The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1848-10-17 00:00:00

to the place, was rather
new red plush turn(

It eautioOsly for some time,

amined it more minutely,

he turned out from the pockets four precious " yellow
boys." Paddy, however, had not travelled far before he
recollected his blunder, and on returning found that his
antiquated forsaken friend had been robbed of its glitter-
ing contents. He demanded the precious metals, but was
refused ; and on being threatened with a prosecution for
stealing the waistcoat, was obliged to decamp, screaming
out whillilcus, mingled with wild notes of distress and
imprecations, which no one but a thoroughbred Irishman
could pretend either to utter or interpret.—Westmoreland
Gazette.

FATAL ACCIDENT WITHIN SIGHT OF THE QUEEN.—
On Monday about three o'clock, the Fairy, royal yacht,
had arrived near the Spit buoy, from Osborne, on her
course to Portsmouth, having on board, the Queen, Prince
Albert, and the royal children, who were soon after landed
and went by railway for Windsor, when her majesty's
trip was rendered peculiarly painful, from a deplorable
accident which happened in sight of the royal yacht. A
shore boat, with seven persons on board, proceeding to
the Grampus frigate, lying at Spithead, had, in a sudden
squall, unfortunately upset, when five women and two
men were engulfed in a rough sea, with every prospect of
certain death. The Gypsey, custom-house cutter, how-
ever, while returning from the Grampus, observed the

. .
accident, and a boat and two men immediately put off to
the spot ; and after much beating about, on account of
heavy sea and wind, picked up Li,cke, a waterman, and
saved his life. The accident having been perceived on
board the royal yacht, she was, by her majesty's com-
mand, instantly stopped, her barge lowered and promptly

steered to the scene of the disaster. Two itidividiials
were taken on board, and immediately conveyed to Ports-
mouth, where medical assistance was afforded, and one
woman named Moore recovered, but the other could not
be resuscitated. Out of the seven, therefore, only three
were brought ashore : it is feared that all the others have

met a watery grave.
SIR JOHN FRANKLIN AND THE ARCTIC VOYAGERS.—
It is a week since only that we afforded our readers the

gone out in search of a solution of the mystery that hangs
over the fate of Sir John Franklin, previously to their
issuing again from the mysterious ground on which that

the missing adventurers were lost sight of, at the thresh-
old of that same ground, an indication of their wherea-
bouts has suddenly turned up. A letter, just received by
the Admiralty from the Chief Factor Macpherson, dated
March 1, 1848, says There is a report from Peel's
River that the Esquimaux saw two large boats (query
ships ?) to the east of the Mackenzie River, full of white
'men ; and they (the Esquimeaux) showed knives, files,
&c., to the Peel's River Indians which they had received
from these white men. Could these have been Franklin
or Rae ?' Mr. Hargrave, of York Factory, to whom Mr
Macpherson's letter is addressed, says. in
tell: The admiralty

his int, itgence to ti. , . It could not have
been Rae in his last expedition, as his boats did not go
beyond Committee Bay.' Mr. Hargrave adds that, But
little credence can be given to Esquimeaux reports.' We
do not see, however, any good reason for rejecting a ru-
mour so welcome, and we gladly give it put-
suming that the boats or ships seen were 14

ilicity: Pre-
-6e of Frank-

s good as regards success, and better still. as respects

ince they must have been very near the coast. It
has been ascertained that open water exists during the
summer season, from the Mackenzie River to Be.hring's
Straits; and we, therefore, dare venture to hope that the
expedition may have effected the long desired N.W. pas-
sage this summer, and that the gallant party n.ay be even
at this moment approaching our shores. The anxiety re-
specting the lost party had grown finally to be very great,
and the public will cling eagerly to the hope so suddenly
presented. A very short time must test its value.

