The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-20 00:00:00

NAPLES.

A letter from Naples of the 15th, in the Presse,
says:—"We are approaching either a solution or
a dissolution. The 4th regiment—that which main-
tained its discipline in the Champ de Mars—is now
in open revolt. Its commanding officers, despair-
ing of being able to restore obedience, announced
to the soldiers that if they wished to leave they
had only to write their names on a sheet of paper.
The sheet was in a few moments covered with sig-
natures, and the chiefs then, seeing that it was
useless to contend against such unanimity, went to
consult a superior authority. They were sent
back to the soldiers, and told to promise them all
they required—pay, uniforms, federal crosses, &c.
Many of the men were delighted, and shouted
Viva el Re.' Some of them, however, felt mis-
trust, and Major Latour, the Swiss envoy was
waited on by a deputation and asked for more po-
sitive assurances. Major Latour did not allow him-
self to be influenced either by the caresses of the
Government or by the falsehoods of the officers.
He pursued his way with great independence and
probity, telling the soldiers who came to consult
him that they were being deceived by their chiefs,
that their colours would be taken from them on
the 25th, en the demand of the Confederation and
by
.order of the King, who could no longer refuse
that justice. The result was a general defection.
The 13th battalion of Chasscurs, which has been
enrolled since the rupture of the capitulations, has
now joined the malcontents. Yesterday several
officers of the 4th Regiment, fearing a revolt in
their quarters, and threatened, as they said, with
massacre, passed a part of the night in a café of San
Potito. All the police were on foot to watch over
the city, the army, and the lazzaroni. The Royal
Guard has been summoned from Caserta. As the
reward for his straightforward conduct, Major La-
tour has met with a very cold reception from the
authorities ; he has been watched like a suspected
person, and, notwithstanding his official character,
it has been in contemplation to send him out of the
kingdom. This was a bright idea started by the
police in order to simplify difficulties. Fortunately,
Gen. Filangieri is a man of sense, under whom such
follies would be impossible. However, this may be
Major Latour has perfectly succeeded in his mission,
and the 4th Regiment leaves this very day."

ELECTION BY BALLOT IN ADELAIDE.—The re-
sult of the city election, as I presume you already know,
was in favour of Mr. Owen, who polled 6EB votes to Mr.
Blyth's 224. The affair was as quietly conducted as a
Quaker's meeting, forming a contrast to one of the last
elections under the open voting sy stem, where a body of
mounted police had to ride through and through the crowd
to quell an incipient riot, and so peaceable indeed as much
to disgust various politicians of the old school, who still
sigh for the good old electoral days of beer and bribery and
broken heads.—Correspondent of Melbourne Age.
DISINTERESTED LOVE.—Yes ! man has a strong
yearning for disinterested love ; much more so than woman.
Once convince a man that you love him, truly for himself
—for his own self—independently of riches, rank, station,
position, or any of the thousand-and-one advantages he
may be possessed of—only, I say, make him feel that, and
you need not be very nice about the mode in which you go
to work. Men aro as voracious as boa-constrictors, they
will swallow almost any quantity of flattery, provided al-
ways that it be offered at the right time. It won't do to
flatter one man in the presence of another. Be careful of
that; but let a woman take the lucky moment, seize upon
the right opportunity, and she may make a man—ay, in
spite of all his wondrous sense and reason—her slave for
life.—Millicent Neville Abroad.

MR. TOWNSIIEND, LATE MEMBER FOR GREEN-
wicii.—Mr. John Townshend, whose career as M.P. for
the borough of Greenwich, recently attracted public atten-
tion, has become the lessee of the Theatre Royal, Leicester,
and has announced his intention to open the establishment
for the season with a full corps from the metropolis,

THE LATE REAR-ADMIRAL HENRY
DUNDAS TROTTER.

The late Admiral Trotter, to high professional
and general attainments, united a kind and gener-
ous heart, and a frank and most urbane manner,
which made him universally beloved, both in the
discharge of public duties as an officer and in pri-
vate life.

Cut down while yet in the vigour of manhood,
and in the daily exercise of those acts of practical
benevolence which appeared to be a main object of
his life, he has left behind him an example well
worthy of imitation by the members of the service
which he adorned.

