The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-10-25 00:00:00

COURT CIRCULAR.

WINDSOR—MONDAY.—Her Majesty held a privy council
at the castle, this afternoon, at half-vast two o'clock. It was
attended by the Marquis of Norman-by (who officiated as pre-
sident,) Viscount Melbourne, Viscount Palmerston, Earl of
T./abridge, Hon. G. Anson. Viscount Falkland, Hon. Col.
Grey, and Sir F. Stovin, were the lord, groom, and equerry
in waiting. The Hon. W. Bathurst was the clerk of the
council.

Her Majesty was conducted to the council chamber by the
Marchioness of Tavistock.

Lord Holland was absent in consequence of the illness of
Lady Holland, and Lord John Russell was also absent in
consequence of the indisposition of the Duke of Bedford.
At the council Lord Lyttleton was sworn in as the Lord
Lieutenant of the county of Worcester.
The council broke up at three o'clock.

In the afternoon her Majesty took her accustomed airing
in the park. The Queen was accom, anied by Prince Albert
of Saxe Coburg, Lady C. Barrington, Lady C. Dundas,
Viscount Melbourne, Hon. Miss Paget, Viscount Palmerston,
Viscount Falkland, Count Kolowrath, Baron Alvensleben,
Lord A. Paget, Sir F. Stovin' Hon. Wm. Bathurst, Marquis
of Normanby, Lord Cottenham, and Sir George and Miss
Quentin. _

Prince Ernest, accompanied by the Duchess of Kent, fol-
lowed the royal party in a pony phaeton.
The Hon. Misses Cocks and Paget followed in a pony
phaeton. . _

In the evening the Princes Ernest and Albert of Saxe Co-
burg enjoyed several hours' hunting in the park.
The following personages arrived at the castle to-day, and
will have the honour of joining the royal dinner party this
evening :—Marquis of Normanby, Lord Cottenham, Lord
and Lady Lyttelton, Hon. W. Bathurst, Hon. George Anson,
Earl of Uxbridge.

WINDSOR, TUESDAY.—This afternoon the Queen took
her accustomed ride in the park on horseback. Her Ma-
jesty was accompanied by Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg,
Viscount Melbourne, Viscount Palmerston, Hon. C. A.
Murray, Sir F. Stovin, Hon. William Cowper, Count
Kolowrath, Baron Alvensleben, Baroness Lehzen, and Sir
George and Miss Quentin.

The Hon. Misses Cocks and Paget drove out in pony
phaetons.

Prince Ernest of Saxe Coburg and Loid Alfred Paget left
for town, this morning, and will return to the castle in the
evening.
Lord Hill will arrive at the castle, this evening, to be
present at the grand review which will take place to-morrow.
Tne Marquis of Normanby, Lord Cottenham, Lord Lyttel-
ton, and Hon. William Bathurst have taken their departure.
The following will be of the royal dinner party this evening :
—Duchess of Kent, Prince Albert and Prince Ernest of Saxe
Coburg, Ladies Tavistock, Dundas, and Barrington, Lords
Melbourne, Hill, Palmerston, Falkland, and Paget, Hon.
Misses Pitt, Paget, and Cocks, Hon. C. A. Murray, Sir F.
Stovin, Mr. G. Anson, Hon. William Cowper, Count
Kolowrata, Baron Alveusleben, and Baroness Lehzen.

WINDSOR, WEDNESDAY EVENING.—In consequence of
the unfavourable state of the weather, the grand review,
which was to have taken place this day in the Home Park,
in the presence of her Majesty, was postponed till to-morrow.
In consequence of the death of the Duke of Bedford, the
Duchess of Bedford, who was at the castle in waiting upon
her Majesty, took her departure this morning for London.
Viscount Palmerston left the castle for London this morn-
ing, and will return to join the royal dinner party this evening.
The following distinguished personages will be included in
the royal dinner circle this evening :—Her Royal Highness
the Duchess of Kent, the Princes Ernest and Albert, of Saxe
Coburg, Lady C. Dundas, Hon. Misses Cocks, Pitt, and
Paget ; Viscount Melbourne, Viscount Palmerston, Viscount
Falkland, Lord Alfred Paget, Count Kolowrath, Baron Al-
vensleben, Sir Frederick Stovin, Hon. C. A. Murray, Hon.
W. Cowper, Lord Hill, Hon. Colonel Grey, Colonel Brown,
Major Irton, and Captains Hill and Fletcher, of the 2d rifle
brigade ; Colonel Townsend, 14th light dragoons ; Colonel
Reid, 2d life guards ; Hon. G. Anson, Baroness Lehzen, and
the two aides-de-camp.

