The Sun.
London, England, 1857-02-06 00:00:00

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The lifad-quarters of the 33d (Duke ? (4f*j Aim
ton's) Regrment marched oci Wecluesdai`fk-,in
lint) Kingstown, where they went on bnkl. thiel s
Government transport Sinioom. The officers ac-
companying the regiment were—Lieutenant-Col.
Johnstone, C.D. ; Brevet-Majors Fitzgerald and
Quale ; Captains Fanshawe Barrett, and Mans-
field; Lieutenants Rogers 'Willis, Ellis, Ball, Wor-
thington, Twilling., Forbes, Graham, Bally, Sta-
tham, Roberts, and Thistlewayte ; Ensigns Morgan,
Grant, Gore, Shipton, and Browne ; Paymaster
Thompson ; Quartermaster Wise ; and Surgeon
Muir and Assistant-Surgeon Ogilvy. On Tuesday
the Lord-Lieutenant went down to Kingstown to
inspect the ship, with every department of which
he expressed himself highly gratified.
Yesterday 62 non-commissioned officers and men
at St.
3cl
89th
uslsstalris,,l7ltsht, it°22ycla,ls,24th, 30th, 34th,
5, sth. 56th,
ofs the
Regiments 4684tthh,L48igtlt,
were 49 th,
dischargeds Infantry, Ist Light72d Hf r Infantry, fdaantintye r
8,
army
rsl,otlh4thH,
Mary's Barracks, Chatham, having been pronounced
unfit for further service. _

'Colonel H. Jervis, commanding the Provisional
Battalion at Chatham, has received an order direct-
ing recruiting to cease for those regiments on the
British and India establishments, the depots of
which are stationed at Chatham garrison.
The Hogue, 60, screw ship, Captain Fulford,
bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Henry Ducie
Chads, K. 0. B. , Commander-in-Chief of the squad-
ron on the Irish station, was " paid down" to the
31st of last December on Monday last. The ship
and tenders mustered 560 men, who appeared at
the pay-table and received sums varying from 101.
to the fractional part of a shilling, and were all
paid in 44 minutes.

Her Majesty's steam-frigate Megmra, 6, Com-
mander Purvis, left Spithead yesterday at 12.30
p.m., with the troops before reported for the Mau-
ritius.

• Lieutenant Pearson, fourth of the steam-frigate
Retribution, has'resigned his commission.
Imperieuse, 51, screw, Captain Rundle B. Wat-
son, C. 8., commenced paying off yesterday morn-
ing at Portsmouth, under the new and improved
system, by the ship's paymaster, the rear-admiral
superintendent being present. In two hours and a
half the whole was accomplished, and the manner
of its accomplishment reflects the highest credit on
the paymaster, Thomas M. Ramage, Esq., and his
assistant officers. The crew left the ship, or rather
the hull, in a beautiful state of cleanliness.
Sealark, 8, sailing-instruction brig, Lieutenant-
Commander Lowther (tender to Illustrious).
Lieutenant Lowther having made a demand to have
his quarter boat fitted with Clifford's patent gear for
lowering boats at sea while the ship is under weigh,
we are happy to state that his demand was in-
stantly acceded to ; nor could anything be more
useful, because the boys will be in constant practice
with the boat, and as they are drafted off into the
'different ships the advantages arising therefrom
must be so much the greater from the knowledge
obt lined. We hope that both quarter boats will
be fitted to every ship in the service, because there
is the necessity of lowering a boat from the lee side
in squally weafaer.
The freightship Elpbinstone, having embarked
a cargo of Ordnance stores and ammunition from
Woolwich Arsenal, has sailed for Honduras.
Mr.RLutber Young, an American artisan, who
has obtained a patent for the invention of a new
method of regulating minutely the consumption of
gas, having been ordered to forward his apparatus
for adjustment in Woolwich Dockyard, by order of
the Lords of the Admiralty, yesterday waited on
the authorities there, and gave the necessary ex-
planations for the application of his patent meters,
52 of wbiah were supplied for the use of the dock-
yard. He was accompanied by Mr. Van Winckle,
also an American, who professes to turn out, by
a single piece of machinery, of which he is the in-
ventor, a number of bolt-nuts, at the rate of from
50 to 60 per hour, ready for use. The invention is
about t 3 be submittei to the consideration of the
Lords of the Admiralty.
Her Majesty's ship Tyne, in Woolwich Dock,
No. 2, having been stripped and overhauled, is
about to receive a new upper deck, considerable
stern and bulwark repairs, and to be newly cop-
pererd.
A number of recruits attached to the Royal Ar-
tillery corps at Woolwich who have passed through
the usual training, under the inspection of Colonel
Bloomfield, were yesterday morning subjected to
a final examination, and, having been supplied
with 10 rounds of cartridge each, they were
marched to the Common, where they underwent
a course of field gun drill, and fired the allotted
number of rounds. A company of the Royal
Marine Light Infantry, under the command of
Lieutenant and Adjutant Fraser, were at the same
time drawn up on Woolwich common and put
thrdugh a course of skirmishing drill, and fired
several volleys of musketry.
The following appointments were made yester-
day at the Admiralty :
J, Caldwell, surgeon-superintendent to the
Clara convict ship ; Robert Clark, superintendent,
to the Zemindar convict ship, and Thomas H.
Tigard, master's assistant, to the Indus.

