The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-12 00:00:00

THE STEAM NAVY OF FRANCE.

The following letter has been addressed to the
editor of the Ti»zes

Sir,—ln the leading article on the navies of
England and France in the Times of Saturday last
you gave a very accurate summary of facts, respect-
ing the strength of the French steam navy. If
you can spare me the required space, I shall be
happy to set forth in detail the successive steps
by which that navy has attained its formidable
proportions. This I am enabled to do by the
receipt of information which reached me too late
for insertion in my paper on the navy read at
the School of Arts. I shall draw no political
inferences from the facts before me, but simply
give numbers and 'dates for the guidance of those
who may desire.to draw them.
On Jan. 1, 1850, the steam navy of France con-
sisted of 20 frigates and 86 corvettes and despatch
vessels. Of the frigates two were of 650, two 540,
and 16 of 450-horse power each ; of the smaller
vessels one only was of more than 320-horse power
and most of them were of less than 200. There was
not a single line-of-battle. steamship then afloat in
any harbour of France, but during the year the
Napoleon, of 900-horse, was launched, and the Mon-
tebello,.a sailing ship, was converted into a steamer,
with engines of 140-horse power only.-- Two smaller
vesselseither corvettes or despatch vessels—were
likewise launched in 1850. During the year 1851
no ships of the line and no frigates were added to
the French navy ; four small vessels formed the
only increase of that period. In Dec., 1851, there-
fore, the number of vessels composing that navy was
114 in all. In 1852 three ships of the line were
added—the Austerlitz, of 500-horse power, and the
Charlemagne and Jean Bart, of 450-horse power.
Besides these one frigate, of 260-horse power, and
two smaller vessels, each of 400-horse power, were
launched. In 1853 four more ships of the line floated
in French ports, each of 640-horse power—the
Fleurus, Prince Jerome, Duquesne, and Tourville ;
and to these were added seven corvettes and de-
spatch vessels, three of them of 400-horse power each,
The next year, 1854, brought an increase of five
line of battle ships—one of them, the Bretagne, a
new ship of no less than 1,200 nominal horse power,
and the other four each of 650 horse power, com-
prising the Ulm, the Navarin, the Wagram, and
the Souverain. The number of! smaller vessels re-
mained stationary during that year. In 1855 the
increase in the line of battle ships was six—
viz., the Eylau, the Redoubtable, the Areole, and
the Algesiras, all new ships. with engines of 900
horse power each, and the Tilsitt and Breslau, con-
verted ships of 500 horse power each. This year,
the most active year of the late Russian war, also
brought into existence five floating batteries, 28
gunboats, and 14 screw transports. (I would, in
passing, correct an error in the article from the
Conversations Lexicon respecting the floating bat-
teries. The writer says :—" The English batteries
were complete failures, and could not even be pro-
pelled; the French, on the contrary, Were excellent,
and answered their purpose." The truth is, the
English and French floating batteries were, to the
number of four or five—l forget, at the moment,
which,--built from precisely the same lines, and
were in all their main features alike.) In 1856
seven additional line of battle ships were floated ;
of these the Imperial and the Alexandre were new,
and of '9OO and 800 horse power respectively; while
the Louis Quatprze, the Tage, the Duguay Trouin,
the Donawerth, and the Dugueselin were converted
and fitted with engines varying in horse power from
600 to 450. During the same year 12 frigates, five
of them of 800 horse power, were added, and the
number of corvettes and despatch vessels was re-
duced by 10. The number of floating batteries and
gunboats remained the same as in 1855, and has,
indeed, continued the same until now. The screw
transports were not added to this year. The Ville
de Paris and, the Turenne, each of 690 horse power,
and the St. iouis, of 450. were the only line of bat-
tle ships added in 1857. The frigates were in-
creaspd by four, the corvettes by one, and the trans-
ports by six in that year. In 1858 the Ville de Nantes,
of 900 horse power, and the Fonteney, of 650, both
new ships of the line, with four corvettes and three
transports, were launched.
