The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-19 00:00:00

naval and Liiilitary intelligence.

PORTSMOUTH, THURSDAY.
The Princess Charlotte, 104, sail ng three-decker,
Captain George St. Vincent King, has completed the
receiving of stores for China, with the exception of about
50 tons, which she will take in at Soithead. Her draught
of water nor on an even keel is 23%. Gin., and provided
the tide should, be sufficienly high she will go out of
harbour to-morrow under canvas at 6.3 Q a.m. and anchor
at Spi:bead. Toe Princess Charlotte has been fitted with
el'ff.,rd's patent b tat lowering apparatus, as well as
Hastings, Melville, and Cumberland. Captain Hudson,
witia Commander Fen wick, of the United States frigate
Niagara, paid a visit to the Princess Charlotte to-day,
and a'terwarda went on board the ordinary guard ship
St Vincent, 104, Captain George A. Eliott. These
were official visits prior to the departure of the Niagara,
which sails from this port for Liverpool on Saturday
next.

The Sprightly, tender, Master C,rninander George
Allen, went to Spithead to-day, with stores, &c., for the
Cunberland, 70, Captain Dickson (flag of Rear Admiral
Prevo Val i). She sails on Saturday.
A serious accident happened to a naval cadet, named
Rawson,.last eveoing, on board the Princess Charlotte.
The youth slipped off the combings of the main hatch-
way, and fill to the bottom of the h .13, a depth of 30
feet ; he was picked up insensible, and with a fearfully
bruised face and right arm, but fortunately no bones
broken ; be was attended by the medical officers of the
ship and is doing well.

Mr. Cliff)rd submitted bis model of boat lowering
apparatus to-day to Captain Hudson, of the United
States frigate Niagara, and his officers, all of whom ex-
pressed their high satisfaction at the simplicity and
efficiency of the invention.

WOOLWIQET, Jcrzrz 18

The Agamemnon, 90, now at East Greenwich, is to
he fitted up with gas, in order that no time maybe lost
in shipping the portion of the Atlantic electric telegraph:
manufactured at the works of Messrs. Glass and Elliott.
A party of engineers from the dockyard proceeded to
East Greenwich this day for the purpose of laying down
the pipes, &c , for lighting the vessel.
At the commencement of the late war a quantity of
machinery, manufactured for the Russian Government,
was seizod at certain works on the Clyde, the Urgent
was subsequently fitted with this machinery. During a
voyage to Barbadoes. the Urgent broke down, and her
machinery hAs since hem condemned as useless.

The Challenger, screw corvette, is now sufficiently
fora and to receive a portion of her machinery, and a
party of workmen from the factory of the manufacturerr
are now preparing her to receive her screw propeller.
The whole of her machinery is from the works of
Messrs. John Penn and Sons, Greenwich.

The second party of emigrants which have been
selectel by the Woolwich committee for promoting the
emigration of discharged Government workmen, left by
rail way for Liverpool this day, and will immediately
embark for Quebec, and thence proceed to Toronto.
The party consisted of 240 men, women, and children,
and the whole were provided with an excellent outfit.
CHATHAM, June 18.—A considerable amount of dis-
satisfaction was this morning occasioned among the
troops recently returned from India, who have received
their discharge from the service, occasioned by the money
which the mtn had been induced to deposit in the real-
rnenta' savings banks in India not having been handed
over to them on receiving their discharge. The troops
were informed in lndiathat the money would be remitted
to them so as to allow them to receive it on obtaining
their discharge, some of the men having as much as
1001. in the bank, but from some cake the money has
not been forthcoming. We understand an investigation
into the cause will be made by the authorities.

The First Lord of the Adiniralty held his second levee
this season, at the Admiral y, Whitehall, yesterday,
when the following officers were present :

General—Sir Edward Nicolls. K.C.B.

Rear-Admiral William F. Lapidge.
Captains—Thompson, Heathcote, Oliver, J. Jones, J.
M. Haves, E. B. Rice, A. L. Kuper, G. A. Eliott, C.
J. F. Ewart, J. B. Marsh, W. Holt, R. Coote, F. H.
H. Glass, G. J. Napier, and W. F. Glanville.
Commanders—Curtis, W. M. Dowell, J. B. Ballard,
F. Marten, Lord F. J. Russell, W. L. Partridge, C. T.
Dench. R. S Smith, and J. F. Ross.
Lieutenants—F. S. Tremlett, J. E. Parisi), W. C.
Chapman, Henry West, and John M. Reeve.

APPQ,INTMENTS.
Captain—Augustue Kuper C.B, (1841), bas been ap•
pointed to a good service pension.
Naval Cadets—F. H. Chapman and S. H. Rickman,
to the Boscawen, 70, flag-ship, ao Devonport ; J. L.
Heane and C. S. Broome, to the Cumberland, 70,,at
Chatham.

NORTH AUSTRALIA AS A PENAL
SETTLEMENT.

