The Sun.
London, England, 1844-08-20 00:00:00

twenty yeais ago or more, the country would, t
in fact, have sunk to a third-rate power. It is t
a remarkable fact, too, and one which must go
far to excuse the quacks of our order to worldly I:
judges, that the most persevering alarmists and
fault finders, and the most uniformly bad advisers,
have always been and are, in a commercial view,
pretty generally the most prosperous. If the ground
were not already occupied, it would be an ex-
cellent speculation to set up a journal NN t h some
such motto as this—" How are we ruined ?" and
to conduct the organ of woe upon a principle
of indiscrimindte abuse, sneering and snarling at
every measure that did not emanate from the im-
portant " we," and at every public man that
should refuse to bow to "us." It would be quite un-
necessary to give that pledge for political integrity
that a decent consistency affords, as experience
sly.ws ; and as for talent, the smallest amount
possible would be sufficient, as we see 'by the in-
spiration
that always invests the editors of a popu-
lar journal in succession with eloquence, wisdom,
and learning, for a long succession of years, though
the parties may be and have been uniformly a
succession of absolute dunces—except during the
illuminated periods of their employment. The
secret is all in this, abuse plentifully and indis-
criminately, find fault without end. Everybody
can shine in this, from Billingsgate to Westminster,
Covent-garden and the Corn Exchange, Dublin.
All can be eloquent and seemingly wise for the day,
if they wilt only throw aside the restraints of truth
and decency, and minister to the humour of ,
the day, which, if the venerable Hooker
says rightly, is commonly a sour, angry,
and desponding jiumour. A journal such as we
speak of must c67mand commercial success, if the
ground were not uluckily already occupied. Our
reflections have been thrown into this channel by an
article which we have elsewhere copied from a
morning paper, not precisely of the stamp that we
have been describing, but which seems to prove by
its recent success that quackery is not the only road,
though certainly it is the easiest, to public favour.
The article in question demonstrates, we think
very satisfactorily, that the alarm set up
by a majosity of our Contemporaries, is wholly
groundless—that France is neither desirous of con-
quering Morocco, able to conquer that country, nor
able to retain it if conquered. Further the article to
which we refer offers a series of remarks which must
convince all who are not intellectually blind that as
England never was either absolutely or relatively
one-half or one-third as powerful es she is at this
moment, no war can be declared against England
by any country the rulers of which are not down-
right madmen.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAT.
TIMES—Two returns have lately been printed
by order of the House of Commons, which at this
peculiar juncture of affairs will.be read with interest,
and, we are inclined to think, with satisfaction. The
first gives the " amount of horse-power ordered for
her Majesty's steam-vessels between the Ist day of
April, 1839, and the 31st of August, 1841, as
follows :--

Horse-Power
Number of Vessels lB
Tonnage
The second describes the " amount of horse-power,
&c., between the Ist day of September, 1841, and
the Ist day of July, 1844," thus :
Horse-Power • 11,261
Number of Vessels ..... 30
Tonnage . 26,892
From these statistics it seems that in the first three
years of the present Administration there has been
an addition of twelve to the number of our war-
steamers, with a corresponding increase of more than
10,000 tons in their burden, as compared with the
strength of the same department during the two last
years of their predecessors—a period memorable for
the isolation and the irritability of France, and the
grand naval demonstrations in the East. It is, in-
deed, highly gratifying to discover this accession .of
strength to an arm of the service on which may dee
volve the duty of supporting the honour of the Eng-
lish marine in any future war. And although we
are far from desiring that any opportunity for
such a display should soon occur, yet when we
look to the present aspect of the political horizon,
and read the deliberate opinions and pre-
vailing sentiments of those by whose opinions and
sentiments the paohabilities of a continental war
may be enhanced, and its terrors multiplied—when
we see them coolly calculating on the possibility of
subverting our power by the multiplied resources of
steam navigation, and determining the issue of a
campaign by some dexterous stroke of piratical
tactics—it certainly does gratify us to find that the
present Government has not been wholly indifferent
to the efficiency of that peculiar force to which the
avowed policy of our prospective invaders has already
attributed the faculty of deciding international con-
troversies in the shortest and most summary way.
