Daily Nashville union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1862, 1862-04-30


We are in receipt Of the English papers
for the week ending April 8. They are
filled with comments on the Merrimac
and the Monitor The columns of the
Times teens with editorials, letters. Par
liamentary debates, and reports of meet
ings on the subject. Iron-clad ships are
now the staple Of conversation, and the
question of reconstructing the British
navy is served up on every occasion. II
is evident that England has sheen struck
all Of heap" and very seriously alarm
ed at discovering that her (supposed)
powerful navy was reduced, rs far as
real efficiency is concerned, from 149
men-of-war down 20 two, viz. the War
rior and the Defence. But not less sur
prise has been excited at the rapidity and
economy with which the Monitor has
been constructed, and the Merrimac con-
verted into an iron-clad ship. While the
Warrior has been two years on hand, and
has cost upwards OF 100000, the Mon
itor has been turned out il three months
at q cost Of 100000, and proved to be
of unassaiIable efficiency. The Warrior
is only plated at the sides but bow and
stern are unsheathed-so that a little
boat like the Monitor could skip round
the unwieldy giant and let daylight into
her fore and aft. The English papers
confess all this, and it is greatly 10 their
credit that they candidly admit--even
the vile Times confesses--that a great
lesson has been taught from which il
would be well to draw the utmost profit.
The Daily Net0s says:
'It is no reproach to a great people to
observe that they know how to draw
victory from reverses, and strength from
calamities. II is the fashion with some
old governments in Europe to begin war
badly, and to improve as they 60 on. In
less than twelvemonth the Commander
in-Chief of the Federal forces is at the
head of an army which EFFORTS the res
pect of tho most fastidious eensors. 1t
is far from improbable that the regular
armies of the old world may yet learn
something from the volunteers of the
new. Meanwhile, on whatmay be called
the native element of the great Anglo
Saxon race, America has taught Europe
lesson of skill and enterprise of which
Englishmen may well be proud. Instead
Of 'snufling after the traditions of Ben
bow, like pottering old pointers (to adopt
the member for Galway's energetic ex-
pression,) the government and people of
the United States, in less than the time
which we have consumed in discussing
the report of an template Committee,
construct and reconstruct navy, bring
to q final and decisive solution the double
problem of wooden ships and ironsides,
floating batteries and fixed forts, and
completely revolutiOnize the art Of mari
time war. Session after session the
British House of Commons is invited to
vote enormous estimates for tentative
conversions and experimental recon
structions' without end. Immense sums
are spent in powder and shot at targets
and sections of imaginary ships sides
and tumbledOwn Martello towers; and
still the British taxpayer pays for
squadrons of purely ornamental line of
battle ships and frigates, and for fleets Of
gunboats which in war time could only
be servieable az firewood. The wonder
is that we have actually given up build
ing wooden three-d eckersl
Il etuaph ~ WOulu De simpler as wen W
cheaper to give up ship building alto
gsther for the present, and TO trust to pri-
vate yards TO eXtempOrize our improved
Monitors and Merrimacs when we want
them Itmight be still more desirable to
eXtemporize the colossal forts, which, as
Sir c. Lewis ventures TO predict, are des-
tined to blow floating batteries out of
the water as they are furnished with
guns long and strong enough to crush
the sides of an iron-plated ship -
PHILADELPHIA american and Gazette