The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-15 00:00:00

Cargo, n heat and flour. A part of the latter saved
but damaged." ,

THE LATE LIEUTENANT WAG-
HORN, R.N.
This gallant officer, whose sudden and melancholy
demise we announced a few days since, was born at
Ceatham in the early part of the year 1800. At
twelve years of age he was appointed a midshipman
in her Mijesty's navy, and sixteen days before he had
attained seventeen he passed in navigation for lieute-
nant--the youngest midshipman that had ever done
so. At the end of 1817 he was paid off, and went
third mate of a free-trader to Calcutta. Returning
home in 1819, he got appointed to the Bengal marine
(pilot service) of India, where he served till 1824,
when he volunteered for the Arracan war, and re-
ceived the command of the East Lelia dampany's
cutter Matchless, and a division of gun-'goat?, in con-
nexion with that army and flotilla. He was five
times engaged, and saw much service by land and by
sea, and was once wounded in the right thigh. He
returned to Calcutta in 1827, having received the
thanks of all the authorities, with a constitution then
undermined from the baneful fever of Arracan, where
so many thousands 'died. Pestilence reduced the
farces in six months to one-fifth of their original
number; but f.om the indomitable perseverance that
had marked his course, Lieutenant Waghorn rallied
to the great project he had secretly at hear', namely,
a steam communication between our eastern pos-
sessions and England. He communicated his plan to
the officials, including the then Chief Secretary to
the Bengal Government, Mr. C. Lushiugtoo, now
M.P. for Westminster, through whom he brought
home letters from Lerd Combermere, then Vice-
President in Council (Earl Amherst, Governor-
General, being on a tour in Upper India), for the
East India Company, in London, as a fit and proper
person to open steam navigation with India via the
Cape of Good Hope. On his arrival in England,
Lieutenant Waghorn advocated this object in Lon-
don, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham,
&c., as he had previously done at Madras, the
Mauritius, the Cape, and St. Helena. Bat her Ma-
jesty's Post-office, at that time, was opposed to ocean
steam navigation; and so, unfortunately, were the
East India directors (except Mr. Loch), although
Lieutenant Waghorn proclaimed its usefulness to all
for two years. However, in October, 1829, he was
called on by Lord Ellenborough (President of the
India Board) and Mr. Lech (Chairman of the Court
of Directors) to go to India, through Egypt, with
dispatches for Sir J. Malcolm, Governor of Bombay,
&e. ; and to report upon the practicability of the
Red Sea navigation for the overland route. On
that trip he got to Alexandria in twenty-six days ;
and so rapidly was his journey to Trieste accom-
plished (nine and a half days through five kingdoms)
that an inquiry was then made by the Foreign-office
respecting it. Lieutenant Waghorn's orders were
to Join the Enterprise, first steamer from England to
India, at Suez, on the 6th of December, 1829. Owing
to an accident she did not appear, and as he had im-
portant Government dispatches, Lieutenant Wag-
horn had no resource except to return to England, or
go on in an open boat down the Red Sea. He pre-
ferred the latter as a matter of duty, and sailed down
the centre of that sea without chart or compass, the
north star being his guide by night and the sun by
day. Suffice it to say that he arrived at Juddah,
620 miles, in six and a half days, and there first
learned that the Enterprise steamer had broken her
machinery on the way from Bengal to Bombay, and
was not coming. From what Lieutenant Waghorn
observed in this trip, he felt convinced that for every
purpose of interest, politically, morally, and com-
mercially, between England and the East, this was
the route ; and it were a waste of time to say with
what ardour, perseverance, and firmness he worked
it to completion. Lieutenant Waghorn received the
thanks of three quarters of the globe—viz.,
Europe, Asia, and Africa, besides numberless
commendations from mercantile communities at
every point where eastern trade is concerned. Un-
aided (except by the assistance of the Bombay Steam
Committee) he built the eight halting places on the
Desert between Cairo and Suez, the three hotels es-
tablished above them, in which luxuries are provided
and stored for the passing traveller, and rendered that
hitherto waste the wonder of every traveller. When
Lieutenant IVaghorn left Egypt in 1841, he had es-
tablished English carriages, vans, and horses, for the
passengers conveyance across the Desert (instead of
camels), and placed small steamers from England on
the Nile and the canal of Alexandria. Tee " Over-
land Mails" to and from India for two years (from
1831 to 1834) were worked by himself; and he
summed up his labours by carrying letters to Eng-
land from Bombay in 47 days in February, 1834,
without any steam from Alexandria to Landon. In
1847 Lieutenant Waghorn showed that England pos-
sessed another way to India as well as the route
through F. ante, the Gallant offiser having in the
winter of that year effected a saving of thirteen days
in the journey via Trieste. He, moreover, explored
a mail route through the Papal S ates, via Ancona,
between England and India; and another route by
way of G nos. Each of these routes is now open
(Trieste, Genoa, or Ancona) for such purpose when-
ever Government may think proper to order mails to
and fro between England and India by eithar. The
remains of the gallant officer were privately in-
terred yesterday at Snodlands, near Rochester.

TO TI! EDITOR OF THE SUN.
SIR,—I was distressed to real in the Evening Mail
of the 9th ins`., the death of Lieutenant Waghorn,
to whose zealous and persevering exertions we
mainly owe cur rapid and certain communication with
most parts of India and China, via overland route.
Lieutenant Waghorn was in the prime of life, and
might have looked forward to years of usefulness to
his country and family, but his once iron constitu-
tion had been so impaired by his unheard-3f zeal in
the promotion of England's best interest, that he sank
beneath the load he had borne fir many years, in
establishing that which he was allowed to see fully
matured; and the least a generous public can do to
perpetuate his name is to erect an appropriate monu-
ment to his memory, and to raise a fund for the bene-
fit of his widow and children; and I consider this
might he done in the most simple way, by all mer-
chants, traders, and all officers of both professions,
with officers of the Indian civil service, and every
one who has connexions or friends in India, subscrib-
ing from half-a-crown to ten shillings. On my seeing
the late Lieutenant Waghorn, a f-_,w years ago, at
Malta, he expressed to me his most earnest desire to
spend and be spent for the benefit of his country, and
that his greatest desire was, that when he was no
more, his remains might rest on the traffic road be-
tween Cairo and Suez; and although this cannot now
be the case, his memory can be handed down to the
latest posterity by a suitable column being erected
over his tomb.

Trusting these imperfect remarks may lead to
some one taking them up and carrying them out,
I have the honour to be, &c.

W. J. COLE, Cap+.
Lechlade, Gloucestershire, Jai. 14, 1850.

DIAMOND DUST.
(From Eliza Cook's Journal.)
Bet ay meal terror of ridicule, thou shalt find fools
enough to mock ne:o. But answer those their laughter
with conte-npt, and toe scab-8 will lick thy feet.
Correct taste is always true t> nature The "beau-
tiful appearance of the earth and heavens," the regular
change of the seasons, the succession of day and night,
fill the heart cf him who is influenced by it with ral:-
tare. The nearer works of art approach the pe:fection
of nature, the more consonant they are with good Lists,
and they command lasting and universal admiration.
Gravity is not necessarily a component part of wicked-
ne s. Malignity is oft qi wreathed in smilol. TI e
are jests which destroy; destroy as surely as the keen-
edged dagger or the poisoned bowl.
In every generous mind there is a string, which, ;f
touched rightly, yields fine tines, but if struck by an
unskilful hand, produces ( my discord.