If the foregoing numbers be brought together,
they give these results—viz., that during the last
seven years—that ..is, since the flash of the coup
d'etat prepared the world for the Empire's thunder
—the number of French steamships of war has
been more than doubled (being 114 in Jan., 1852,
and 230 in Jan., 1859), and the number of steam
line-of.battle ships raised from two to 32. To com-
plete the statement of the case it is necessary to add
that at the present moment eight ships of the line,
and 25 frigates and smaller vessels are building in
the Frebeh dockyards. The line-of-battle ships are
the Intrepide, the Ville de Bordeaux, the Ville de
Lyon, the Gloire, the Invincible, and the Norman-
die, 900-horse power each ; and the Massena and
Castiglione, 800 each. The Gloire, the Invincible,
and the Normandie are building on the lines of the
Napoleon razeed, and are to be sheathed with thick
iron plates. The order for the conversion of two
other ships of the line, the Friedland and the Bayard
has been issued, but the works have not yet been
commenced.
From the foregoing facts it appears that since
the supreme power of the French nation has been
in the hands of Louis Napoleon the French navy
has received an average increase of from four to five
steamships of the line annually ; and the number of
similar ships now on the stocks gives an unmistake-
able proof of his intention to exceed that average
this year. In your article of Saturday last you have
shown with perfect clearness that, notwithstanding
these great strides, we have the strongest steam
navy in the world ; and I eudeavouredin the Society
of Arts paper to prove that with an efficient Chan-
nel fleet we should stand in no peril of invasion.
Bnttha steady and enormous increaseof the French
steam navy in large ships appears t 6 Point tO Sane-
thing very different from a sudden and unsupported
descent upon our coast. 'Two-deck and three-deck

sociation of constitutional Piedmont with autocratic.
Russia, on the other they view with heartfelt dis-
appointment the untoward fatality which threatens
to bind together once more the freemen of England
with those Austrian intruders whose presence in
Italy is a standing calamity for the country and a
perpetual danger for Europe. Men who have been
brought up in the love of liberty, and in respect for
the principle of nationality, • ask, with bitter amaze-
ment, " Are we now to turn (Mr. admiration and our
hopes from England to Russia ? Are we now to ex-
tend that hatred: we cherish for Austrian, despotism
to its occasional British supporters ?" The hearts of
liberal-minded men struggle against the unnatural
feelings, as well of aversion as of sympathy, which
the fatal combination of events is forcing upon
them. They have been constantly preaching to their
younger friends and political adherents that English
principles and English patronage were for them the
only unerring guides to gradual reform and final
independence. Now they may be shortly compelled
to unlearn that lesson and to adopt the very oppo-
site one—that despotism alone, earnest and silent
despotism, can keep the promises it makes, and can
realise those prospects which Parliamentary discus- j
sion puts forward only as subjects for rhetorical
amplification and peroration. In this ebb and flow
—in this eternal pro and con, Italy is dragged
backwards and forwards, till the most clever and
Conscientious of her sons appear to the world as
complete fools. For many a generation, Italy, the•
seat of Papacy, and 'therefore the eddying whirl-
pool of all religious and' political plot's and counter-
plots, has offered to the word a sad Comedy of errors
in which every Christian nation, willingly or un-
willingly, played a deceitful part. InStead of re-
peating those crude and frivolous judgments which
many are passing daily upon the unpractical and
fantastic Italians, as they delight in calling
them, the practical and sensible Englishman
ought to appreciate the • immense complication,
and consequent obscurity and difficulty, of Italian
politics. In this central labyrinth of European
intrigue, Machiavel himself lost the clue,
and at the close of his life stood hesitating and
wavering between the comparative expediency of •
liberty or tyranny, as the means to attain his great
aim, that of freeing Italy from foreign rule. Eng-
lish diplomacy, it must be confessed. has been at
work these 50 or 60 years, to what visible increase
of English influence' in Italy we would desire to
know—certainly not to any real satisfaction of
reasonable Italians. And now a new Russian co-
efficient is coming in to disturb and alter all former
calculations, and to undo, if possible, everything
that the several English 'Ministries could flatter
themselves to have accomplished.
There is a fact which those who hold the reins of
government in England ought to take into' serious
consideration. It is evident that Russia is con-
stantly enlarging the circle of her moral influence.
By her form of religion she throws a secret spell
over all the Christian communities of the Turkish
empire, amounting to no less than 13,000,000 souls.
By a new ethnological theory, Panslavism, she
spreads the feeling of a common origin over a com-
pact mass of 70,000,000 of credulous, obsequious
tribes—the double of the population of France.
