The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-10 00:00:00

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.

APPOINTMENTS.
Surgeons—Dr. Archibald Little (1848), to the
Volcano stunm-vessel, fitting et Woolwich ; Andrew
Moffit (1849), to the Penguin, 8, fitting at Devon-
port.

- Second Master—James Milton (184 S), late of the
Volage surveying vessel, to the St. George. 120, at
Devonport.
Naval Cadet—Laurens 11. Mallett, to the Victory
•fisg.ship, at Portsmouth.
As we anticii,ated yesterday, Commander Thomas
Etheride (1848), has been appointed to command the
Penguin at Devonport. This gallant officer entered
the navy in 1824, passed in 1830, and served as a
mate for ten years. As a lieutenant he served on the
coast of Africa as first of the Star, 8 ; and the
Larne, 16.
Commander John Henn Gennys (1845), has been
appointed to commission the Fantome, 12, at Ports•
mouth, for service at New Zealand ; she is already
rigged, and to have a complement of 125 officers and
men. Commander Gennys entered the navy from
college in 1824, and served in Cambria, 48, at
the battle of Navarino, and after being engaged
in the subsequent capture of numerous pirates, was
wrecked at Carabusa, in 1828, during au attack
on the marauders. As a mate he served in .the Nor th
Star at the rebellion in Jamaica; and in 1835, in the
Royalist, in the operations on the north coast of
Spain against the Carlists. In 1838 he attained his
promotion, and as lieutenant served in command of
the Confiance slaver, in the Mediterranean, and in
the Princess Charlotte, 104, Rodney, 92, and Belle-
isle ; and lastly as flag-lieutenant to the late Sir
John Chambers White, when commander-in-chief at
Sheerness.

THE COMPTROLLERSHIP OF THE VICTUALLING DE-
PARTMENT OF THE NAVY.—Mr. James Meek, pay-
master, of 1800, who has held the appointment of
comptroller of the victualling department of the navy
for a great number of years, has at length retired
from the sweets and turmoils of active life, and the
vacancy long bespoken for Mr. Grant, store-keeper
of the Clarence Victualling-yard, has been con-
ferred upon that gentleman. That a change was
absolutely necessary in this department has
been most palpable to every one who has
felt an interest in the victualling and transport services
of the navy ; and we now hope that the new eoinp-
troller, by bringing to bear his extensive experience
and good judgment, will ere long so improve the de-
partment that we shall hear no more complaints of
bad contracts and bad provisions, which have of late
been so prevalent in the navy. Mr. Grant is well
known as the projector of the baking machinery now
used for making biscuit for the fleet. He also intro•
duced the patent fuel into the service; but not only
has he been the means of supplying i,proved fuel and
food, but he has more recently projected and fitted to
a great many of her Mhjesty's steam-vessels a cooking
and distilling apparatus, by which our sealnen are
now supplied with the best fresh water on demand.
Mr. Granr, we believe, has a medal from the late
King of the French kr his services in establishing a
biscuit-baking machinery in France, and is in the
receipt of 3001. per annum for his extra services from
our own Government.

DEATH OF THE SECRETAHY OF THE ROYAL NA-
VAL BENEVOLENT SOCIETY.—We announce with
deep regret—a regret which will be felt by the whole
navy—the death of Commander W. H. Dickson, the
gallant, able, straightforward, independent, upright, and
indefatigable secretary of the Royal Naval Benevolent
Society, and the founder of the Royal Naval School.
Our lamented friend had been a great sufferer for the
last four months ; but on Tuesday last he was seized
with apoplexy, and after four days of intense pain
and agony, he expired on Saturday last at ten P.m.
The naval service, in his death, has lost one of its
most devoted members, for he possessed the character-
istics of the profession in its noblest sense. The
Royal Naval Benevolent Society his, in the death of

its secretary, sustained a heavy calamity ; for he was
the most zealous and watchful guardian of its charac-
ter and its interests. The widow, the sister, and the
orphan of the poor naval officer, will have to add to
their severe distresses and bereavements the loss of
their best friend.

Albion, 90, Captain Hope Johnstone, is ordered to
leave Plymouth Sound for the Mediterranean, on
he 17th inst.

There is no truth in the silly Woolwich report,
that the Terrible steam-frigate, Captain Hope, C. 8.,
is daily expected from the Mediterranean to be paid
off, &c.

