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

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 9, 1357

It is tolerably notorious by this time, we should
imagine, that the Admiralty have made a horribly
bad bargain of it three times over—with the
Transit, with the Urgent, and with the Persever-
ance. Let us repeat it—The badness of the bar-
gain with reference to these three wretched ves-
sela must be regarded, we should conjecture,
as absolutely notorious. Yet, in the very
tit3th, as it were, of Facts altogether unde-
niable—it is actually insisted, with matchless
effrontery, by Sir CHARLES WOOD, that everything
is in truth most satisfactory relating to any one
of these three lumbering " Pill Garlics " of the
Deep, these three abominable " 13ig Pickles" of
the Transport Service, everything relating to The
Transit, to The Urgent, or to the Perseverance.
Why, really—than this, we don't recollect at the
present moment any more unblushing evidence
at once of the folly and of the hardihood of that
systematised official perversity of judgment which
Mr. DIOKENS has happily designated under the
generic name of Circumlocution.

In illustration of this we will, first of all,
briefly enumerate a few among the Leading Facts
relating to these three miserable tub,, called
Screw Transports—Facts already alluded to a.,
at one and the same time, notoriously undeniable.
They were categorically mentioned last evening
in the House of Commons by the Hon. Gentle-
sun the Member for Teignmeuth (an authority
upon these matters, be it remembered I) .but
were immediately afterwards so very coolly given
the " go by " by the First Lord of the Admiralty,
that it may be just as well they should, seriatim;
be here formally recapitulated.
As to the Transit, then, first of all ! Don't we
every one of us know just a trifle or two in regard
to "The Transit" rather to her disadvantage ?
Well, yes—we rather conjecture that most of us
remember how The Transit left Spithead on the
7th , *ult. with 600 or 700 passengers,
an& hating some 286 troops on board be-
sides, and how, upon the Bth (the very day
afterwards) having grounded upon one of her own
anchors, and thereby driven a hole in her bottom
near the Needles, she was obliged to put back at
once for repairs to Portsmouth. Neither have
we forgotten how shortly afterwards (having been

cobbled and patched into a nominally seaworthy
condition, aril having again taken her departure
from our shores carrying with her a considerable

number of troops and passongers), we beard of
her putting, upon the 19th ult., in great distress
int) 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 crow

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 had 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 Bay of Biscay—that her
engines could not be worked—that she was com-
pelled. to go on as best she could without their assist-

ante—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 hold, and the pumps refusing to
work ! The fact being (according to the asser-
tion of ahother " 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, a; 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, " lt's all right ! Don't bother yoursel
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 tills 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 alteration's was
effected (of course) with the utmost caution and
sagacity, in fact t) admiration ! The screws
were 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 thin Anyone, fur Heaven's
sake, simply by the light of common sense !]—
" bu'," 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 "Lnateria!s,"
they must obviously have added to the weight.
Again these three unfortunate ships were re-
masted after they were in the possession 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
WOE), 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 taking the
breath but of poor Mr. SQUILLS, at the end of
" The Cottons."
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 ! Toat the -Urgent did
spring a leak in March in the Bay of Biscay ! That
the Transit did put, in distress, into Coruena I
That the Urgent, although fitted up with the
screw, did take more than a whole ca-
lendar mouth to get to Barbadoes ! That
her pumps would net work, and that her ma-
chinery was useless ! That the Transit did
roll like a tub, that her masts were topheavy,
that her rigging was 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 GLADSTONE, of the
Liverpool Financial Reform Association, mean ?
Has he not received the message from Downing-
street via Printing-house-squaw, "Take care of
PALMERSTON l" If he has not, how can so igno-
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 GLADSTONE—Who 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. ROEnuCK'a name, but
this Liverpool knot of professed national accoun-
tauts we can hardly remember having ever heard
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 none 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
Parliament. 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, there 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 facts ;
stock facts if you will—facts, it may be, which
have stood stock still, because the predecessors of
those addressed would not let them move on ; but
all, or most of them, matters of serious import,
and matters which, whether the Times and Lord
PALMERSTON like or not, ought to have prompt
attention ; would have prompt attention in a
business-like and earnest Parliament, and could