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

cobbled and patched into a nominally seaworthy
condition, an having again taken her departure
from our shores carrying with her a condiderable
number of troops and passengers), we heard of
her putting, upon the 19th ult., in great distress
into Corunna ! This same incorrigible vessel,
being thus described by one on board of her (not,
observe ! by a Right Hon. Baronet proving black
to be white from the Treasury bench of the
House of Commons), we find her described by
one on board of her, as little better than a mon-
strous tub, topheavy, rolling, keeping her crew
continually wet, having her masts obviously dis-
proportioned, and her rigging altogether dis-
ordered ! _ _

As to the Urgent, again—in the second place
as to " The Urgent." Well, it is equally noto-
rious and equally undeniable that she bad pre-
viously left Spithead on the 23d of February, and
that then her casualties were simply the following !
—That at the beginning of March she sprang a
dangerous leak in the 13 iy of Biscay—that her
engines could not be worked—that she was com-
pelled to go on as best she could without their assist-
ance—and that it was actually not until the 27th
of March that she (a screw vessel !) ultimately
reached her destination ! All the while 800 persons
being on board of her, with boat accommodation
for no more than 300 at the most—the water
rushing into her hell, and the pumps refusing to
work ! The fact being (according to the asser-
' tion of another " eye-witness," another person
. actually on board at the time), that the screw of this
inestimable ship, " The Urgent," had worked a
large piece of iron out of ,her stern, and thus
effectually put a dead lock upon her steam ma-

chinery !
Finally, as to the Perseverance ! Well, as Mr.
LINDSAY yesterday observed, rather significantly,
" at the Naval Review the Members of the
House had experience of the qualities and charac-
ter of the Perseverance !"
Nevertheless—in spite of all these hard and
stubborn Facts—if we are to believe Sir CHARLES
Woon, "It's all right ! Don't bother yourself !
They're capital ships, every one of them !"
They were bought, the Right Hon. Baronet tells
us (we knew this before, but that don't matter),
they were bought, he tells us, from the Messrs.
Mare and Co., " very great shipbuilders on the
river, and of the highest character !" They
were not built, he reminds us, in a hurry—nothing
of the kind—don't think it ! One of them, for
example, (everybody knew this also, but let
it pass) one of them was built for the
Peninsular and Oriental Company and not for
war purposes. It was true that a few trivial
alterations were made in them after they were
purchased, but every one of these alterations was
effected (of course) with the utmost caution and
sagacity, in fact to admiration ! The screws
wore raised, but that was a mere trifle !
Poops were built up supplementarily upon
their decks—not a doubt of it—but really
and truly they were nothing to speak of !
But [Read this Anyone, for Heaven's
sake, simply by the light of common sense !]—
" but," says Sir CHARLES, " this could not have
added any weight to the ship, as the materials of
which the poop was made were very slight." We
really don't care what the materials they were
made of, were—so long as they were," materials,"
they must obviously have added to the weight.
Again these three unfortunate ships were re-
masted after they were in the passession of the
Admiralty—but immediately to prove that this
could not in the smallest degree affect their sta-
bility—out pour from the lips of Sir CHARLES
WOOD, a multitude of facts and figures to prove
round square, and square round, and white black,
and black white—a douche bath of feet, and inches,
and area, and tonnage, reminding one strongly of
that douche bath of argument fairly Wring the
breath out of poor Mr. SQUILLS, at the end of
"The Cartons."
The Stubborn Facts still remaining, after all
this special pleading of the First Lord of the
Admiralty—that the Transit did spring a leak in
April off the Needles ! That the rrgent did
spring a leak in March in theßay of Biscay 1 That
the Transit did put, in distress, into Corinna !
That the Urgent, although fitted up with the
screw, did take more than a whole ca-
lendar month to get to Barbadoes ! That
her pumps would not work, and that her ma-
chinery was useless ! That the Transit did
roll like a tub, that her masts were topheavy,
that her rigging teas loose and disordered—that
her own poop, and the poop of the Urgent, and
the poop of the Perseverance, were all three
encumbrances ! The chopped logic and cooked.
statistics of Sir C. WOOD to the contrary,. never-
theless, notwithstanding.

Observing all which, one is really fain at heart
to cry out for very anguish-0 for one sweep of
CoBBETT's " wet sponge" in other departments
besides merely those of the Treasury and th•
Exchequer !

What can Mr. ROBERTSON GLA DSTONE, of the
Liverpool Financial Reform AsE•ciation, mean ?
Has be not received the message from Downing-
street via Printing-house-square, " Take care of
PALMERSTON ?" If he has not, how can so ignc-
rant a man presume to lecture the representatives
of the people, and if he has, how dares he dis-
obey ? MILTON might address the "High Court
of Parliament," though some, doubtless, in his
day, thought him very presumptuous ; but Mr.
ROBERTSON GLADSTOXE—W h 0 is he ?—who—
President of the Liverpool Financial Reform As-
sociation. But who and what are the association ?
The League we know, or did know, the Carlton
we know, and the Reform Club we know, even
the Administrative Reform Association we can
just discern, giving, as it does, a sort of glowworm
light since it obtained Mr. ROEBUCK'S name, but
this Liverpool knot of professed national accoun-
tants we can hardly remember having ever beard
of them. Stop—when topics ran short about
last Christmas, we did read some financial scheme,
some absurd project for bleeding every one, so
that noun should feel the operation—some cotton
importing or manufacturing proposal for shutting
up all our custom-houses, or converting them into
Free Trade halls; it served us as a peg for a leader
or two, and we thought no more of it.
Thus it pleases the leading organ to notice Mr.
ROBERTSON GLADSTONE'S address to the New
Pailiarneet. What does it mean ; when Lord
DERBY is at pains to make it known that he never
spoke to Mr. COBDEN— when any of us elaborately
exhibit our unacquaintedness with Mr. B. or Mr.
C., why, of course, thAre is some reason. We
glance, therefore, as a matter of curiosity at the
address of the unknown Liverpool Financier—and
all becomes plain enough. The fault is in the
homily, and so far in the man. Here is a busi-
ness-like plain reminder of several plain froetri ;
stock facts if you will—facts, it may be, 'Rb ich
have stood stock still, because the predecesrlors of
those addressed would not let them move fm. ; but
all, or most of them, matters of serious irnport,
and matters which, whether the Times anc I Lord
PALMERSTON like or not, ought to have prompt
attention ; would have pr. mpt attention in a
business-like and earnest Parliament, p,u4 could I
•