Inconstant, 36, Captain Shepherd, was paid off at
Devonport on Saturday, and the Sprightly steam,.
tender took to Portsmouth officers and seamen de-
sirous of a passage.
PORTSMOUTH, DEC. 9.—The Waterwich, 8, Com-
mander Quin, is hourly expected off this port, having
made Plymouth on Saturday, whence she was or-
dered to this port without anchoring.
The Phaeton, 50, Captain Elliot, has been removed
from the basin this afternoon, and taken alongside the
Victorious hulk.

on hoisting his pendant entered nearly the
apploVionoteLdwtxocuct D
oinmEacn. 9.t—Commander
Volcano,
day, and WrivedT:hßerievetros:
requisite number of stokers, and examined the certi-
ficates of a number of able seamen, whom he will
enter to-morrow, on his finally approving of them.
The Penguin, 6, at Devonport, making ready for
the coast of Africa, will be in charge of a commander,
on the important duty in which she is about to be
employed—the suppression of the slave trade; and
Commander Thomas Etheridge (1848) is appointed
to her for that purpose.
Captain E. St. L. Cannon, Commanders J. F. B.
Wainwright and C. J. Austen, Lieutenants M. H. M.
Mundy, E. Marshall, L. W. Peyton, J. D. Curtis, and
W. Horton, recently studying steam at the Factory
at Woolwich Dockyard, have presented Mr. Rough-
ton, engineer, their instructor in the knowledge of
steam and steam-engines, with a handsome gold
watch, worth twenty guineas, and previous to its
being handed to him had the following engraved on
the inside of the case :—"Presented to Mr. Roughton,
by Captain Cannon and the naval officers under his
tuition, Oct. 2, 1850."

The Wildfire steam-vessel will take three engineers
and men from this port to-morro.v to Chatham, to
assist in navigating the Tiger steam-sloop to Ports-
mouth.

THE SEA GULL.
(From the Lady's 21"-ewspaper.)
He holdeth not the proud dominion
Of all air's wide array ;
He bath no eagle's powerful pinion,
Nor skylark's thrilling lay.
His snowy wing may not compare
With the peacock's varied plumes,
Yet who would change his power to range
Where the rolling ocean booms.
He wings his way midst the dashing spray,
As the wind careering free;
Fearlessly sweeping where waves are leaping,
The wild Bird of the Sea

His home is in no elm or willow,
Nor grove by zephyrs fanned;
But the lone rock where breaks the billow
In fury on the strand.
He heedeth not the lightning's flash,
Nor thunders moaning near;
Nor mad commotion in the mighty ocean,
Nor shipwreck wakes his fear.
Proudly he glides o'er the swelling tides,
With wing of liberty—
But little caring for man's despairing,
The wild Bird of the Sea !

He sees the wonders of the waves
In every changing form;
The raging hurricane he braves,
Nor heeds the bursting storm.
Hail to him ! hail I the symbol be
Of a high and daring mind;
In self-reliance and proud defiance,
He mounts the wayward wind.
Safe be thy roaming o'er billows foaming,
Secure thy rock-home be,
Where storms are sounding and waves rebounding,
Sweep I wild Bird of the Sea I
FLOREMMA.

THE LATE ESCAPE FROM THE MODEL PRISON.—
A UDACITY OF THE CONVICT.—George Hackett, who made
his escape from the Model Prison, Pentonville, on Sunday
the lst inst., and for whose apprehension a reward of 50/.
is offered, had the audacity, on Friday last, to make his ap-
pearance in Billingsgate, whither he was driven in a cab. He
visited several public-houses, at one of which he paid for '
half a pint of rum to treat his companions, and then pro-
ceeded in the same conveyance down „Thames-street, and
over Tower-hill. What renders this act most daring is that
his father worked for many years in the market, and the
convict himself having been brought up in the vicinity, is
personally known to most of the porters and others about the
neighbourhood, who either were afraid to attempt his cap-
ture, well knowing his desperate character, or else they had
not seen the handbill offering the reward, which was only
issued on that day.
NEW STEAM SHIPS.—The eminent firm of Messrs.
Richardson Brothers and Co., v%ho have long been in the
Philadelphia trade, have just laid down three new screw
ships, two in America and one on the Clyde, to run in con-
junction with the City of Glasgow, which vessel they have
just purchased and purpose dispatching to-morrow, as the
pioneer of the fleet, to the chief city of the most important
state in the Union. She is commanded by Captain Mat-
thews, late of the Great Western. The second of the line
will he called the City of Philadelphia. To New York there
will shortly be a number of screw liners started. Captain
Eldridge may be shortly expected with one; she is as long
as the Great Britain, and is expected, as our Yankee friends
say, to "do great things." Captain Stotesbury will shortly
be placed in command of a fine screw steamer for the Ame-
.rican trade. Captain Britton, late of the Constitution, pro-
ceeds from England bythe mail to lay, down boat in
America& the engines of which are to be :hulk in England.
Within 'a few week's we shall have not Usti' tlMn' boii;
trading to the Mediterranean and Egypt,• fee., mast of which
are now completing. In fact so much enterprise is now
being shown, that we may shortly expect to see not only
steam, to every port in America, but to every place in which
ED Alums trade 011 be cultivated.