortesrm_poluattlei,3 ofnortheencraestiunrg
the
sides and turrets of the iron-cased ship Monarch,
for to
England of the Simoom, which is expected to occur
about the end of January next.
The
Monarch,
6, 5,100 tons, 1,100 horse power, building at Chat-
ham, underwent the bending process yesterday be-
fore removal to the factory to be slotted, planed,
and bored, and afterwards fixed at the Monarch's
broadside. A considerable portion of the inner
inch-and-a-half double plating has been completed
in readiness for receiving the steal planking to
which the armour plates will be bolted,the planking
for the first tier of plates being already finished.
The Monarch's central battery, turrets, as well as
the whole of her machinery, will be protected by
7-inch armour plates, tapering at the ends, and
carried well down below her water-line. Her free-
board will be higher than any turret ship yet con-
structed, and will be from 12ft. to 14ft., with all
her guns and equipment on board. The harpins at
the bow of the Monarch have been fixed, and the
large stein-piece fitted, the latter, instead of being
of a curvilinear form, as in Mr. Reed's armour-clad
ships, being carried up with a gentle inclination in-
board, this form lesring the force and volume of
the wave ploughed up and thrown tow.ird the stem
during the time the ship is under full steam. The
turrets are to be constructed to revolve onco in a
minute.

Yesterday the workmen at Chatham dockyard
commenced working additional hours, both morning
and evening, to make up for the additional bolyday
which will be given them on the day preceding
Christmas-day.

The Wivern, 4, screw turret sloop, Capt. Hugh
T. Burgoyne, V.C., steamed out of Portsmouth-
harbour yesterday morning and swung under steam
in Stokes Bay, to ascertain the deviation of her
compass on the completion of her refit. She after-
wards anchored at Spithead, where she awaits final
orders previous to sailing to join the Irish coast
squadron.
A stupendous specimen of engineering work is
now in progress in the yard of Messrs. Campbell,
Johnson, and Co., at Silvertown, facing
her Ma-
jesty's dockyard at Woolwich—namely, an enor-
mous wrought-iron floating dock, capable of re-
ceiving ships of the Bellerophon class, for the
Government service at Bermuda. The plates of
iron, bolts, girders, &c., used in the construction of
cflioonwaotuetacohf
the dock, will amount to about 8,000 tons weight,
ribs. It will be fitted with load chambers, and
lcoonngsitidnignaolf 4bBsthaetaerd-atigatilidt csoevneipnatrrtamnesnyteiser,sebbylmoficakvisne.
balance and air chambers for the especial purposes
undert the ship
of floating, sinking, and careening on the sides.
When loaded to its requisite draught of water, the
ship intended for repairs will be brought into the
and leaves the
are completed the
te,tdr.
heedcenkeoc,
fi
chamber
flowsaust
s:hdboeen
rads
isontctht
khoe
having
tt aeei tpiebvarliaevreti is allowed
cr,
glpararluumlnotnub:vnieienarnd,gpeotnosi
repairsthe dock through cul-
ennitttehde
into
to
cul-
verts or sluice valves in the caissons •
belaVdhi
in the usual
manner, and the ship will floatout • without danger
or difficulty. The contractors,it •
watervessel
will
yl
is stated, have
suggested to the Board of Admiralty the addition
of movable floors or traps
for the facility of dock-
ing and repairing ships of light burden without loss
of time. The ways are to be of sufficient buoyancy
to float the ship when the repairs are sufficiently
advanced to admit of their being completed afloat,
and the dock is at once ready for the reception of
a second ship with but an hour's delay. The
dock will be double-bottomed. The bottom
platings and main ribs are composed of I-plates,
and the inner skin 1-inch. The interior will
be lined with balks of teak wood to protect the
iron, and also to afford greater facility for shoring
up the ships. The dock will be 380 ft. in length,
72ft. in depth, 81f t. clear on the inside, and 124 ft.
over all. The majority of the plates, which are all of
Welsh iron, rolled by Messrs. Rhymney and Co.,
are 20ft. by aft. Bin.
• The work is superintended
by Mr. Barnaby, a Government official attached to
Sheerness Dockyard, • and will be completed and in
readiness to be towed out to Bermuda in the summer
of 1868.
The.first consignment of the old pattern Enfield
rifles has been despatched from Chatham in the War
Department transport Marlborough, for the purpose
of undergoing conversion into breech-loaders. There
are about 50,000 stands of arms stored in the ar-
moury at Chatham, the whole of which will be con-
verted.

