The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-02 00:00:00

THE NAVY.

The Duke of Somerset, as First Lord of the Ad-
miralty, and several members of the board, will pay
an official visit to Deptford Dockyard to-day,
The fine frigate Arethusa, 51, which has been
converted from a sailing ship to a screw steamer at
Chatham dockyard, has several hundred ship-
wrights and caulkers employed on her, in order that
she may be completed and undocked by Friday
nest, the 9th inst., when the iron mailclad steamer
Defence will be taken into the dock to be vacated.
Yesterday, a numerous party of mechanics com-
menced sheathing her with Mu ntz's patent metal,
which is to be employed instead of copper.
The Gloucester, 50, fitting at Chatham for har-
bour service, to supply the place of the Hussar, 40,
destroyed by fire at Shoeburyness, was completed
yesterday. She is to be used as a receiving ship
in Chatham harbour, for the officers and seamen of
the various ships fitting at that port.
Capt. W. Aldham, C. 8., commanding her Majesty's
ship Valorous, was removed from his ship yesterday
in Portsmouth harbour and conveyed to the Royal
Naval Hospital at Hasler for surgical treatment,
he having some time back, while journeying by land
to Vera Cruz, been attacked by banditti and severely
wounded in the thigh by a ball. We are glad to
hear that the medical authorities report favourably
of the state of his wound, and that his speedy con-
valescence may be expected. The Valorous sailed
from Portsmouth yesterday afternoon for Devon-
port, where she will be paid off.
The Nimrod, 6, screw, Lieut.-Commander Arthur,
paid off her crew and was put out of commission
yesterday alongside Portsmouth Dockyard.
The screw steam gunvessel Surprise, 5, Commander
Whyte, left Plymouth Sound yesterday morning for
the Mediterranean.

The following transports having been char- I
tend for the military store service, were yester-
day registered to load from the Royal Arsenal,
Woolwich, viz., the Clarendon, for St. Helena ;
the Tigress, for Rio de Janeiro; the Heather-
bell, for Cape Town ; the Fenella, for Colombo ; the
Britannia, steamer, for Gibraltar ; and the St. Croix,
for Quebec, Canada.
The following Government vessels in Hamoaze.
are to be sold by order of the Lords of the Adm.-
ralty :—The sailing vessels Spartan, 26, Pilot, 12,
Express, 6, Crane, 6, Petrel, 5, Pandora, 5, Spider
schooner, Portland, 50, Lively receiving hulk, Lap-
wing, 4, Pallas coal depot, and steam vessels Mer-
lin, 6, Arrow, 4, Lyra, 9, and Viper, 4.
The Crocodile receiving ship, Commander Greet,
for many years moored off the Tower, has been for-
warded to Deptford ; and the business of the ship
will be transferred to a branch office of the Fisgard,
to be established in London, under the charge of a
master of the Royal Navy.
The construction of the new transport and coal-
ing jetty along the south end of Portsmouth dock-
yard, which has just been completed at a cost of
upwards of £15,000, has not yet led, nor is it likely
at present to lead to the accommodation which had
been at first expected from it, owing to the shal-
lowness of the water alongside. One transport, the
Cressy, with troops on board, was placed alongside
and the troops disembarked from her, but the ship
took the ground, but the experiment will not be re-
peated. It may be said to be the intention of the
authorities to deepen the ground alongside the jetty
by dredging, but the question then arises—Can the
ground be dredged with safety to the structure ;
and, even if this could be done, would it not fill up
again ? This jetty, with its 600 feet frontage, extends
about 60 feet out into the harbour from the dockyard
wall, and to make it perform the duties for which it
was originally designed it is apparently necessary
to extend its front further into the harbour some 15
or 20 feet, supposing that the structure itself is suf-
ficiently strong to bear such an extension. The con-
struction of jetties without sufficient depth of water
to enable ordinary troopships to go alongside, and
of docks too shallow to receive ships of a deep
draught of water, seems to be an established failing
in the additions and alterations in Portsmouth
Dockyard. No. 11 dock, which has just been again
taken in hand by the contractor, has an entrance
which was constructed some 13 years since at a cost
of £5,000. At that time ships like the Warrior
were not thought of, and the docks capable of ren-
dering general service to the ships of those days
will necessarily be almost valueless for the future.
The completion of No. 11 will now only add to the
resources of Portsmouth yard a dock that will be too

shallow to receive a ship of any size. The vital
importance of large docks at Portsmouth will per-
haps not be acknowledged until some half-dozen
ships run inside the Isle of Wight for repairs after
a desperate engagement with an enemy's fleet in
the Channel. One thing is, however, acknowledged
by all. In the event of hostilities with a country
situate so close to us as France is, that Power which
could soonest repair its fleets and despatch them
again to sea in search of the enemy must enjoy an
immense advantage over its opponent.
The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty :—Lieuts. H. L. Perceval and J.
E. M. Wilson, to the Warrior ; Sub-Lieut. A. G. C.
Tait, to the Donegal ; G. H. Blakey, master, to the
Warrior ; L. J. Monteith, surgeon, to the London ;

