The Sun.
London, England, 1842-02-03 00:00:00

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LONDON •
TIIURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1842.

A good deal of surprise is caused in naval
circles, we understand, by the recent appoint-
ment of Rear-Admiral Sir TriomAs COCHRANE to
be Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies; and to
supersede Sir WILLIAM PARKER. Scarcely seven
months have elapsed since the latter Gallant
, Officer, acconipaning, Sir HENRY POTTING ER,
left England to assume the command in the
China sear;.- .He had scarcely. arrived there when
he began operations with vigour, subdued AulOy,
and- proceeded, according to the last accounts,
against Pekin itself. We know of nothing which
has transpired to justify his removal and recal,
and the public interests; we are afraid, are likely
to suffer ti•om a succession of Commanders, as it
did at the period of the battle of Vimiera. That
he was a member of the Whig Board of Ad-
miralty will not justify appointing a Tory in his
place, till ho has executed, or failed to execute,
the service he has been sent on.

Sir THOMAS CocnnANE, too, may have many
claims on his party; we are not aware that he has
any on the country. He contested Ipswich, and
suffered, as he has avowed, a plucking for the
good of the. Tories; we have no recollection of
any victories of his which are recorded in our
naval annals. He was one of those fortunate
youths, being the son of an Admiral, who are
said to be born with silver. spoons in their
mouths, and was made a Post Captain while
yet a youth, more by his father's interest
than his own merits. It may be his misfortune,
not his fault, that in all the, appointments he
subsequently received he failed to acquire any
distinction so as to warrant the Admiralty, by
his great professional reputation, to bestow
on him one of the best stations in its gift.
There is nothing in the antecedents of Sir
THOMAS COCHRANE to make naval men belie*e
that lie will succeed should Sir WILLIAM
PARKER not bring the Chinese war to a fortu-
nate conclusion. Naval men accordingly regard
the appointment as a reward for party sacri-
fices, and they express great surprise that Sir
GEORGE COCKBURN, who is responsible, it is
supposed, for all naval appointments, should have
sanctioned it.

Of late great exertions have been made by
the' Tory writers to blacken the character of the
manufacturers. They are conscious of having
injured them, and now seek to stifle the monitor
within, by abusing them. Tory and landowning
legislators first plunder, and then insult, the ma-
nufacturers, by spreading abroad against them
the grossest calumnies. On this account we
think it right to give as much prominency as we
can to the following circumstance, which we
borrow from the Sheffield Iris:--
On Thursday, a public dinner of the masters • and
workmen of the old and highly respectable firm of
Messrs. Richard Groves and Sons, m this town, was held-
in the large room, at the New Inn, Shalesmoor, for the
purpose of presenting to. that firm a superb piece of
plate, as a token of respect and esteem from the workmen.
Near two hundred persons sat down to dinner, a few
of whom were ladies, for the most part members of
the respective families of the gentlemen in the firm.
After the cloth had been drawn, Mr. Josh. Ibbotson, one
of the workmen, delivered an address, which had been
drawn up by the workmen for the occasion, from which
we make a brief ex tract :

" Gentlemen—We are are deputed by our fellow.

workmen to present to you this token of-our gratitude,
as an acknowledgment of the numerous comforts that we
have enjoyed from your unexampled kindness, through
a long series of years, some portions of which have
been to thousands of our townsmen seasons of unpa-
ralleled distress. And while many have suffered all
the miseries of penury and want, we have enjoyed
comparative prosperity, owing, principally, to the
spirited manner in which you have maintained
the character of your manufactures, long rendered
famous in every part of the civilised world. Since
the commencement of your establishment, in the year
1776, no firm has attained greater celebrity than
that of R. Groves and Sons, and the superiority
of your articles are universally acknowledged.—Whe-
ther in the hands of the hardy pioneer in the Far
West, or in the use of our more refined transatlantic

brethren, they are not only aiding the march of civiliza-
tion and intellect, in the remotest regions of the earth,
but are the means of producing many of the elegances
and refinements of polished society. They have, in
fact, maintained a name as yet unsurpassed in the annals
of our commercial records. Not a fading, fleeting,
ephemeral popularity, but a fame honourably acquired
on your part, deservedly conferred on the part of our
patrons, and characterised by a stability, firm and last-
ing as time itself. The prices paid by you to your work-
men, we can conscientiously affirm to be at all times as
high, and, in many instances, much higher, than those
paid by any other manufacturer •in this town,
a circumstance which has created a praiseworthy
emulation amongst your men, and enabled you
to send into the market an article for which
you have long been celebrated and eminently distin-
guished. It was the consideration of these circum-
stances that gave rise to this day's proceedings. we are
exceedingly gratified that the earnest desire manifested

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