Mr. J. Buttery, second schoolmaster at Chatham
Dockyard, has been appointed schoolmaster at Pem-
broke Dockyard.
Sergeant Wood and Corporal Glover, of the 84th
Regiment, gymnastic instructors, were to leave for
Malta yesterday on board the mail steamer from
Southampton. Cornet Jones, of the Ist King's
Dragoon Guards, is to proceed to the gymnasium at
Aldershot to undergo a course of instruction.
Ensign Skinner, 2d Battalion 18th Regiment, is to
proceed to Aldershot for duty in the Commissariat
Department. Mr. C. Coward, purveyor to the
forces, has just made a periodical inspection of the
hospitals, stores, &c., at Landguard Fort, Ipswich,
and Warley.
The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty :—Julian A. Messum, paymaster,
to the Indus ; William H. Ozzard, paymaster, to the
Prince Consort ; Henry G. Barlow, paymaster, ad-
ditional, to the Formidable, as secretary's clerk ;
Leicester H. Edwards and Clement P. Penny,
assistant-paymaster, to the Victory, as supernu-
meraries ; John Heath, assistant-paymaster, to the
Victory, as secretary's clerk ; and Benjamin Ur-
wick, assistant-paymaster, to the Excellent.

" The memorial of the lieutenant, the deputy-
lieutenants, and the magistrates of the county of
Cork, in meeting assembled, respectfully showeth—
That they consider the peace of their respective dis-
tricts and of the county at large to be seriously im-
perilled; that early in the present month the so-
called Head Centre of the Fenian Brotherhood,
Jaaies Stephens, is reported iu the American papers
to have stated, at a public meeting in New York,
that he wanted to be in Ireland by Christmas, and
that fighting would then begin, and that arms and
men were in sufficient numbers in the country for
that purpose ; that subsequently to this arms were
IsaetiezleydlairngCc beonrukmintrs of young
of being secretly introduced
into the country ; that uniforms and engines of war
have been likewise seized in Liverpool apparently
intended for a like purpose ; that for some weeks
young men, to all appearance
acting with a common object, and without any of the
accompaniments of people desirous of settling in the
country, are being landed almost daily from the
American steamers, and immediately drafted off to
the interior of the country ; that strangers of a sus-
picious appearance, and without any fixed occupa-
tion of an industrial or peaceful nature, are to be
found, and are daily increasing ; that from these and
other circumstances too numerous to mention in a
memorial, the minds of all the loyal as well as the
disaffected are seriously disturbed, and that a gene-
ral feeling of uneasiness as to the peace of the
country has taken possession of the minds of all, in-
cluding those of your memorialists ; that feeling
themselves largely responsible for the preservation
of the lives and property of the loyal inhabitants of
the county, your memorialists deem it their bounden
duty to call the immediate attention of your Ex-
cellency and of her Majesty's Government to the
state of the country ; that your memorialists think
it right to say that the upper classes, the greater
portion of the middle classes, including the far-
mers and traders, and all who have anything to
lose, are loyal and well affected to the throne
and institutions of the country, but that they
are wanting in organisation and the habits of com-
bined action, whilst the organised bands who have
come from a foreign country and are acting appa-
rently under directions from America, as well as
those of our fellow-countrymen who have been mis-
led by those foreigners from the paths of peace and
loyalty, are acting under one head and with one
common object, viz., that of overturning the throne,
abolishing the rights of property, and on the ruin of
all in Ireland establishing a Republic ; that your
memorialists feel that the loyal inhabitants are a
majority, and capable, if properly organised and
duly aided by the Government, of preserving the
peace and institutions of the country, as well as the
properties of themselves and the lives of their fami-
lies; that for guidance in this duty they look to her
Majesty's Government; that for this purpose they
are willing and ready to enrol themselves, their
tenants, and their well-affected neighbours of every
class and creed, without distinction, as special con-
stables, or in any other way which may appear to the
Government, with its superior knowledge, the most
expedient for the purpose ; that your memorialists
respectfully point to the powers which Parliament,
by the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, con-
ferred on the Government, and respectfully suggest
its more full exercise; that they also respectfully
represent to your excellency that a speedy display
of increased military force in the various districts,
as well as the presence of more ships of war on the
coast, with marines, may, probably, have the effect
of preventing a rising, or of crushing a rebellion in
the bud. Ia concluson, your memorialists express
their fervent prayer that, under the blessing of
Divine Providence, wisdom itnd firmness on the
part of the Government, stedlast loyalty on the part
of the majority of the people, and au awakening
sense of their culpable folly on the part of the dis-
affected, may combine to avert from this country
the horrors of civil war."