Having obtained the usual preliminary educa-
tion for the naval service at the Royal Naval
College, Portsmouth, out of which he passed in an
unusually short time, and after serving for a short
time on the North Sea station, Mr. Trotter, as a
volunteer of the Ist class, proceeded in May, 1819,
in the Eden, Captain J. E. Lock, to the East India
station, where he participated in many hazardous
boat enterprises against pirates, by whom the Per-
sian Gulf was at that time infested. He was pre-
sent at the destruction of Ras el Kyma, the head-
quarters and principal resort of these desperate
freebooters, and assisted in the burning or sinking
of all their vessels by an expedition under the joint
command of the late Admiral Sir Francis Collier
and Major-General Sir William Grant Keir.
In 1822 Mr. Trotter was appointed by Sir Henry
Blackwood, commander-in-chief on the station, act-
ing lieutenant of the Leander ; and on his return to
England in the following year his promotion was
confirmed by the Admiralty. Lieutenant Trotter
next joined her Majesty's ship Hussar on the West
India station ; and while in this vessel he was par-
ticularly mentioned by Capt. Harris, her comman-
der, in a despatch to :Sir Laurence Halsted, the
commander-in-chief, for his gallant conduct in the
capture of a band of pirates at the Isle of Pines.
Obtaining his promotion in 1830, Commander
Trotter was appointed to her Majetty's ship Curlew,
which he commanded for nearly four years on the
Cape of Good Hope and West Coast of Africa sta-
tion, and—the admiral being at the Cape—he was
left for a considerable period in the responsible
charge of the latter division of the station. His
capture while in the Curlew of the notorious pirato
ship Panda is perhaps one of the most striking in-
stances on record of determination and persistent
adherence to duty in a case of this kind. For fifteen
months Commander Trotter was on the track of this
vessel, and he eventually came up with her in the
Bight of Benin, when the piratical crew took to
their boats, and for a time escaped. The Panda
was at once boarded by her captors; but they bad
been but a short time in possession of their prize
when she blew up, causing the immediate death of
two officers, wounding severely many of the men,
and seriously injuring the commander himself,
who was with difficulty extricated from between
the shattered deck and bulwarks before she sank.
The captain, the chief officer, and five of the crew
of the Panda, were eventually taken, under circum-
stances of considerable difficulty and danger, and
not without a personal struggle between the com-
mander and the pirate chief. They were sent to
England, and from thence to the United States,
where they were tried and convicted as pirates and
felons for an atrocious piracy committed on a brig
belonging to Salem, United States, in September,
1832. They justly suffered the extreme penalty of
the law.

