The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1847-09-14 00:00:00

enable the navy to annihilate every ship of war in the
parts of Europe or elsewhere. I repeat, that the most
effectual means of defence is to deprive an enemy of the
power of aggression. Your lordships may perhaps hear
from sceptical persons, or may yourselves suspect, that
my opinions are visionary ; but mylords the secret plans
which I presented to his Royal. Highness the Prince
Regent, in 1811, have again been folly investigated, and,
after six months' deliberation, were officially reported on
in January last; thus, I fearlessly assert, that these plans
can set at nought, not only all ordinary modes of defence,
but the novel means of destruction preparing in foreign
countries for use, both on shore and afloat, namely,, the
projecting horizontally 'shells, carcasses, and incendiary
missiles, to blowup or burn our ships of war—to which
means a recent device has been added, as yet essayed only.
on the brute creation, placed in vessels, fired at experi-
mentally, to prove its destructive power. As an officer,.
I gratuitously gave my secret war plans to my Sovereign
and country; my plans of defence, as a substitute for forts
and ports of refuge in war, I um desirous, in my character as
an amateur engineer, to render useful, if I can obtain at-
tention and dispassionate consideration." _

THE PRASLI-N MURDER.—We should not have trans-
ferred to our columns—even had the great length of the,
papers not interposed a barrier—the volumincui docu-
ments on this history with which the daily journals have
been crowded. They, especially the letters of the unfor.,
tunate Duchess de Praslin, overflow with inflated theory,
mischievous sentimentalism, and that exaggerated and
romantic tone of feeling and expression by which French
novels and plays are too generally pervaded, and which,
we grieve to say, have been, to an alarming extent, intro-
duced into the " ligbt literature" of our own country,
both by the cheap issues of translations of some of the
most demOralisin& of the French works of-fiction, and
the original productions of English authors imbued with
the same spirit, and seeking popularity by the same
^Rns. The tendency of many widely-circulated works

ich we could name, and of many of

s most

success—

ful dramatic pieces,.is to familiarise with crime;, to break
down the land-marks which separate truth from error--

vise from virtue ;7—and to invest the foulest criminals with
attributes of interest, which, in the imaginative and ill-
regulated mental and moral condition of the mass of
novel-readers and play-goers, exalt culprits i

heroes

and heroines, who are rather to be sympathised with for
their misfortunes than condemned and denounced for
their wickedness. The Praslin papers are decidedly, in,
our judgment, of this character; and, therefore, although .
we have felt ourselves laid under a necessity, as chroniclers
of passing occurrences, to insert more than we could have,
desired on the revolting subject, we have felt it both a .
duty and a privilege to exclude from our columns a large.
share of details published by our contemporaries. We
hope that now the case will be suffered to fall into oblivion,
except in so far as the lessons which it is fitted to incul-
cate, respecting the depth to which human depravity,
unrestrained by heavenly grace, may sink, and the im-
portance of striving to elevate the moral and religious
state of so-called Christian society, throughout Europe
generally, and especially. in France, may be remembered,
for salutary and practical purposes.— Watchman.
A MISREPRESENTATION CORRECTED. —At a recent
protestant meeting in. Norwich, one of the principal sPeak-
ers was the Rev.. J-. E: Gladstone (long connected with
this town), and the chief object the reverend gentleman
had in rising, was to expose the extraordinary misrepre-
sentation to which a former speech of his had been sub-
jected. Hear the rev, gentleman speak for himself;—

He could not sit down without call
fr. Binden had said relative to th
ress ; and he could tell him that
-unless what he was goit

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0 the matter—
h papers next week
lem all to cut the throats

would st,

in one of the Ni
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aan

it would. app
that he
of tl

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erotestant Association in ti
Vorfolk Chronicle that he

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the publishers of the paper ; and he had
one of the editors, who next week did