However much alienated by difference of religion
and the memory of ancient feuds and recent in-
juries, they are gradually led to acknowledge
themselves as the members of an immense military
brotherhood, predestined to march from the distant
strongholds of the North to the conquest of the
East and the West. The Polish youth are regularly
trained up to behold Russia as their natural mother
and careful guardian, striving to prepare for all her
united children a heritage of boundless extent.
Besides the recognised weapons of Orthodoxy and
Panslavism, the Autocrat is now employing a new
series of political devices. By conformity of prin-
ciple and priority of action he fascinates and allures
the new French dynasty. He lavishes on her those
flattering courtesies which his proud father so un-,
wisely withheld. He encourages her to assume a
half hostile countenance towards England. By the
manifestation of a strong resentment against Austria
he gains the warmest sympathies of all those nations
whom this improvident Government is steadfastly
goading into disaffection and revolt. He sustillbs
by his condescending 'patronage an aspirin.. Italian
State which Austria would willingly reduce into
its former insignificance ; through the agency of this
State he insinuates himself into the profoundest
mysteries of Italian party politics.
After the hurried flight of the Austrian police
from Venice in 1848 there were found among the
papers they left behind curious proofs that at the
time of the Greek war of independence Austria
watched with the same anxious jealousy both Eng-
land and Russia. The Englisman whom they
honoured with their particular suspicion was Lord
Byron. Up to the present time events have justified
us in declaring that the generous instinct of the
poet would have been for English politics of those
days a far more sagacious guide than the calculating
shrewdness of Lord Castlereagh.
It is a hard and melanehaly truth that at the
same rate at which Russia has been gaining ground
England has been losing it. Her diplomacy in-
dulged in an inconsiderate attachment for the in-
dividuals themselves who wielded despotic power.
She forwarded everywhere the interests of Kings
and Pontiffs. She disdained the broad easy path
of popularity, and neglected the rights of nations.
She affected a scornful ignorance of their existence
as moral beings, perfectly distinct from their acci-
dental Governments. Nationality, the most eminent
moral fact of our age, soenis to be still for statesmen
a terra incognita, or an unknown sea, on which they
dare not venture. English agents, in obscure cor-
ners,picked up paltry quarrels, such as Don
Paeifico's and for such insignificant concerns they
overlooked the more important interests of their
country, and wounded the sensitive feelings of
nations rising into existence. Greeks, Illyrians,
Hungarians, Roumans, Armenians would not have
bowed to the Siberian autocrat and conqueror of
nations if their rights had found a steady p!!otection
from another quarter. Meanwhile Russia was
cautiously and carefully cherishing what England
was proudly disregarding. Russia now begins to
retrace the same path which she followed in Italy
01 1820,' and unwisely abandoned after the Con-
gress of Laybach. She seems now disposed to take
a leading part in Italian interests, while France,
by the protection she engaged to lend to an unman-
ageable theocracy that stands in the way of any
reasonable reform, has been raising up against
herself artificial difficulties.
It is a matter of fact that the first symptoms of
Russian interference have given a strong impulse to
public spirit throughout Italy. The people begin to
turn on the Austrian garrisons the same looks of
defiance as in 1848, and with much fiercer feelings
of retaliation and revenge. The first effective com
motion will propagate itself from the Alps to Sicily.
The moral barriers which Prince Murat has not yet
been able to remove will be thrown down.
resources of Italy, which, in the hands of the Pope,
the Austrians, and the Bourbons, are slumberingeie
in passive inefficiency, will be put into energetic
action when a strong popular outbreak throws. _o them
into the mighty hands of France. Bo only r a
moment it will be sufficient for those who are to
profit by it.
It is now a statistical fact thathat
hthhah
Italy equals the
British Islands in population. 1 ants,
skilfully guided, are able to do may be read in many
a book of many an age. All this strength, if France
and Russia only know how to get hold of the living
principle that pervades it, could be easily turned
-against England in the Mediterranean, and against
her allies there, and everywhere, by land by sea. The
opinion of thinking Italians is, that it would le

Majesty
The serious state of Italy is as vividly illustratcd
by 'the amnesty just granted to 61 of his subject s,
Naples,has
-1 bywa
ittheed.
t.er
or the additionmarriage
e ofar
arrival
NO,
a, 01 We f
th the Kind
whose only
only fault and crime was their patriotism, bry
men to the Austrian army of Occupation. His •Nca-
ee of his son
-
tp
o hl
i n
Bavarian o f
Princess,
and heir apparent, the Duke of Calabria; but in
his hasty terror has yielded to the remonstrances of
the Emperor of Russia, and liberated his prisoners
from that cruelty and those sufferings which the
world will know and condemn to the last hour of
recorded time.