WRECK OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

(From the Hampshire Telegraph.)

The operations have been continued with great vigour
during the whole of the week. On Monday last a small
charge of 451bs. failing to move a large fragment of the wreck,
another charge of the same quantity was fired near it, after
which it yielded to the capstan, and when brought up proved
to be the lower part of the foremast, perfect from the step
upwards, to the length of 24 feet •, about 16 feet of which had
been under the mud, above which it was nearly, but not en-
tirely cut in two by one of those small charges. The same
afternoon a charge of 2601bs of powder was fired under the
ship's starboard quarter, which was knocked to pieces, and
part of the counter got up in consequence. On Tuesday the
large wrought iron cylinder, which did not explode on Satur-
day last, having in the meantime, been emptied and filled
again, was fired by the voltaic battery, at 20 minutes before
3. George Hall, the active and skilful Whitstable diver, had
prepared the place for it in the morning by fixing a block and
pulley, with ropes passed through the latter to one of the
chain-sweeps placed round the wreck nearly two months ago
by Mr. Sadler ; and on this occasion, instead of trusting to
the ropes, he was diercted to go down with and guide the
charge into its place, which he did by making signals from
below, and occasionally coming up to explain himself when
not perfectly understood : about an hour was consumed in
this process, which he conducted with great deliberation, un-
til he got the cylinder near to the stem of the vessel about 3
feet from the bottom. He then came up, and when he had
made his report, the lighter from which the cylinder had
been lowered was moved to the distance of about 50 or 60
yards from its original position, and the conducting wires of
the voltaic battery, previously connected with the charge,
were veered out from a boat in which the battery was placed,
this also removing to a similar distance. Colonel Pasley,
who was on board the lighter, directing those arrangements,
then caused a bugler to sound the preparative, as a signal
that the explosion was about to take place, and soon after he
ordered the same bugler to sound the fire the last note of
which was still audible when the shock of the explosion was
heard and felt ; the voltaic circuit having at that moment
been completed by Lieutenant Symonds, who had taken
post at the voltaic battery for that purpose ; he having previ-
ously assisted in carrying all the preliminary arrangements
into effect. The mass of water thrown up does not appear to
be more than 15 feet in height, and the spectators were amused
by seeing an old boat, which Mr. Sadler, by permission of
Annum nouverie, nau indeed
the air in the column of water thus thrown up to the height
of six or seven feet, after which it was turned over, and fell
upside down, and for a little while disappeared. The subse-
quent circle of water gradually increasing in diameter, and
swelling all round from the centre of the explosion, was not
so black as on former occasions, but had a browner tint, as
if coloured by iron rust and a yellow vapour passed off to
leeward, seen by all, and supposed, by most of the specta-
tors, to be smoke—a phenomenon which had never been ob-
served in any of Colonel Pasley's former great explosions.
The weather (unpromising in the morning) was beautiful,
and a vast number of spectators were present in yachts and
boats, both from Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight. The
tide ran too strong for the diver to examine the result that
same day, but this explosion has since been ascertained to
have been most effective. The whole of the fore part of the
ship has been broken into large pieces. On Wednesday last
the larboard and starboard sides of the bow were got up, each
consisting of a mass of timbers with the outside planks and
inside breasthooks, &c., attached to them, and each having
two hauseholes and their leaden pipes perfect, as well as a
large massy iron knee to each part, one of which had been
broken in two by the shock. One of these fragments of the
bow, measuring 18 by 21 feet in extreme width and length,
was obliged to be lashed to the side of the Lively lighter,
as it was too large to be got on board and in that state it
was conveyed to the dockyard, where it was necessary to
take it, as well as the other side of the bow, to the sheers,
as either of them would have broken down the crane,
by which all the former fragments of the wreck had been
landed. On Thursday morning, the stem, consisting of a
great number of massy pieces, bolted together, was got up,
and in the afternoon the ship's coppers, or fire hearth, was
got up with great difficulty, which had often been attempted
before unsuccessfully. The boilers were of pure copper, di-
vided into two compartments by a vertical partition of the
same metal, with two brass cocks, one of which was broken,
but the other turns as freely as it could have done when new.
