The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, MA Y 9, 1857.

differing only by three tons—that of the Transit being
2,751 tons and that of the Adventure 2,748 tons. The sta-
bility of each of these ships was estimated approximately;
the decks, engines, 'nesting gear, equal weights of ballast,
&c., being taken into account; and while the stability of
the Adventure was found td be 5,130 tons, that of the
Tran it was no less than 8,484 tons."
He hoped, therefore, that the house would be satisfied
that both by calculation and by experiment the Transit
had been proved to be as steady a vessel as could be sent
to sea. The expetiments of which he had spoken were
tried after the poop and • forecastle were put on, and
therefore showed the quality of the vessel, not as she was
when she was purchased, but as she was at the present
.time. The hon. gentleman (Nlr. Lindsay) had referred
to the case of the Perseverance. It was true that an
accident occurred to that ship when in dock at Wool-
wich which occasioned some alarm, but since she bad
been at sea she had done her duty remarkably well. On
the-day of the naval review complaints were made by
bon. members of a delay on the railway, but he was not
aware that any bne had roads any complaint of the ac-
commodation on board the Perseverance, or of the man-
ner in which that vessel had performed the service for
which she was appointed. About a week ago he had
received a letter from Captain Macdonald, one of the
officers present on board the Perseverance at the time of
the accident to which the hon. gentleman had referred.
That letter stated,—
" You need not be in the least anxious as to this ship's
being top-heavy ; for onlour arrival at Barbadoes we had
only four tons of coal dust aad a very few days' bread and
provisions left."
The Perseverance, therefore, had performed its duties
without the slightest complaint of any sort or kind.
With regard to the next ',vessel to which reference had
been made, the Urgent, he could only state that he was
not aware that any well-founded complaint had been
made against that vessel as distinguished from her en-
gines. It was true that, as regarded her engines, a
complaint had been made about an occurrence which
took place when first she went to sea, but the house
must remember that the engines of these vessels, and the
machinery connected with those engines, were not ma-
nufactured in Government dockyards, but by engine-
makers in different parts of the country. The engines
of the Transit and Urgent were built by the Messrs.
Napier of Glasgow, builders of great celebrity, for the
Russian Government, and they had been seized at the
commencement of the war and placed in those vessels
Now, what had happened in reality to the Urgent ? It
was perfectly true that an accident happened to the
Urgent in the Bay of Biscay, but the accounts which
had appeared in the newspapers were founded rather
upon the imagination of the writers of them than from
the real facts of the case. In order to show to the House
what actually did occur, he would read the letter which
had been received from the commanding officer, and
which ran as follows :

It had been stated in the papers that the commander o
tin, vessel had been fully acquitted ; but it appeared the
Beard of Admiralty bad fund him guilty of great ne-
glect, and he (Admiral Walcott), as a naval officer, must
confess that he had, in his opinion, been deserve sly re-
primanded, inasmuch as he had not taken those precau-
tions iR the p4tion of the ship which the c:rcurustances
of the case demanded. The hon. gentleman the member
for Norlo'k had alluded to the fact as somewhat singular
that the water bad risen to sn-h a height in the ship
without being observed, and with respect to that point,
he (Adtriral Walcott) could not help thinking that some
degree of neglect had taker place. It was not without
cJnsiderable pain that he felt it to be hie duty to utter a
word against the conduct of a brother officer, but he
thought the couduct of the cimmander in the present
instance was such as to cal for cinsure. The Transit,
however, subsequently got into heavy water in the Bay
of Biscay, and, as every naval officer must know was the
case when a ship with new rigging encountered a severe
gale in that sea, her rigging had stretched. Under such
circumstances there was a clear course for the command-
ing officer to adopt. The technical mode of proceedii g in
such a state of things the gallant admiral pointed out by
holding out his hat before him and manoeuvring it in ex-
planation of his views. He could not:exactly understand
why the ship had put into Corunna at all ; be that
as it might, he now felt perfectly persuaded that she
was seaworthy, and instead of foundering at the Cape of
Good Hope, would be found to make a prosperous voy-
age to China. With respect to the mast of the vessel,
he would only say that it was quite evident she was not
overmasted or overtopped.
Ths subject was then dropped.
CHAIR OF MILITARY SURGERY AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.
Mr. BLACK asked the Secretary of State for the
Home Department if it was the intention of the Go-
vernment to make an appointment to the chair of mi-
litary surgery in the University of Edinburgh, which
had been vacant for more than 12 months ?
Sir G. GREY said that the appointment lay in the
hands of his noble friend the Secretary for War, who
had selected an officer for the purpose. That gentleman
would, he believed, enter upon thenischarge of his duties
on the 15th inst.
The motion for the adjournment of the house until
Monday was then agreed to.

TRANSPORTATION.
Sir G. GREY moved for leave to bring in a bill to
amend the Acts of the 16th and'l7th year of her Ma-
jesty, substituting, in certain cases, other punishments
in lieu of transportation. The bill proposed to carry
into effect several of the recommendations made by
the committee which had sat upon the subject of se-
condary punishments last session, and if the house
would permit him to lay it upon the table that evening,
he should fix an early day for the second reading—Mon-
day next—if that day should meet with the approval of
bon. members; inasmuch as he was anxious to have some
decision upon the measure before the estimates,
which would occupy a considerable time, were brought
under discussion.
Leave was given to bring in the bill, which was read
a first time.