S. J. D. Wells, surgeon, to the Warrior ; Astley
Cooper, assist.-surg., to the Cumberland ; David
Duncan, assist.-snrg., to the Indus; Jas. Thomson,
assist.-surg., to the Cesar ; Huston Maxwell,
assist.-surg., to the Pembroke; Josiah Austen,
assist.-surg., to the Warrior ; E. W. Coleman,
tiding assist.-surg., to the Warrior ; H. Macdonnell,
acting assist.-surg., to the Virago ; Beigrave Nin n is,
acting assist.-surg., to the Impregnable, for Ply-
mouth Hospital; J. T. Moore, acting assist.-surg.,
to the 'Victory, for Haslar Hospital ; the Rev. R. N.
Jackson, chaplain and naval instructor, to the War-
rior ; R. A. Fowler, naval instructor, to the Cadmus;
John Phillips, second master, to the Warrior ; J. N.
de Vries, paymaster, to the Warrior ; W. H. Clyma,
paymaster, to the Spiteful; G. A. Welch, paymas-
ter, to the Virago ; J. G. W. Hoare and Thos. W.
Moore, assist.-paymasters, to the Warrior; N. J.
Aaron, clerk, to the Warrior ; and G. F. Matthews,
twist. clerk, to the Warrior.

THE ARMY.

-

A general parade of the officers and men of the
Chatham division of Royal Marines Light Infantry,
now at headquarters, took place on Wednesday,for
the purpose of promulgating to the entire division
the votes of thanks presented to that branch of the
service by the House of Lords and also the House of
Commons for the gallantry they displayed during
the late war in China.

Col. Wilbraham, recently appointed as Governor
of the Royal Artillery Infirmary at Woolwich, yes-
terday took up his appointment and entered on his
duties.

Major-Gen. Sir Richard Dacres, commanding at
Woolwich, yesterday issued an order for the assem-
bling of the whole of the 3d Brigade Royal Artillery
for inspection on Monday next, preparatory to em-
barking for Malta and Corfu.

On Wednesday Mrs. Edgcumbe, wife of the Hon.
George Edgcumbe, in presence of Major-General
Hutchinson, Commander of the Forces in the West,
and of Major-Gen. Bloomfield, Inspector-General of
Artillery, laid the first atone above high water-mark
of a new fort at Picklecombe Point, Mount Edg-
cumbe.park. This work will have a frontage to the
sea of about 600 ft., and will mount 60 guns. It is
just below Picklecombe Fort, built within the last
10_
Years.

In eo;sr h
eequence of thein trod action into the service
of the interchangeable
angeable rifle muskets, pattern 1853,
an alter
has been made by 'War-office circular
in the
existing
gmode of remunerating armourer.•
sergeants for the
repair and examination of those
arms. LordHerber ,awith the concurrence of H.R.H.
the General Commanding-in-Chief, -in-Chief, has therefore
decided that the duties
at'
pay of armourer-ser-
geants, when attached to
kitogianents, shall in future
be subject to the followi Iretirlations :-1. The
pay of armourer-sergeants ,7iiregiments will be
raised- to a uniform of rate of 5,
the implements
for seven
days in the week; 2. the co at ofimplements
and ingredients, as well as the 1 carriage of such ma-
terials to the regiments, will I ill borne by the pub_
lie; 3. in consideration of the i; ic'reased pay granted
to them, armourer-sergeants will perform all re-
pairs zegruired to the interehani ;eablo arms, examine

' and clean them periodically, and brown the barrels
every second year, besides marking the arms of their
regiments, including those of sergeants ; 4. they
shall keep up the tools in the armourer's field forge
without any expense to the public; the sum of £1
a-year per arm of rank and file shall be deducted
from each captain's contingent allowance, and
credited to the public, in aid of the expense in-
curred in maintaining the arms in repair ; 6. all re-
pairs to arms injured, either intentionally or by
carelessness, are to be paid by the men. These re-
gulations do not apply to the sergeants' short rifles
the parts of which are not interchangeable, nor do
they exonerate captains of companies from their
responsibility for the perfect efficiency of the arms
belonging to the men composing these companies.
Officers are directed to satisfy themselves, by means
of frequent and careful inspection, that all repairs
are promptly and properly performed by the ser-
geant-armourer.
In order to expedite the demolition of the exist-
ing fortifications known as the Cavalier and Half-
moon batteries at Garrison Point, at the entrance
to the Medway, and to prepare for laying the mas-
sive concrete base on which the foundations of the
new casemated batteries are to rest, 100 additional
workmen have been placed on the works. The exist-
ing batteries are of very ancient date, some portions
of them having been built prior to the reign of
Charles 11. Recently, during the progress of the
excavations, a shell was discovered near the spot on
which the old works now stand, stamped " Van
Tromp," and bearing the date 1665. It is supposed
to have been fired when the Dutch fleet, under Ad-
miral De Ruyter, sailed up the Medway to Chat.
ham, and burnt several vessels of war at Upnor.
The new works are to be constructed under the
superintendence of Mr. Lacy, C.E.