The size of these boilers has been estimatedat rather more than
400 gallons. They were enclosed in an iron case of much lar-
ger size, to which the bars of the fireplace were fixed, and
which the diver found perfect when he first went down, but
which were broken by an explosion that Col. Pasley ordered to
he fired the week before, for the purpose of loosening the
coppers. A good deal of brickwork and some paving stones
were attached to the iron case above alluded to, the mortar of
which was quite soft, as all common chalk lime mortar must
be when immersed under water. There can be no doubt that
the last great explosion, by removing the whole of the stem
and bows of the wreck, which stood 30 feet above the bottom,
and thus admitting the tide to wash away the mud, has
cleared the way for getting up the coppers. Those officers
and gentlemen who have paid frequent visits to Spithead to
see the operations, and who have examined the state of the
fragments brought up, are now unanimously of opinion that
it would have been perfectly chimerical to have attempted
the removal of the wreck of the Royal George, in its present
state, by any mechanical means, however powerful, without
the aid of gunpowder in large masses. The charge fired on
Tuesday was about 2400 lbs. The cause of its not exploding
on Saturday last, was ascertained in the most satisfactory
manner. Both the large charge of gunpowder, and the small
priming charge of about three pounds, were found to be per-
fectly dry : but the two conducting copper wires, which were
attached to a rope, had rubbed hard against the wreck on
lowering the cylinder down, and thereby they had been de-
ranged and brought in contact with each other, and thus the
voltaic circuit was completed, and the spark came back
without reaching the powder. The wires, thus acted upon,
were prepared about a year ago at Chatham, and not in so
perfect a manner as another set fitted up lately on board the
Success hulk, to which that accident could not probably have
happened, and which will be used exclusively in future. Co-
lonel Pasley has had two of the cylinders made at Chatham-
yard taken to pieces, and has ascertained the cause of their
insufficiency to have been a mistake on the part of the inge-
nious and skilful mechanic who superintended the making of
them. The colonel had caused each cylinder to be composed
of a wooden buoy inside, to be made and finished exactly like
the mooring buoy for shipping, by caulking and paying it
over with pitch and tar, which was then to be inclosed in a
leaden cylinder, perfectly water tight, secured by pieces of
elm, as well as by matting and a rope moulding, against the
injuries to which that soft metal would otherwise have been
liable. Nothing could possibly have been better than the
workmanship both of the leaden and wooden cylinders; but
unfortunately the caulking and paying over of the latter had
been omitted. Hence in the first cylinder which failed, two
small holes having been made through the lead by some
point, probably the end of a bolt projecting from the wreck,
the water penetrated through the pores of the wood, and
spoiled the whole of the powder. In the second cylinder
there was careless workmanship, not on the part of the men
who made the buoy, nor of the plumbers ; but in putting on
the outer casing, and moulding to secure the lead, one nail
had been driven entirely through the metal, and some others
nearly through it ; and thus the water got in, and, forcing its
way through the pores of the wood, about one-fourth of the
powder was spoiled, though it had only remained under water
about an hour. By this unfortunate mistake in the con-
struction about 30001bs. of gunpowder were spoiled, and a
good deal of time lost in consequence, whilst the two divers,
whose services might have been better employed, were ex-
clusively engaged in attempting to get up the first cylinder,
which was not recovered until a week after it went to the
bottom. Colonel Pasley has made up his mind in conse-
quence never to use a double casing in future for such ex-
plosions, but to confine himself to one material, whether
wood or metal; but upon the whole he considers the wrought
iron cylinders, with conical ends (of which he used a num-
ber of small ones, made, under his direction. by Mr.
Stebbing, and one large one by Mr. Taplin,) to be the best
and most convenient vessels for submarine explosions,
especially if it be necessary to empty and refil them, which
may sometimes he required.
SATURDAY, THREE, P.M.--The Lively has just gone into
harbour with a cargo from the Royal George, which has
been recovered since Thursday, consisting of the stern and
stemson, with the: remains of the knee of the head—a frag-
ment of several tons—a perfect breast hook, part of the
counter or buttock timbers, with planking, rider, and knee.
The whole, from their size, being portions of the wreck
worth seeing. They will be landed this afternoon or Alon-
day morning. Seven muskets have also been got up in the
course of this week. The boat blown up has been recovered
with but little or no damage.