The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-11 00:00:00

THE NAY Y.

Orders have been received for the Spithead
division, under Rear-Admiral Erskine, to proceed
from Portland to Plymouth, and there, forming a
junction, to sail round the coasts of Ireland and
Scotland. The supernumeraries were discharged
into the Donegal, which ship was to be the first to
leave Portland for Plymouth. The Diadem, 32, screw,
has remained at Portsmouth to pick up stragglers
belonging to the fleet, and they unfortunately are
rather numerous, and so the poor sipaple-minded
blue-jackets will ever be on the black list until
severe punishment is inflicted on the accursed
crimps and sharks that infest the dens of infamy in.
the vicinity of Portsea, for within 24 hours of a
ship paying off at Portsmouth the lads are shoeless,
penniless, and almost lifeless. Many a promising
young sailor, rating AB, with £4O in his pocket,
on leaving his ship, is seized upon by these male
and female wretches, and the next morning he is
picked up senseless, bleeding, and nearly naked.
The Fury, 6, paddle, Commander Bedford Pim
arrived at Spithead last evening from China and
the Cape, with the following passengers, marines
and seamen, on board :---Sixty of the Royal Marine
Battalion, under Lieut. Godfrey; the crew of her
Majesty's gunboat Starling, lately paid off at Hong
Kong; part of the crew of her Majesty's troopship
Assistance, lately lost in the China seas ; Lieut.
Gordon Stuart,, frnm St. Helena • Capt. Phillips,
' R.N. and Mr. J. E. Boileau, from the Cape of
Good Hope. The Fury sailed from Hong Kong
Jan. 15 ; Cape, April 8 ; St. Helena, April 20 ; and
Ascension, April 28 ; Cape de Verdes, May 15, and.
Teneriffe, May 26. Fine weather has been experi-
enced the whole passage home, but has been gene-
rally attended with head winds. The Fury was
commissioned on July 28, 1856, and has been con-
stantly engaged in the China Seas since that time.
She has taken part in all naval operations during
the war, and was the only vessel that shared in all
three of the attacks on the Peiho forts, The Fury
during her commission has steamed and sailed
59,180 miles, while her towing services in the
China Seas represent an expense of fuel to the
amount of £35,624. The ship's company are a fine,
seamanlike body of men. They show signs, how-
ever, of the effects of the climate in their spare
frames and countenances.
The Hon. J. R. Drummond, Commodore Superin-
tendent of Woolwich Dockyard, yesterday received
the appointment of Lord Commissioner of the
Admiralty, in succession to Rear-Admiral the
Hon. Frederick Thomas Pelham, C. 8., resigned.
It is rumoured at Woolwich in official quarters
that Capt. W Houston Stewart, C. 8., of the flag-
ship Marlborough, in the Mediterranean, will be
Commodore Drummond's successor.

The Bombay, 81, line-of-battle screw steamer,
which is being fitted with engines of 400-horse
power in Chatham harbour, has the engineers em
p'oyed on her from an early hour in the morning
until late at night, in order to complete her for the
steam reserve. Her four boilers, each weighing
upwards of 20 tons, have been shipped on board by
means of the powerful floating sheers.
Orders have been received at Devonport for con-
verting the Ocean, 91, laid down as an ordinary
screw steamship, into an iron-plated ship. As the
vessel is not far advanced the alterations will not
involve much loss. As there are 1,000 tons of iron
plates to be used this weight will be met by an
addition of 60 feet to the length of the vessel, which
will now be 275 feet. She will also be reduced one
deck from the original design.
A series of interesting experiments was last
week made at Shoeburyness, with a view of testing
the effect of heavy shot on iron batteries, which
had been previously found to stand any amount of
pounding with the lighter projectiles from a 68-
1 pounder smooth bore. The battery was built up
as a solid wall of iron, 10 inches thick, on Thorny-
croft's system of dovetailing, and was backed up in
the strongest manner with heavy timber, and
braced with iron bars. It conveyed the impression
that, after having stood the brunt of so much
firing, the battery might, for all practical purposes,
be considered indestructible. The first shot was
fired from an Armstrong 120-pounder shunt gun,
with a projectile weighing
.1261 b. i and such was
the effect of this mass, combined with its -velocity,
that at a distance of 600 yards it cleared out one of
the plates 10 inches in thickness, and, at the same
time, carried away the back fastenings. The second
shot was fired from an ordinary 100-pounder Arm-
strong, with a solid projectile weighing 1101 b.
'This struck the battery at another point, but with
out doing equal damage with the first shot, yet
making a breach clean through the entire structure.
and so weakening it as to insure its entire demo-
lition by a few more shots. One more sufficed for
the purpose, and this, the third, was directed to a
part affording some stability to the superabundar
mass. The missile, weighing again 1101 b., waso,„
before, fired from a 100-pounder gun, and it brought
the whole battery, above the point struck, imme-
diately to the ground.
The following appointments were made yesterday
at the Admiralty :—Edward Jones Butler, assist.-
surg., to the Mutine ; George Patrick, acting second
master additional, to the Southampton ;
Richer:
Cowan, chief engineer, to the AgamemAnosia,
George Trevess, chief engineer, to
tine ineer,
for the Euryalus ; William Oliver, chief ?Lays,
to the Asia, for the Prince Regent; Jain 3
Cumber-
George Crichton, chief engineer, to (a) f
chief engineer, to the Cumber.land, for 2
acting
land, for the Cressy ; John Robe_orr
the
Barone, ;
chief engineer, to the Cu.mberland f
second-class' assist.-en-
William Wilkinson, acting
tr ; and William
gineer, to the Asia, as s.upernu
second-class assist.-engi-
eoßoinbay ;
Mackay Haddow, acting
as
_,...supernumerary.
neer, to the Cumberland,