THE BANK CHARTER ACT.

(Prom, the Derbyshire Courier.)

cannot," says "Mercator," in his last published
letter to the Times, " venture to trespass further upon
your columns, although the subject is not exhausted, nor
have the considerations alluded to undergone a full exa-
mination.

Unless "Mercator" can adduce more cogent argu-
ments in support of his currency theories than he has
done in his former letters, he will act wisely in writing
no wore. He gives us an abundance of strong asser-
tions, and reiterated misstatements of facts, but no novel
reasoning or conclusive proofs of the " solidity" of his
system.
Reluctantly driven by the attacks made upon him to
refer to the crisis of 1847, he repeats the often-refuted as-
sertion that the commercial distress of that period which
lod to the " surrender of the principle of the Bank Charter
Act," was the effect of " banking mismana;ement on the
part of the Bank of England." Now " Mercator" well
knows that the Bank Charter Act of 1544 was pro-
fessedly intended to take away all discretionary power
from the bank. The bank was in future to take care of
itself. The Bank Charter Act engaged to take care of
the public. " With respect to the banking business of
the bank," said Sir Robert Peel on May 6th, 1844, "I
propose that it should be governed on precisely the same
principle as would regulAte any other body dealing with
Bank of Englald notes."
The Bank in 1847 acted according to the best of their
judgment, and the result was that ruin and confusion
were spread throughout the country, and that the "self-
regulating" principle of the Bank Charter Act was sur-
rendered to prevent a revolution.

" Nlercator" wants no further answer on this point.
But "Mercator" further refers to the fluctuations in the
rate of interest which have occurred since 1844.

Here, as before, he ignorantly, or designedly, con•
founds capital and currency ; and this fallacy has been
so often refuted that it deserve* no further reply.
But he telli the manufacturers and merchants of Eng-

land, for their edification and guidance, that fluctuations
in the rate of interest are "the necessary accompaniments
of rapid creation of wealth." "We may therefore,: i
says, " cast aside all weak apprehensions caused by
of energy in our commercial spirit and of progre is
fluctuations in the rate of interest; they are indicative
our national prosperity."
t be indeed un"
The commercial community
accept
mast
ausstatement as this.
reasoning if they
less than four per cent.
In the pressure of 1839 t
never exceeded five nor was
he the rate of discount
rate was raised for some
months to six per cent
tay,sulcB39,
" From 1704 to 16etheceMp
but it was reduced to five
..
per cent. in January, 140, 8 and remained at four or
before till the passing of the Act."
(Lord's Reportas
on
Commercial Distress of 1847.)
In September, 1844, the rate was reduced by the
Bank to 03 per cent., at which rate it continued for 12
~
months.
During this time speculation was fostered—
almost f.,rced on the public, by cheap money, the result
of the Ant of 1844.
In 1847 money was 10 per cent., and with the " com.
mission" paid on Bills raised 20 and even 30 per cent.
The number of changes between 1844 and 1847 (three
years) was 13 ; and the number between the panic of
1847 and October, 1855, amounted to no less than 23 in
number. The fluctuation was between two and seven
per cent.
Had England no prosperity,—was no progress made
from 1704 to 1839, with its steady rate of interest? Has
commercial prosperity dated from. 1844, with its Mercator
fluctuations of the rate of discount ?
It remains for the commercial community to say
whether they will accept the flowine sentences and
fine words of " Mercator" as equivalents forthe
\
tics]. inconvenience and positive lose which
tuations entail.
Should they remain supine, the Bank Charter Act
must remain an incubus on the country
e to
rience has taught the mass of the p p
l
the Currency Question.
____.................„ theirPflug.
xpe.
understill bitter e
tand

afternoon,
aldndet
EMIGRATION TO AIISTBALIA.—LIVERPOOL, Thursday.
—The Black Ball line of packet ship Lightning, Capt.
tilari
Enright, sailed from the Mersey
,tdhisise
freight. The
bvoeruyrnel,arwgieth
caarpgrrtyorlarrageermehaainl 820
Broughton Hall, and the Salem, Captain Flynn (of the
White Star line), have also sailed for Melbourne, each
with a fair complement of passengers and cargo on
freight.
MARINE DISASTERS AND Loss OF LaTit.—Livng.
rooL, Thursday.—A telegraphic despatch from Holy.
head to-day reports a foreign vessel, stipPoged French,
has been totally wrecked at the back of the Head, and
orly two lives out of the entire crew have been saved.
The cargo, consisting of Cognac brandy, olive oil, and
candles, is washing about the coast, and very little likely
to be recovered. The Warratah, from Savannah to
Liverpool, was dismasted and abandoned, Jan. 21, in
I long. 26 ; crew landed to-day at Queenstown,