We trust, indeed, that their warnings may proves as
unnecessary as their predictions false ; and that the
peace of Europe is in no danger of being violated.,by
the blunders of wrongheaded subordinates, by 'the
zeal of hotheaded propagandists, or by the truculent
ambition of a restless faction. But we know that
there is no method at once so effective and pacific of
demonstrating the futility of their predictions, and
the emptiness of their gasconader, as the possession
of such an armament as they themselves affirm
is adequate to cope with all the necessities and
fulfil all the functions of a great and powerful
navy. While, however, we cannot help applauding
this increase in the numbers and efficiency of its war
steamers, we would at the same time once more im-
press upon the country and the Ministry the convic-
tion that no time should be lost in placing the other
departments of our marine establishment on a footing
of corresponding magnitude. We may rest assured,
that should it be‘our ill fate—and we may say the ill
fate of Europe—to be involved in a continental war,
the great conflict which England will have to wage
must be determined on the sea; and that the question
of maritime predominance or maritime subjection—
the question which England would then be forced to
decide—in a word, the question whether she should
abdicate her dominion of the seas or not—can under
no circumstances be decided by any number of
steamers, however skilfully constructed, however
lightly built, however cleverly managed, or com-
pletely manned. No; the masterdom of the ocean
must depend—as it hitherto has depended—upon the
bulk and body of her sailing ships—their breadth of
beam, their solidity of construction—and, more than
all, on the native courage of those who man them.
As heretofore, the fate of a great naval battle will
depend on the combined science, gallantry, and cool-
ness of the officers avid their men—upon the tact with
which the line is broken, or the dash with which the
enemy is boarded. No new invented mode of inva-
sion will prove a successful substitute for these old
and approved resources.
HERALD.---The writer of that insane article in
the Republican National, lately so much remarked
upon, how much soever he may be deemed the object
of contempt and ridicule in the estimation of the
sober and intelligent, peace loving people of France,
I is, in our opinion, deserving of the pity rather than
the laughter of the united services of Great Britain.
It is evident that this gaseonnade has been written
on the confident hypothesis, reasonably enough de-
duced from the parliamentary misrepresentations of.
Lord Minto, and others, that the English navy is in
the same wretched condition that it unfortunately was
under his Lordship's administration. We have at
various times during the last month published the
lists of the royal navy, in commission and in ordinary,
both sailing and steam-vessels ; we have also given
the number of steam-vessels building, amounting to
above 10,000 horse-power; and as the ./Vgtioaa/ has
vaunted its 23 ships on the French stocks, and Sir
C. Napier has declared that the French have more
ships building in one dock-yard than we have in the
whole of our royal building establishments, we
shall be pardoned for publi.hing the following state-
ment:—There are building, and order to be built, in
her Majesty's dock-yards, 57 sailing men of war. Of
these, six are three-deckers, viz.—one of 120, and five
of 110 guns; sixteen two-deckers —six 90's one
84, and nine 80's ; seven frigates of 50 guns; four of
36 guns; six of 56" guns; thirteen sloops—three 20's,
one 18, and nine 16's; five brigs—two 12's, one 10,
one six, and one three. The shipwrights of all the
dock-yards, excepting Pembroke, are generally em-
ployed in repairing vessels. When not so engaged
they are turned over to the ships building. Their
progress in this department has been slow for the last
two years, in consequence of the immense repairs re-
quired in the ordinary. At Portsmouth two slips
have'been taken into the site of the new steam esta-
blishment; but three new slips are being con-
structed, and are far advanced towards completion.
Of the line-of-battle ships, the Royal Albert, 120, is
one-third in frame ; the Royal Frederick, 110, is
having her sides planked ; and the Victoria, 110, is
in a forward state ; the Prince ofiWales, 1113, has her
frame cut arid stacked for seasoning ; and the Marl-
borough, 110, and Windsor Castle, 110, have their
frames cutting. The Aboukir, 90, and Exmouth,
90, are up in frame, and might be got ready for
launching next ye:rr ; the Princess Royal, 90, has
her sides being planked; the Lion, 80, Madras, ,
80, . Colossus, S 6, are in a forward state ;
and the Mars, 80, is so far advanced that she
eould be ready to go off the sticks at the end of next •
hear. The
Majestic,A! iers, 90, St. Jean d'Acre, 90,
and
" nswicic, 80, Cressy, 80, Irresistible, 80, Agamem-
non, 8
9800, , theirfl.s
already timbers inn. The Hannibal,
The frame of the Sanspareil 84 is already cut out
for seasoning. The 50-gun' frigates Constance and
Raleigh are building—the latter is in
Aforreuth•Vastastoe,
And will be launched this year ; thea
Liffey, 50, Severn, 5.(,), Shannon, r, 0,. I,Panfle;
50, hove their timbers in course 4-I,r4jaintion. The
36-gun frigate Flora will be ready for launching in
September. The Active, 36, is in frame, and is well