This intelligence is a relief to outraged nature ;
and Europe will, it is to be hoped, show in some
way-to the unhappy victims of this unparalleled
tyranny, thatit can feel for their deep wrongs, and:
welcome themhack again into the light of Heaven,
and to the pure air of our common Creator,
.in a
manner that will exonerate the 19th century from
all participation in the crime of its basest and worst
sovereign—at once, a disgrace to monarchy and a
Scandal to mankind. •
It is not, however,. by acts even of this kind, per-
formed at the eleventh hour, that the King of
Naples can be re-admitted into public and recog-
nised intercourse. with France and England. Care-
fully as the present Government of England con-
eeal their, views and wishes as to Italy—unknown
as the policy of our Cabinet is on' the question
which now occupies the attention. and avrakens the
fears and apprehensions of every rational man in.
Europe, any manifestation on their part of an in-
tention tp resume diplomatic relations with the
Court of Naples•because that Court has yielded to
alarm and the entreaties of 'Russia, what it denied
to humanity and the representations of Englana
and France; must and, will be resisted by every-
man who has a heart to feel or a head to appre-
ciate what Victor Emmanuel so touchingly and
truthfully calls the anguish of that country.
-No doubt an amnesty was an indispensable condi-
tion to even a consideration of renewed intercourse.
,But it was not-the only requirement. It was a pre-
liminary without which the subject could not be
entertained. But, the amnesty granted, much more
:remains to be done before it befits the honour or the
self-respect of, England either to receive from or
send representatives to Naples. And if this were so
months ago, it -is :far more. imperative and indis-.
pFnsable now, when the whole question of Italy has
risen (as every rational man knew that, left to itself,
it must rise) into one of the most dangerous Euro-
pean importance, when the entire country, South,
Central, and North, is boiling over with disaffection.
when Austria augments its previously enormous
garrisons, and everything forebodes complications,
disorders, and difficulties of the gravest and most
alarming kind.
We must net, however, exaggerate the value of
the reinforcements now ordered or making in the
Austrian army, large as they arc said to be ; for
Austria in Italy occupies a' country in which she
has not a single'friend, in which every native is her
sworn enemy, and her resolute, unalterable foe ; in
which she has erected°. series of immense fortresses
that require s&all armies of themselves for their •
'garrisOnS, and in which-she can only maintain her-
self by an expenditure of money that must be utterly
,ruinous to her finances, and of men whom she can
not hope to replace. Already, too, there are symp-
toms of disaffection amongst her troops in Italy.
At Cremona, Croat and Hungarian regiments have
come into collision ;_ and the sympathies of the lat-
ter fir the wrongs and misery of Italy'have broken
out in cries and shouts no less hopeful for Italy than.
' alarming for Austria. If Austria can repress in-
surrection by increasing her army in Italy
.to
130,000 soldiers, she can only meet their cost by na-
creased taxation. Already her Italian revenues are
falling off ; and where in the rest of her poverty-
stricken States can she hope to make up the defi-
ciency thereby created, to say nothing of her rapidly
augmenting pecuniary necessities?
Then again the Austrian Government is net at
harmony with itself, and it is with reference to Italy
that this discord prevails. The Archduke Maximilian
dissents from and disapproves of the haughty and
cruel policy of Vienna, which will hear ofnothing but
repression by violence and force. That wiser Prince
desires and recommends milder treatment for Italy,
conciliation, and some regard for the feelings of the
people he governs. Not so the Emperor, in whom
are concentrated all the pride, arrogance, and
ignorance of the house of Hapsburg; he resents and
resists the prudent and humane recommendations
of the son-in-law of Leopold of Belgium ; he relies
on the sword, the bayonet, and the cannon alone.
Nevertheless he hesitates to recall his brother; he
dares not to drive matters to that extremity.
