The Sun.
London, England, 1850-03-20 00:00:00

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

With much regret we have to record the death o
Mr. Amedroz, the late chief clerk of the Admiralty,
which took place at his residence on Monday after-
noon. This gentleman, whose health had long been
failing, retired from office about a year since, after
an unusually long period of half a century's service.
He was a man of the strictest integrity, and a most
valuable public servant, particularly so during the
war, being very useful in the military and political
department of the Admiralty, over which, for many
years prior to his becoming chief clerk, he had the
control. Mr. Amedroz was universally respected by
the Lords and Secretaries of the Admiralty under
whom he served, for his honourable, upright cha-
racter, and no less so by his colleagues in office. Mr.
Amedroz bad a pension of 1,000/. per annum.
PORTSMOUTH, TUESDAY.—We are requested to
state that the Lords of the Admiralty have under
their consideration the propriety of subscribing to-
ward the funds for establishing a sailors' home in this
port.
The " rot" has got into the Monarch, 84, at Sheer-
ness, which, it is expected, will prevent her commis-
sion. A survey was held on Friday by Rear-Admiral
Berkeley, M.P., C.B, ; Captain Sir Baldwin Walker,
Surveyor of the Navy; and the Master Shipwright
of Sheerness Dockyard.
The Niger steam-sloop, of the reserve squadron,
has been removed from the jetty to the sea basin to-
day, preparatory to being docked to have her waste
steam -pipes and bottom examined.
The Lily, 12, Commander Bedford, hauled off
from the dockyard into the stream this afternoon.
She will be ready for sea by the 30th.
WOOLWICH, MARCH 19—The First Lord of the
Admiralty held a levee to-day at Whitehall, which
was attended by the following officers :
Captains—James Scott, C.B. (1828), John Alex-
ander Duntze (1829), Joseph Harrison (1832),
Michael Quin (1837), Jobn Robb (1841), Bartho-
lomew James Sulivan (1845), Charles John Bosan-
quet (1846), Douglas Curry (1846), and Henry
James Matson (1849).
Commanders—Louis Symonds Tindal (1841),
William F. Blair (1841), James Newburgh Strange
(1842), Vincent A.mcolts Msssingberd (1842),
George Kenyon (1843), James Spencer Ellman
(1845), Frederick Thomas Barnard Hanker (1846),
Washington Carr (1846), Cumberland Hadaway,
(1846), George Curtis Adams (1846), and John
(1818), James
A. L . lh Varton
Lieutenants—FrancisB Witham
Sedgwick Lean (1810), James Fearnley Arnold
(1810), Francis Hallowes (1813), Henry Tryon
(1815), John Rowley Thompson (1841), Percy
William Coventry (1844), and George Age; Ellis