A letter from Joseph Peabody, and bearing 100
other signatures, conveyed to President Jackson
the feeling common throughout the United States
regarding the perseverance, gallantry, and good
conduct of Commander Trotter on this occasion.
In a similar spirit the Lords of the Admiralty, in
awarding Captain Trotter his promotion, so well
earned, thus addressed him through the secretary :
" My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty having
had under their consideration your exertions while
in command of the Curlew, in the capture of the
piratical vessel Panda and her crew, and the per-
severance displayed by you in circumstances of ex-
treme difficulty, and involving you in great personal
responsibility, for which, and the protection thereby
afforded to American commerce, you have received
through his Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs the thanks of the President of the United
States, are pleased, as a mark of the sense which my
lords entertain of your conduct, to promote you to
the rank of captain in the royal navy."
With the exception of being for a short period in
the Britannia, 120, as flag captain to Admiral Sir
P. Durham, commander-in•chief at Portsmouth in
1838, Capt. Trotter was ashore from 1834 to 1840,
when an enterprise in every way suited to his tastes,
and promising full scope to his long-cherished de-
sire to explore the interior of Africa and ameliorate
the condition of her benighted sons, was unexpect-
edly opened to him.
The expedition to the Niger originated in the
noble and philanthropic mind of the late Sir Fowell
Buxton, and was espoused by the Government of
the day, more especially by Lord J. Russell, then
Secretary of State for the Colonies. Capt. Trotter
was selected by the Admiralty as the man, fitted by
habits, inclination, general acquirements, and know-
ledge of the African coast, to command such an
enterprise. Throughout his career in the service ho
appeared to have been destined to wage constant
war against those enemies of the human race—
pirates and slave dealers. Ho was able and active,
in the prime of life, and most enthusiastic in the
object of such a mission. He was accordingly ap-
pointed to her Majesty's ship Albert, in command
of the expedition which left England in May, 1841,
and entered the Niger on the 13th of August of
the same year. On tho 27th of August the expedi-
tioh had reached Ibu, 1.20 miles from the sea, 40
miles below the apex of the Delta; and on the 2d
September it was at Iddah, the capital of the Eg-
garah country, where rocks, consisting of ferrugi-
nous sandstone, were for the first time seen. Up to
this time the expedition had been fortunate beyond
all expectation. The Delta had been passed, and
the valley of the Niger was about to be entered
under circumstances seemingly most auspicious.
The crews were in the best possible condition, and
looked forward with a buoyancy of feeling to the
period when the vessels were to ascend the river,
while they contemplated with delight the novel
and diversified scenery of the high land before
them. But fever of a malignant character broke
out in the Albert, and almost simultaneously in the
other vessels, and shortly after the expedition
reached the confluence of the Niger and Tchadda,
two of the vessels composing it were obliged to re-
turn to the sea.
The Albert, with the commander of the expedi-
tion, advanced higher up, as far as Egga, the Nufi
capital. On the 3d October all hopes of penetrat-
ing further into the interior of Africa received a
finishing blow, for Capt. Trotter, the arduous, en-
terprising, and kind coman der, was now taken with
fever ; and besides Dr. M‘William and Dr. Stanger,
only three or four whites were fit for duty. " Those
only," observes Dr. M'William, " who were with
Captain Trotter from first to last in the expedition
and had an opportunity of observing with what un-
ceasing zeal, what untiring energy, he devoted
himself to its grand objects, can form any idea of
his painful sacrifice stern necessity compelled him
to make when he issued the order to turn the
vessel's head downwards, and relinquish designs
which his benevolent mind had so long and so
ardently cherished." The Niger expedition, although
thus repulsed by an enemy against which no human
effort could prevail, and so far unsuccessful in
achieving its immediate objects, was by no means
fruitless in important results. A very considerable
addition was made to our knowledge of the river,
of the various countries on its banks, and of the
climate, which cannot fail to be useful to future
explorers of this interesting region.
Lord Stanley (now Earl Derby), who had suc-
ceeded Lord J. Russell at the Colonial•office before
the return of the expedition to England, in convey-
ing through the Under-Secretary of State his sense
of the services of those employed in the expedition,
expressed his admiration of the zeal and ability
manifested by Capt. Trotter and those under his
command "in the attempt to. execute the objects of
the expedition under very difficult circumstances,
and at great personal risk to all who were engaged
in it." At the outbreak of the Russian war, Sir
James Graham, then First Lord of the Admiralty,
appointed Capt. Trotter as Commodore and Com-
mander-in-Chief of the Cape of Good Hope Station.
Here the commodore's administrative powers and
active benevolence were, as elsewhere, fully dis-
played. He originated and liberally contributed
to the Cape Town Sailors' Home. On his urgent
representation to the Admiralty he was enabled,
through their liberality, to restore a small village
near Simon's Bay, founded may years ago by the
late Admiral Sir Jahleel Brenton, as an asylum for
captured slaves, and which had latterly fallen into
decay.
During his three years' period of command,
although he was ever at some humane work, such as
those to which we have alluded, the onerous, varied,
and more strictly professional duties of the station
were conducted with remarkable zeal and success.
On quitting the station Commodore 'Trotter re-
ceived from Governor Sir G. Grey the warmest,
acknowledgments, and an earnest recommendation
to the Secretary of State for the Colonies for
the services he had rendered to the colony and to
his country by his cordial and activeco-operation
during a period of great anxiety to South Africa,
where nothing shcorliltodf
havefirm availedanddecidtcod
ameasures,,ert an
promptly taken, o
other Kaffir war. On the commodore's arrival in
England from the Cape command, two years ago, he
was apparently in good health ; hut those who had
the opportunity of observing him closely could not
fail to perceive that after the Niger expedition he ,

was occasionally subject to severe headache, and
other symptoms indicating that he never got quite
rid of the effects of the fever from which he barely
escaped with his life.

The close of Commodore Trotter's life career was
sudden ; but it came upon him while he was em-
ployed in a manner in harmony with his whole life.
He had just been renewing, at the Admiraly, an ap-
plication in behalf of an officer formerly under his
command, who possessed no title to Government
favour bc.yond great professional and other merits,
when he was suddenly struck down with paralysis,
which proved fatal in a few hours.
His remains were followed to their resting-place
in Kensal-green by his bereaved relatives and many
of his more immediate friends in the naval service
as well as in private life, including two of his old
companions in the Niger expedition.