THE GREAT SEA. SERPENT.—When the Daedalus fri-
gate, Capt. 31•Quhae, which arrived at Plymouth on the
4th instant, was on her passage home from the East Indies,
between the Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena, her
captain, and most of her officers and crew, at four o'clock
one afternoon, saw a sea serpent. The creature was 20
minutes in sight of the frigate, and passed under her
quarter. Its head appeared to be about four feet out of
the water, and there was about GO feet of its body in a
straight line on the surface. It is calculated that there
must have been under water a length of 30 or 40 feet
more, by which it propelled itself at the rate of 15 miles
an hour. The diameter of the exposed part of the body
was about 16 inches, and when it extended its jaws, which
were full of large jagged teeth, they seemed sufficiently
capacious to admit of a tall man standing upright between
them. The ship was sailing north at the rate of eight
miles an hour. The Daedalus left the Cape of Good Hope
on the 30th of July, and reached St. Helena on the
16th of August. The captain of the Daedalus has written

to the Admiralty and says—" On our attention being
called to the object, it was discovered to be an enormous.
sea serpent, with head and shoulders kept about four fed
constantly-above the surface of the sea, and as nearly as
we could approximate by comparing it with the length of
what our maintopsail-yard would show in the water, there
was at the very least sixty feet of the animal afieur diem('

no portion of which was, to our perception, used in prO-
pellinF it through the water, either by vertical or

ionfarundulatiOn

It passed rapidly, 6i

our lee quarter that had it been tinian'of-
I should easily have recognised his feature
eye; and it did not, either in approael
...• •

y acquaintance

iththe naked
the ship or

uiier passea our wake, deviate in the slightest de-
gree from its course to the S.W., which it held on at the
pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour, apparently
on some determined purpose. The diameter of the ser-
pent was about fifteen or sixteen inches behind the head,
which was, without any doubt, that of a snake, and never,
luring the twenty mi- ,es that if Pontinued

it continued in sight of
our glosses, once • below the surface of the water; its
colour a dark brown, with yellowish white about the
throat. It had no fins, but something like the mane of a

zai.urr a uunen or seaweea, WEISOCU auoui, 115
back. It was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain's
mate, and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself
and officers above-mentioned."

PLAIN SPEAxrNG.—On Friday week a banquet in ho.:
nour of Sir C. Napier, the hero of Scind?, took place at
Cheltenham ; Lord Ellenborough in the chair. On Sir
Charles's health being proposed by the chairman, he stated

.
the hondur done him was much enhanced by the'eulogium
pronounced by a gentleman whom the whole empire of
India admired and worshipped. He (Sir C.) saw many
officers around him whose intrepidity had gained Mtn so
much honour_ and hi, should novo,. th,n;»

roke t

iy with so much slaughter,

But he saw his gallant

Welsh artilleryman, (Lloyd,) whose iron guns vomited
forth death on the enemy. (Cheers.) He saw also another
who fell wounded while cheering on my friend to battle ;
and young WMurdo, who gallantly threw himself sword

in hand into the very midst of the enemy. (Cheers.) He
then said, I feel utterly unable to express my feelings of
obligation to those troops to whom, under Lord Ellen-
borough, and, after his departure, under Lord Hardinge,
I owe whatever merit attaches to a zealous soldier who has
tried to execute that portion of the duty which is assigned
to military men, leaving the disposal of events to that great
Power who, in the words of the poet, " binds Nature fast
by faith, leaves free the human will." (Cheers.) Gen-
tlemen, I will not detain you any longer by my nonsensical
gabble. (Cheers.) I therefore drink all your good healths ;
and I thank Lord Ellenborough for all his support of me,
I may say, in the coarse language of military men, against
a set of damned scoundrels, (laughter;) and without whose
support I should have been crushed by a rascally press
and a rascally government. (Loud cheers.) In after-
wards proposing the toast of the "Army in India," he
he said he served 54 years in the Queen's service, great
part of the time in India, and might call himself a sepoy.
He went to India an ignoramus in 1841, thinking that
India might be invaded by the Russians, but my mind
was changed in a very short time. I found 300,000 men
in the Indian army equal to any contingency. (Cheers.)
I found 300,000 men who had the same courage, the same
discipline, all appointments necessary to carry on war as
the British army--the accoutrements the same, the
drill the same as ourselves ; their courage equal to our
own, and if they are inferior in strength, not inferior
in their determination;—(hear)—and that is all in war,
and that equal to ourselves. (Hear, and applause.)
They were all officered by Britons, and instead of idly
resting on the banks of the Indus, they were capable of
advancing to the Oxus, against all the armies of the west,
and scattering them far and near, The Affghanistan
affair was an error of the generals, and still more an error
of the politicals. (Cheers.) It was an error of politics
to go there ; and it was carried out with a multiplication,
of errors on the spot (cheers). I believe that it is impos-
sible to restrain the advance of civilization ; it is stronger
than barbarism and will force its way on in spite of poli-
tics in general.