Our Atrstralian colonies were for a long time under-
valued as places of settlement for free men, and considered
only as fit spots for the exile of evildoers. For the last
few years public opinion has flowed in the opposite direc-
tion, and there is a tendency to predict for Australia a fu-
ture destiny like that of America, with tt, population to be

counted one day by tens of millions, a high place among
independent nations, end the chief authority in the Southern
Hemisphere. The truth lies between those widely differ-
ing estimates. Australia will no doubt become year by
year a richer and more populous country ; it may oven
take its place among Sovereign Powers, but it can never
be a rival to the North American continent. Tho climate
is too uniformly sultry, the soil is too poor, the rivers are
too small and few, the want of water is too generally felt,
for the great island to be anything more than a desert en-
circled by a belt of cultivated coasts. The colonies which
the British have established extend over the most eligible
regions, and the shepherds and squatters have already
pushed inward to the borders of the uninhabitable desert.
There is no inexhaustible tract of prairies, no network of
rivers bearing the explorer onward into the very heart of
the continent. We are already able to see our destined
achievements ; the limit placed by nature is too firmly
fixed to be removed by any exercise of perseverance or
skill. However, Australia may be considered a great coun-
try if compared with the capabilities of European States.
The whole south eastern portion, from Moreton Bay to
Adelaide, a region many times larger than these islands,
is fit for human habitation ; then there is the Swan River
settlement on the west, and a great extent of tropical
country to the north. The two former of these districts
are well able to stand alone ; they are attracting a stream
of emigrant,, which is not likely to f ill as long as the Bri-
tish isles and Germany continue prolific countries and the
colonies offer to the adventurous population the certaintyof
competence and the. chance of wealth. But North Austra-
lia, placed within a few degrees of the equator, is still a de-
sert, and without the interference of the State is likely to
remain so for many years. Now, whi!e we are all looking
for a place of deportation for our malefactors, and can find
no spot but the banks of Swan River, it is again asked that
Government should turn its attention to Port Essington
and the Gulf of Carpentaria. The question in its broadest
terms comes to this,—ls a tropical climate fit for a settle-
ment of white men ? Were the Spaniards and Dutch and
our own old English ignorant and reckless when they de-
scended eagerly on Mexico and Peru, the Antilles, and the
Spice Islands, leaving more temperate regions to be slowly
occupied by the victims of want or persecution at home?
Does a colony in the Tropics involve necessarily the labour,
and consequently the servitude, open or disguised, of an
inferior race ? Can we, who have abolished slavery and
pledged ourselves to the protection of aborigines every-
where, hope for success in the colonization of a coast in
such a latitude ?

The President of the Geographical Society, in his recent
address, insisted on the propriety of forming an establish-
ment at Port Essington, or some other point of the north-
ern coast. The natural qualities of this part of the con-
tinent appear to be such as would insure success to settlers,
if it were only situated under a more temperate climate.
The harbours are good, the gulf extends 500 miles into the
mainlan I, India, the Malay Archipelago, the Dutch colo-
nies, China, and Japan, are all so situated as to make the
northern port the emporium of Asiatic trade. The travels
on which the supporters of the scheme base their arguments
are chiefly of recent date. The Government decided, some
time since, that an exploration of the interior of North
f
Australia should be undertaken, and the task was com-
m Gregory, who
the cohaasdt alreadyalong the
e course
distinguished
o f t
he
himself by a survey of Western Australia. The expedition
marcheditted t o
southwards Mr.
r
river Victoria. The first great discovery was that the salt
desert, which meets travellers movinc, inland from the south
and west of thecontixent, bounded also the habitable regions
of the north. It may now be considered as proved that
all the central portion of this vast continent is an unin-
habitable desert, probably the dried up bottom of a sea,
nd that henceforth all interchanges between our diffe-
rent colonies must take place either along what, in a gene-
ral sense, may be termed the coast ranges, or along the
sea. While, however, North Australia is thus cut off
from the other colonies, just as they are, to some extent,
divided from each other, yet the report of the expedition
is most favourable as regards the fertility of the coast
Thou gh
dis-
tricts. All the country between the Gulf of Carpentaria
and the most northern of the New South Wales
lets ertile. settle-
ments was found to be more or
let
moved, the f
colonists have begun
vernment had not as ye
to find out the capabilities of the region, and the column
of migration is pushing on steadily from Moreton Bay
northward, until it is now within 560 miles of the gulf. It
is stated that the banks of the navigable river Victoria
were found perfectly healthy, and that recently our conu-
trymen were stationed there for months without the loss of
a man.
There certainly can be no doubt that this fine indented
northern coast must one day become studded with settle-
ments, if even the country inland be not colonised. Situ-
ated as it is in the track between the present colonies and
India, to any nothing of the mother country, it seems
pretty cart: sin that the race which has founded Singapore,
Hongkong, and Aden will not be debarred by a tropical
climate from establishing trading places in the most suit-
able spots. Why, then, should not Government take the
first step, end make the -way easier for those who are to
come after wards ? One or more penal colonies on the
north colt' et would certainly do the rough work for the first
generatio la of settlers. As to the heat of the climate, we
think th. At, provided the convicts are not put to too hard
and too .continuous labour, these is nothing to be feared.
Certainl y it would seem that where men will go for gain
they mAy be sent for punishment. The inducements to
occupy this rich territory are indeed considerable. It
is our: only tropical land which is even moderately
Western Africa, from the thickness of its
vegetation, running down to the sea, and stagnating
in lugs ons all along the coast, is notorious for its dead-
liness The American mainland is not our own ; and there
is pc.; part of the earth where we could try the experiznent