The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-12 00:00:00

The Minotaur, 34, screw (armoured iron) frigate,
6,621 tons, 1,350 horse-power, Captain James G.
Goodenough, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral F.
Warden, C. 8., Commanding-in-Chief the Channel
squadron, steered out of Portsmouth harbour yes-
terday morning, and anchored at Spithead, the first
rendezvous of the Channel squadron for the present
year. There has been a great deal made public of
late concerning the steaming capabilities of the
ships forming the Channel squadron in its experi-
mental cruises made last year, and more particu-
larly in the closing cruise of November last. These
statements have been more or less distorted, but it
is at the same time remarkable that those ships
which appear to have been thegreatest failures under
trials of continuous steaming include vessels that
have given the greatest proportion of indicated over
nominal power on the measured mile. The apolo-
gists of these vessels will say that their screws have
been set at an exceptionally flue pitch by the maker
of their engines expressly to gain an increased num-
ber of revolutions on the mile, and an increase
thereby of indicated power ; but that such means
seriously militate against the ship's speed in a six
or eight hours' trial at sea. On the other hand it
is asserted that the new system inaugurated by
the present Controller of the Navy, of imposing
upon contractors with the Admiralty for the con-
structio❑ of engines for her Majesty's ships the
condition that the set of engines contracted for
shall indicate on their trial six times their nomi-
nal power in lieu of the ordinary four times, is
a most unwise regulation. It compels a maker
of engines to have recourse to surface condensors,
superheating apparatus, and other complex addi-
tions, which is only a stupid attempt to cram one-
third more engine power into a vessel than the old
nominal rate. The new rule has undoubtedly de-
stroyed whatever value was possessed by the previ-
ously accepted rule. If we look at the results of
the competitive speed trial made with the fleet under
full steam on Nov. 26 last, and take the Warrior as
the comparative vessel, as being the oldest built in
the fleet, it appears to furnish positive proof that
the first built of all our ironclads is still the swiftest
vessel at sea that we possess. It must be observed,
also, that the Warrior's boilers are her original set,
and have 4- sths of their life worn out of them. They
were consequently, on the day of their trial at sea,
only loaded with 201 b. on the safety-valves. Those
of some of the other ships were loaded to 281 b. and
301 b. At the conclusion of the trial the respective
positions were :-1, Achilles ; 2, Lord Warden ;
3, Warrior ; 4, Prince Consort ; 5, Pallas ;
6, Bellerophon ; 7, Minotaur ; 8, Lord Clyde.
The total number of the revolutions made by
each ship's engines during the eight hours
of the trial was :—Achilles, 25,155; Lord War-
den, 27,176 ; Warrior, 23,400 ; Prince Consort,
25,488 ; Pallas, 25,682 ; Bellerophon, 31,875 ;
Minotaur, 25,748 ; Lord Clyde, 27,015. The di-
rection of the wind from 10 to 12 o'clock was E. by
S. ; from 2to 4 o'clock, E. to N.E. Its force was
from 10 to 12 o'clock from 3 to 2 ; from 2 to 4
o'clock it sank to 1. The sea was quite smooth, the
weather barometer standing at 30.29.

The troopship Lady Octavia, which has been
chartered by the Government for the conveyance of
reinforcements of various corps to St. Helena, the
Cape of Good Hope, and the Mauritius, having been
inspected by Major-General F. Murray, embarked
the following detachments at Government-quay,
Gravesend, yesterday, under the superintendence
of the officers of the divisional staff from Chatham
—viz., 15 non-commissioned officers and gunners
of the 12th Brigade, 16 men of the 13th Brigade,
10 men of the 17th Brigade, four soldiers' wives,
and four children, and 35 non-commissioned officers
and gunners, five soldiers' wives, and six children
of the Depot Brigade, Royal Artillery, for St...
Helena; 15 men of the 12th Brigade, 24 gunners,
two soldiers' wives and five children of the 13th
Brigade, 18 non-commissioned officers and gunners,
five soldiers' wives, and seven children of the 17th
Brigade, 45 men of all ranks, three soldiers' wives,
and ten children of the Depot Brigade, Royal
Artillery, and six men of the 99th (Lanarkshire)
Regiment, for the Cape of Good Hope ; one
armourer-sergeant, wife, and two children of the
Coast Brigade, one sergeant, wife, and child, and
three tailors of the Depot Brigade, Royal Artillery,
and one man of the 32d Regiment, and one staff
sergeant of the 99th Regiment for the Mauritius.
The following officers embarked with the troops :
viz., Captain Horatio Priestley, 32d Regiment, in
command ; Captain Charles Burton, 99th Regi-
ment ; Ensign Henry P. Williams, 86th Regiment ;
Deputy Assistant Superintendent of Stores, Richard
Jago, and Staff Assistant Surgeon Dwyer, in me-
dical charge.
The following appointments have been made at
the Admiralty :—Lieutenant Arthur Williams, to
the Euphrates ; Lieutenant Fitzherbert Codrington
to the Research ; Sub-Lieutenants George T. Bol-
ton and Robert R. Jaffray, to the Warrior ; Cyril
Corbet, midshipman, to the Pallas ; Edward S.
Peach, assistant paymaster, additional, to the Royal
Alfred ; and George Park, first class assistant en-
gineer, additional, to the Indus, for service in the
Prince Consort.

