The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-13 00:00:00

NAVY ESTIMATES.

Captain PECHELL said that, upon her Majesty's
Ministers submitting the Navy Estimates to the House,
he would move that the House do take into consideration
the claims of Captain Clarkion.
WINDOW-TAX.
-

The HoN. MEMBLI. also gave notice that he would,
on Tuesday next, move for certain returns relative to
the modes of assessment of the window-tax.
RAILWAY COMMITTEES' BILL.
Mr. WALLACE begged leave to ask the Noble Lord,
the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whether it
was true that there were on the present Railway Com-
mittee many persons who were interested, more or less,
in railway speculations ?
Lord GRANVILLE SOMERSET, in answer to the
Hon. Member opposite, begged to say that he would at
once admit that there were such persons
on the Committee ; but it did not appear
to him that much serious objection could arise
from that circumstance, for this reason, that
one object of the Committee was, to see that the pro-
jected lines brought under the consideration of the House
had fair play; and he really thought that they would not
have fair play unless the parties, who were placed is the
situation referred to by the Hon. Member, constituted a
part of the Committee.
Mr. WALLACE said, having laid the facts before
the House, he felt that he had discharged his duty.
PRIVILEGE.
The order of the day for the consideratiop of the
statement of the Sergeant-at-Arms having been read,
The SOLICITOR-GENERAL said that, in calling
the attention of the House to the position of the Ser-
geant-at-Arms relative to certain proceedings which had
been instituted against him, he was induced to think
that there would be no opposition offered to the mo
tion of which he had given notice ; and he
was therefore not disposed to trespass upon the blouse
with any statement of the case. He would propose,
therefore, that the House should on that occasion adopt
the course which was taken in 1843, when a similar ac-
tion was brought against the Sergeant-at-Arms. The
House had then, upon the motion of his Honour-
able and Learned Friend, the present Attorney-Ge •
neral, decided on giving leave to the Sergeant-at-
Arms to appear, and plead to the action. A plea had
been put on the record, to which there was a demurrer.
That demurrer had been argued, and was now standing
for the judgment of the Court. He would now move
" That Sir William Gosset, Knt., the Sergeant-at-Arms,
attending this House, have leave to appear and defend
the action brought against him by Thomas Howard."
Lord J. RUSSELL said he would not offer any objec-
tion to the motion proposed by the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman. He would merely state that he retained the
opinions which he had before expressed as to the proper
course to be pursued under such circumstances.