"TO LORD FERMOY, HER MAJESTY'S LIEUTENANT OF

conic.
" Dublin Castle, Dcc. 6.

"My Lord,—l am directed by the Lord Lieute-
nant to acknowledge the receipt of a memorial of your
lordship, the deputy-lieutenants, and magistrates of
the county of Cork, adopted at a meeting held on
the 3d I am directed by his excellency to ex-
press to your lordship and to your brother magis-
trates the sincere gratification with which he had
received the assurance that there exists not only
jint
ehsertnoyu,rsee,
residing
dodi
vi
egerpn
m attachment
e n t
in
among your body, but generally among the farmers
hertoeffthoretsinthstitmutaiionntsaionf
the
and traders of your county, a spirit of loyalty to the
country, and a sincere disposition to assist her Ma-
insane counsels public peace. His excellency can well understand
the uneasiness which is occasioned by the threats of
outrage and disturbance that have been made by
on the spirit and feeling of the population of your
n a
have foreignnf ore tounnnat treyl whoseha s
county. Though his excellency is convinced that
armed resistance to the authority of the
.Crown in
mwieldeffaencdt
it to be
suc-
cessfully for a single day, he hasconsidered.
his duty to take every precaution in his power
against the possibility of outrage.. His excellency
misfortune which an in-
surrectionaryany part of Ireland could not be maintained
is fully alive to the heavy
a few hours, would entail upon the country. To
all the efforts of the Go-
vernmentavert such a dire calamity
have been directed.
With this view the
consent of the Legislature was obtained to the re-
newal movement, even if it only lasted for
of the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act.
For the greater portion of the autumn it was not
found necessary to put in force the power which that
act gave to the Executive, but since it has been
perceived that the leaders of this atrocious con-
spiracy have renewed their efforts of last spring,
the Government have deemed it advisable to im-
prison many persons who are known to be deeply
engaged in treasonable practices. His Excellency
is in hopes that these arrests will have the effect of
stopping much of the mischief that is going on, and
he is determined to continue to exercise the powers
confided to him in every necessary case. A regi-
ment of infantry has been added to the troops
stationed at Cork. A large addition in ships, gun-
boats, seamen, and marines has been made in the
naval force under the command of Admiral
Frederick, and a further augmentation is intended.
The number of the constabulary has been increased,
while the strictest orders as to careful and active

respect e et th
their
the
to by credible persons, and,
tention to duty has been issued to all persons in the
service of the Government. With
ment desire to call the attention of your lordship
proWviidtiels
application
regulatingconstables,
tthhee
appoint-
ment Govern
and the magistrates to the provisions of the statute
. t2i2o3n Williamboefin such
being
d deposed
T.
s,
e d officers,
en-
rolment under certain contingencies only—viz., the
reasonable apprehension of riot, tumult, or insurrec-
next, the opinion of the justices that
the police,
military, and other regular force in the country are
not sufficient for present protection
of person and
property. Your lordship will thus observe that the
justices are declared the tribunals to decide upon
the necessity of special
constables, and while the
information in the possession of the Government
leads his excellency to believe thal the military and
police force already
stationed in the country are
equal to protect persons and
property, and prevent
any disturbance, he does not feel jaLtitied in dis-
couraging your lordship and the magistrates of the
county of Cork, who must be more intimately ac.
painted with the circumstances and condition of
the district than the Government can be, from
putting into force the powers of the Act of Parlia-
ment referred to. His excellency is convinced that
the magistrates will carefully consider:whether abso-
lute necessity exists before they take so decided a
step ; and in case of its adoption, his excellency
will be ready to afford the magistrates such assist-
ance and advice as they may require.—l have the
honour to be, my lord, your obedient servant,

" NAAS."

.d.-