Major-General GEORGE H. THOMAS, to whom in
his difficulties the PRESIDENT, failing SHERMAN,
has turned, is an officer second only to SHERMAN in
distinction. During all the operations by which
SHERMAN eventually doubled up the Confederacy,
THOMAS, who was one of his generals of division,
was his right-hand man. It may not be without
interest to our readers to recall the connection of
these two distinguished officers, who, under the
present complications at Washington, have been
thrust by the PRESIDENT so prominently forward.
When HOOD superseded Joifxsivx in the last
year of the war by order of JEFFERSON DAVIS
another system of tactics was inaugurated to
stop SHERMAN'S advance. Following the example
of NAPOLEON on the March of the Allies to
Paris, HOOD swung round to the invaders' rear,
hoping to draw him back by placing himself on
the line of communication. SHERMAN detached
THOMAS to deal with HOOD, and proceeded on his
devastating track. THOMAS, outnumbered, re-
treated on Nashville, drawing his enemy on, while
he kept him at bay by skilful manoeuvreing and a
determined front. On the 30th November he re-
pulsed a fierce attack on his entrenchments at
Franklin, in which 6,000 Confederate soldiers fell,
and no less than thirteen general officers. THOMAS
retired, and on the 2d December HOOD established
his lines in front of Nashville, where he awaited re-
inforcements under PRICE. The moment was
critical, for if Nashville had fallen HOOD would
have been greatly strengthened in this effort
the last aggressive move made by the South.
On the lbth December, THOMAS, having gathered
up all his available strengh, attacked HOOD'S
position, and, after a battle which extended over
two days, routed him, capturing most of his artil-
lery and many thousand prisoners. General
THOMAS'S headquarters are now in the city the scene
of his decisive victory, and failing with GRANT, the
director of these operations, failing with SHERMAN,
THOMAS'S immediate chief and associate in them, the
PRESIDENT has now turned to him for aid. ANDREW
JOHNSON offers him a great bait ; he proposes to
make him in rank the equal of GRANT, preparatory
to conferring on him the Command-in-Chief ; but
the example of his renowned colleague, General
SHERMAN, is before him. That officer, in a note to
the PRESIDENT, courteously declined the new com-
mand, and the proposed promotion, and Mr. JOHN-
SON has withdrawn the nomination. The note was
forwarded unsealed, through General GRANT, much
to the PRESIDENT'S annoyance. It is generally
thought that THOMAS, though a Southerner, by
birth being a native of Virginia, is too staunch a
Northern soldier to aid the PRESIDENT'S plan of
plunging the Union into another Civil War, and
will also decline the promotion. If so, the PRESI-
DENT'S attempts to draw into his party any of the
most celebrated of the Union soldiers will fail, and
with it will fail his power of resisting Congress by
force. The difficulty people on this side expe-
' rience in calculating the position is in esti-
mating how far ANDREW JOHNSON may him-
self be in error. Here is a man persisting
in a course which leads to open war or to
his own political annihilation, for, if convicted,
he is rendered incapable by the Constitution of
again holding public office. We suppose that this
man must understand the circumstances surround-
ing him, and we imagine a force at his back not
the less real because we cannot see it. All try to
penetrate the mystery,
to perceive the power on
which ANDREW JOHNSON must rely in his battle
with Congress. It is, however, not even impro-
bable that the person most completely deluded may
be ANDREW JOHNSON himself.
We know that in
his celebrated tour he acted as if in the interest of
his enemies, doing exactly what they wanted him
to do, destroying his influence and injuring the
cause he had at heart. From the day he assumed
office he has been ceaselessly employed in thwart-
ing the accomplishment of his own desires. If
ANDREW JOHNSON'S administration has been a
series of mistakes, an apt illustration of the couplet
applied to the King, one word being changed—

" Who never wrote a foolish thing,
And never did a wise one,"
is it unlikely that he may have deliberately raised
the whirlwind, without any means of directing it,
that blows his own destruction ? Frequent cases of
such infatuation occur in history, and notwith-
standing ttio PRESIDENT'S threat to maintain the
Executive authority by force, and the issue to which
he has compelled Congress, we may see him bowled
out with scarcely a struggle. The continued decline
in gold is a strong indication that ANDREW JOHN-
SON'S powers of resistance do not equal either his
expectation or his inclination, and he may speedily
find himself lost in even a greater obscurity than
usually falls to the lot of ex-Presidents.—Anglo-
American Times.