NOTICE OF MOTION—STATE OF THE NAVY.
. Sir C. NAPIER rose to move for a Select Committee
to inquire into the manner in which the money vests d
since 1835, for the construction of ships, had been ex-
pended, and if the ships constructed are an improvement
of the old "system." The Honourable Member
(who dropped his voice so as to be nearly in-
audible) in commencing his speech, proceeded to say
that his only motive in bringing forward the motion
was to ascertain whether or not the reports in circula-
tion as to the defects of these ships were correct. He
had been told that it was no business of his to interfere
with such a matter; that it should be left to the proper
authorities, by which was meant, he supposed, the Admi-
gwraesa t
neithernumber
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ralty. It had been left to the proper authorities for a
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seen the greatest errors and blunders prevailing
a hr
tayd
which concerned the well being of the navy and the
proper application of the finances of the country ; and,
in the remarks which he was about to make, he should
be guided solely by such considerations. It would be
necessary to go back for a considerable time. When
he (Sir C. Napier) first entered the service, in 1800, the
navy contained several three-deckers of 120, 110, 98, and
90 guns. The first class generally consisted of good
ships, but the others were so inferior, that they were
found totally unfit for service ; but, notwithstanding
all the representations which were made to the Ad-
miralty, the same system was persevered in.
This country had taken some very excellent ships from
the French. There were the Terror, the Sans I'areil,
and the Canopus. Several ships had been constructed
upon the model of the Canopus, and had been found to
answer extremely well. The Sans rareil was
a most excellent ship, but she had never
been copied up to this very time. He now
came to the frigates of those days. There were forty-
six gun frigates, forty:two gun frigates, and thirty-two
gun frigates, all carrying I8-pounders, thirty-two gun
frigates carrying 12-pounders, and twenty-eight gun
frigates. Those were very good ships in their day, but
theywere found not to answer,'and they were superseded.
by the thirty-two gun ships. One of these ships was
commanded by an Hon. and Gallant Officer opposite, and
another by himself, and he could say that a more useless
lot of ships had never been constructed by any Admi-
ralty. They were found to be inefficient, in fact, good
for nothing ; and they were superseded by another class
of frigates, called twenty-eight gun frigates. These,
however, like the rest, Were not found to answer, and
thus were given up. Another class of ships
were those called sixteen gun sloops, mounting six-
pounders, and those vessels wore persevered in until they
were found perfectly useless ; and there was not a
youngster or boy in the navy that did not know it. The
next class of ships adopted were the eighteen gun
frigates, which were much longer and much narrower
than the eighteen gun brigs, which every body must have
expected would have failed, and which he looked upon as
patent coffins for burying a hundred and twenty men at
once. The last class in the service which he noticed was
that of the gun-brigs, and of those a whole host had been
introduced into the service likely to excite a groat deal of
notice but calculated to be of little service. There was
the Barker, the Bruizer, and number of others, which if
taken together, would form a whole pack. But these were
soon exploded, and the ten gun brigs were shortly after-
wards introduced for them. These again in their turn
had last year been condemned by the shipwright's
committee. The country had been put to an en e.-
mous expense in their construction, and for their
support, but they were proved to be utterly unfit for
the purpose for which they were intended. The
Admiralty had indeed thrown away their own exertions
and the money of the country in building bad ships, and
when the American war broke out, and they might have
looked forward to that event for many years, the
Admiralty were utterly unable to contend with their
adversaries. They had not indeed a single
vessel of the same class fit to meet their
corvettes, nor a single frigate capable of contending
with their frigates. He (Sir. C. Napier) well remem-
bered the report of that day, when a naval officer would
have been scouted if he he bad ventured to utter even a
hint of the inability of British ships to contend success-
fully with American vessels of the same rating as their
own, and notwithstanding all the warning they had received
the Government of the day bad never opened their eyes
until they learned that three British frigates had been
captured and conveyed into American ports.—(Hear.)
What did they do then? The Admiralty immediately
ordered six forty-gun frigates to be laid down ; but
they were so constructed that they proved to be utterly
useless, and they consequently had three on
hand at the present moment, and they were likely still
to retain them in the same unprofitable state. The
Right Hon. and Gallant Officer at that time at the head
of the Admiralty directed Sir R. Seppings to lay down
' a ship which should have such qualities as would-obviate
the defects which had been experienced. It was then
considered that ships had not been built strong enough.
With the assistance of Mr. Bright, Mr. Roberts, Mr.
Lang, and several other shipwrights, much improvement
had, no doubt, been effected. Ships had, for twenty
years before, been built with stern galleries, and much
that was calculated to overload and encumber them.
These they altogether did away with, and introduced the
plain round stern, which had now been generally adopted,
and with admirabls success. Another error was that
committed by the shipwrights of those days was in the in•
troduction of heavy transome. timbers. They had intro-
duced heavy diagonal timbers along the water way
which quite overloaded the vessels, and were fit
only fbr ships of far greater proportions
than those into which they were placed.
He commanded at that time a ship that was considered
one of the finest in the navy, but when she was tried it
was found that she could not stand on her legs. There
was also the Caledonia, which was esteemed a first-rate
ship, but when she was tried she was found almost use-
less, and she bad to be put into dock and taken to
pieces. All those errors at length became so evident
that a change in the system of ship-building
' became necessary ; and, ho must say, they owed many
improvements in this particular to the Yacht Club.—