And Rome—it becomes a growing source of
danger to Austria. At length Louis Napoleon, too
late perhaps for his true interests, finds how idle,
how hopeless it is to expect improvements or
ameliorations from the Papal Government. Year
after year, month after month, the Emperor of the
French has pressed and urged on the Holy Father
the adoption of those rational principles of admi-
nistration which in his famous letter to Ney he
proclaimed to Europe were the objects of an inter-
vention which, to do him the justice of adhering to
facts, he inherited from Cavaignac, and did not
originate. To all French appeals and entreaties,
to all the representations and . remonstrances of
their saviours and restorers, whatever be the
subject matter of them—the misery of the oppressed
people or the outrage of the Mortara case—the
answer of this Government of Priests is one and
the same, "Non posstinties." And this answer, so
hateful, so mortifying to the French, has the
support and approval of Austria.
In this her disappointment at Rome, France
desires to withdraw her troops, and proposes con-
joint evacuation to Austria. Inasmuch, however,
as Rome and the Papal States left to themselves
would soon settle for themselves their quarrels with
their own Sovereihrn, Austria refuses to withdraw.
And thus France is not only compelled to stay in
Rome, but by remaining there to support a system
which she has struggled to eradicate, and to save
Austria from the consequences of a Papal misgo-
vernment which she alone, of all European Powers,
approves and upholds.
It is in vain to call out "Peace! Peace!" when
there can be no peace ! Nat "poppy nor mandragora"
can arrest the disaffection of Italy. It is the natural,
the.leFitimate, the necessary consequence of that
Austrian 'domination which sets - all moderation,

temperance, and regard for human feelings and
sufferings at defiance ;, which accumulateS wrong
on wrong, tyranny on tyranny, injustice on injus-
tice ; which rejects remonstrance, even from its own
Archdukes and Viceroys, and listens to no sugges-
tions from Allies who contend against fate to pre-
serve the tranquillity of the world.
It is idle to refer to the history of the past, to
show that for eight centuries Italy has not been
independent, to speculate on the illusion of Italian
independence. These in the present state of that
country are but excuses and apologies for mizeries
that are unendurable, and woes that make even
useless revolt a virtue. Let it be assumed (though
the assumption is false and unfounded) that Italy
will never recover her. independence, can never
enjoy freedom. That is not the present question.
The present question is, can she be induced to
remain quiet under her wrongs ? Ought Europe
(to save itself from inconvenience) to wish her to
remain tranquil in her woes ? It is not a matter of
p
government; it is a question of humanity. And if
the King of Naples has been justly put under the
ban of, European civilisation for barbarity to his
subjects, with what logic or decency can Austria be
savewd crimeso-ciio•eupsrocbruateilotliesfogrrowle
a before

t ,
,CHARGED I
inquestiAl tG EDA v a
." AsrlT heldl i
------
MITADRIUNG A
Hall' s-cre cut Rochdale-
by Mr. Hereford, city coroner, on the body of the male child
of Maria , Spooner, dressmaker, sea,
A MOTHERcIiAnN,D.D.
—10) n't 1.7
Monday,Gli TCR
Rochdale-
road. The evidence of the surgeon, Dr. C. D. F. Phillips,
proved that the child was born alive on Saturday morning
last, and that it had been strangled. lie also stated that its
mother and grandmother, the only individuals hying in the
house, were very anxious to obtain from him a certificate of
death, they alleging that the child was still-born. The jury
returned a verdict of wilful murder against Maria Spooner,
the younger, and Maria Spooner, the elder, for whose com-
mittal tii kirkdale gaol the coroner issued his warrant.—
lifandirster Guardian.

WRECK OFF NEWBICCIN, NORTHUMBERLAND.-
NEWBIGGIN, Monday.—At two o'clock yesterday morning
lights were observed to burn from a vessel aground off New-
bi ggin Point. It was blowing hard at the time, with a strong
east wind and heavy sea. The lifeboat of the National Life-
boat Institution was immediately launched, proceeded to the
wreck, and took off her crew of four hands, whom she safely
brought on shore. The night being very dark, the vessel was
supposed to have come too near the land. She proved to be
the schoOner Betsy, cf Sunderland. Fortunately, she was
subsequently got off and safely brought into harbour. The
1 i boat's crew of fourteen men have bre 1 paid £l4 for
their valuable services on the occasion. This is one of the
roost ooikalkite lifeboat
.stations on the coast, and reflects
much cr+dit on all concerned in its management. The
National Lifeboat Institution has lifeboats thoroughly
.
equipped' On this exposed Mast' at the renewing. placesßerwick, Beulmer, Alnmouth, Hauxley, Newbiggln) and
Cullercoats