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
TlMES.—Apropos to slavery, we have to record
an act of personal subjugation, as bad as anything in
the evidence given last year to the Committee of the
Lords. The scene was not the Bight of Biafra, nor
Gallines, but Downing-street; the victims were not
the glossy children of Ham, but 160 Members of the
British House of Commons; and the ostensible au-
thor of the extraordinary outrage was not a Brazilian
skipper, but the head of her Majesty's Government.
By the sound of the Treasury whip the unfortunate
captives were mustered early in the above-mentioned
of Witho
owing
gertmhes of
them the
their
opportunityservitude.
tenderingut so
theirm uscph as
Do
barracoon, and there shortly and sharply instructed
ianllothAe•
taneous support, Massa Russell, for so we must call
the principal actor on this occasion, informed his cap-
tives that if they did not support him in the blockade
of the African slave coast, he would turn them all
out into outer darkness to find a new master if they
could. It was in vain that they protested and
demurred, talked of money and reputation, and
other topics customary with sensible men ; his Lord.
ship would take no denial. Their opinions they
might keep, but their votes he must have. As ap-
pears from the division last night, his Lordship suc-
ceeded to the desired extent. The poor sufferers
came out lamenting their hard fate, but few of them
dreamt of actual resistance. Thus, by a sort of vica-
rious bondage the British M.P. has taken the place
of the African, and done task work to the music of the
lash. Such, in fact, is the history,of last night's di-
vision in the Commons. Let not the public be de-
ceived for one moment. The 232 Gentlemen who
vote for keeping this Old Man of the Sea on our
shoulders, themselves inwardly groan at the pres-
sure. We believe that any one of them would
rather carry a sack of coals, or all the blue books
of the session, from Westminster to St. Paul's,
than vote away another million for this deplorable
humbug. Sed fats obstant. If they don't do as
they are bid Lord Palmerston will go out, Lord John
will go out, and all the rest will go out, and it is im-
possible to say who will come in ; perhaps Mr. Dis-
raeli, perhaps Mr. Cobden, perhaps Mr. Feargus
O'Connor. Nor was this all. The philanthropists,
sure of their victims, were not content with exacting
a dumb vote. They had prepared what we can only
call a song of victory, which was to be chaunted in
honour of the African squadron and:its complete ill-
success and glorious certainty of failure. Mr. Hutt's
motion was simple enough, and they who did not like
it might think it sufficient to move the previous ques-
tion. Not so these gentlemen. In the notices of mo-
tion for last night stood a monster amendment, of
which due notice had been given by•Mr-
Alember for North Derbyshire, and better known at
Exeter-hall than St. Stephen's. After reciting with
fitting pomp all that had not been effected by her Ma-
jesty's naval force employed on the coast of Africa,
this amendment went on to ask for further supplemen-
tary measures—fresh communicatione;representations,
and remonstrances addressed to other powers, in the
hope of persuading them to do what they have pro-
mised to do, but what they will undoubtedly see us
all at the bottom of the ocean before they will do.
There was a certain tone about the concluding and
most important clause of the amendment, a certain
" gravity," and " friendliness," and regard for " the
character of this country," which, coupled with some
recent passages in our history, does just suggest the
idea—we beg to he excused if we are wrong—of an
armed apparition in the Tagus, or perhaps in the har-
bour of Rio. This may, of course, be an injurious
surmise; but, as the foreign Powers we have to deal
with are slaveholders to begin with, are our rivals in
trade. and make a very good profit by our philan-
thropy—as they break all their engagements with
us when slave trade is concerned, and leave us alone
in our Quixotic undertaking, nothing is more likely
or natural than that the fleet now at the Piraeus
should have to stop at Lisbon on its way
home and ask a few questions ; and, if it be so,
it is difficult to suppose that so prudent and farseeing
a man as our present Foreign Secretary, with such
an instinctive hatred of war, should not have that
vision before his eyes. Such, at all events, is the
image irresistibly awakened in our minds by the last
clause of the amendment intended to be moved last
night, but withdrawn, perhaps for the very fact of
this ill look about it—perhaps out of tenderness to the
feelings of the Ministerial supporters. Now, in all
seriousness, what are to be Ministerial measures, and
what are not? A Minister does not derive all his
power from his own person, essence, and being. He
is a creation of Parliament, just as that is a creation
of the country. Of course if he produced his ma-
jority out of the fountain of his own perfections he
might impose on it what laws and conditions he
pleased, as he might on any other creation of his
brain. But in our view of these matters a party is
just as independent as its leader, and if it owes him a
considerable degree of obedience he owes to
it a still t'larger degree of consideration.
Above all, he is not to impose Ministerial questions
at discretion. If it supports him in free trade, or
the colonies, or education, and other standing mat-
ters of Parliamentary dispute, it does not follow that
he is at liberty to impose a new tax on i!s allegiance
in the shape of a perpetual blockade costing a million
a year—not a farthing less—and absolutely ineffec-
tive for its purpose. At this rate no man can say
what he may not be called on to vote for. He rises
in the morning a free agent, and reads in the notice
paper that before night he will be committed to that
which he holds in utter abomination. It is bad
enough to be pledged to heaps of things by force of
custom and prescription, merely because one was
born to them or bred to them ; but worse, still, to be
under an indefinite obligation to think and do what
one has not at present the least idea of. But
what is the value of a majority made up
of such materials ? The country must take
this matter into its serious consideration. A large
proportion of our fleet—a fourth, it is said—is
employed on this interminable fool's errand in the
tropics without the least benefit whatever, but a great

HALIFAX, 111Ancn 19.—The beautiful and secluded
little village of Clayton was on Saturday the scene of
a dreadful tragedy, in consequence of a young man
recently married having shot his wife through the left
breast and blown out his own brains. The subjects
of the present tragical occurrence are- two young
people, named Abraham and Elizabeth Jessop, each
about 25 years of age, and the duse of it an un-
happy and ill-assorted marriage, leadlng,ito a separa-
tioss-whiabAha wife's friends had unwisely' attempted
to render permanent, instead of seeking a reconcilia-
tion. The main supports of the village are some
extensive stone quarries in the neighbourhood ; and
Jessop, who had come to reside there from Brighouse,
was a smith, and was principally employed in sharpen-
ing the delvers' tools. He had paid his addresses to the
girl for some twelve or eighteen months, and about three
months ago they were married. Jessop had not a cottage
furnished to take his wife to, and they took up their
residence along with the wife's mother and sister.
Almost immediately afterwards quarrels with his wife
and her friends led to his being turned out of the
mother's house, and a consequent separation. He had
attempted in vain a reconciliation ; and the unhappy,
man seems to have sought an interview on Satur-
day evening last, with a view to putting a period to
all future strife and heartburning about the matter
by murdering his wife, and afterwards destroying
himself. After fortifying himself by taking several
glasses of ardent spirits, he entered the house where
she resided about half-past three o'clock on Saturday
afternoon, and found her in the presence of her
mother and sister. He asked her to accompany him
to the door for the purpose of a private conversation,
but she declined, observing that she had no secrets
which her mother might not hear. He then attempted
toinduce his wife to give him an audience in another
room, telling ber she might relate what passed
afterwards to her mother if she thought
fit. This she also refused, and he then took
from one of his coat pockets a pistol, and
hastily advancing towards her, discharged it with
the muzzle almost close to her person. The ball took
effect in the left breast, but missed the heart, piercing
the breast in the direction of the left arm, and
emerging immediately under the arm. Before any
attempt at interference could be made, he then drew a
second pistol, and placing it under his right ear, dis-
charged the contents through his head. The unfor-
tunate wife ran to the door and sank upon the cause-
way, in a state of insensibility. She was afterwards
carried to bed by her mother and some neighbours
who lent assistance, and surgical aid being procured
and the wounds stanched, she still survives. It is
feared, however, that the ball has passed through a
portion of the lungs, and that she cannot ultimately
recover. The wound which Jessop inflicted on him-
self was of a more immediately mortal character. He
fell at once upon the lioor, and expired in a pool of
blood—his skull being fearfully shattered. The body
was removed to the Black Horse public-house in
Clayton.

FROM THE LONDON GAZETTE

OF TUESDAY.

LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S OFFICE, FEE 21, 1850.
Notice ishereby given, that his Royal Highness Prince
Albert will, by the desire of her Majesty, hold a:Levee at
St. James's Palace, on behalf of her Majesty, on Wed-
nesday. 20th March next, at two o'clock.
Is is ber Majesty's pleasure that presentations to his
Royal Highness at these Levees shall be considered
equivalent to presentations to the Queen.
Addresses to the Queen may either be forwarded to
her Majesty through the Secretary of State for the
Home Department, or may be reserved until her Majesty
shall hold a levee.

REGULATIONS TO BE• OBSERVED AT THE
LEVEES AT ST. JAMES'S PALACE.

The noblemen and gentlemen who purpose to attend
the Levees at St. James's Palace, are requested to bring
with them two large cards, with their names clearly
written thereon, one to be left with the Queen's page in
attendance in the Presence Chamber, and the other to
bo delivered to the Lord Chamberlain, who will announce
the name.

Tkose gentlemen, who are to be presented, are
hereby informed, it is absolutely necessary that their
names, with the names of the nobleman or gentleman►
who is to present them, should be sent to the Lord
Chamberlain's Office, before twelve o'clock on the Mon-
day previous to each lever, in order that they may be
submitted for approbation ; it being her Majesty's com-
mand, that no presentation shall be made at the levees,
but in conformity with the above regulations.
It is particularly requested, that in every case the
names be very distinctly written upon the cards t,.) be de-
livered to the Lord Chamberlain, in order that there
may be no difficulty in announcing them.
The state apartments will not be open for the re-
ception of company coming to Court until half-past one
o'clock.