The Sun. — 1840-08-28 (London, England)

RICHARD KEATS." "In company with a naval officer of forty years' standing, who fought at Trafalgar, and was the companion of Sir SYDNEY SMITH, (not a few imbeciles might fulfil the conditions,) he examined it, and reported that no ship in the navy, nor garrison on shore, could resist this stupendous combination of forces ;" all which, and ten times more was said of the steam-gun ten or twelve years, ago, which has dwindled into a mere toy to amuse i the holiday boys ' When they visit the Gallery of Practical Science. Before the good old KING could reward this 'murderous inventor, he was called away, and since then it appears the Ministers have turned the cold shoulder on him. Poor man, he has " expended 35,000/. in perfecting his invention, and has involved himself in the most distressing embarrassment," and " the Ministers will not advance him any money." We pity him ; but only the rabidness of a disappointed captious party spirit, at a loss for just ground of censure, could torture these into " alarming and disgraceful facts, for the national supremacy, if not safety, is endangered by the culpable conduct of her Majesty's Ministers." A schemer is not rewarded, and England's supremacy or safety is endangered 1 What a glorious piece of absurdity. If her supremacy or safety depended on such- circumstances it would not be worth a week's purchase, and would be held at the mercy of the greatest quack of the day. A more idle and disgraceful accusation was never made by a journal pretending to a character for common sense and common sagacity. It is unworthy even of the present furious partizanship of the Times.  , The manner in which the writer in that journal 1 mingles abuse with pathos and horror is quite . amusing. " The base creatures of the Admiralty," it says, " are willing to expose to danger the lives and property of all their fellow-subjects, in order that they may enjoy a few months' salary." " Great is the culpability of Lord MELBOURNE, and most serious the responsibility he has incurred to his country and mankind." That is a sample of the abuse. Then comes a sorrowful lamentation over our departed greatness : " our Navy might still have existed." It is blown up then already, gone sailors and all, and men know it no more. " Now," adds our Contemporary, " that the inventor is compelled to go abroad, or appeal publicly to his countrymen, the destruction of our wooden walls by a foreign foe, or its disuse by ourselves—(the grammar matches the logic !)—is inevitable." " For John Bull," says the sagacious scribe, who has seen him pay million after million for ships to rot in harbour, to be built and pulled to pieces again, " will not I submit to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds to build a ship, which at three miles' distance may be sent into fragments at a moment." There is the horror. All the nautical skill of our sailors is at once annihilated. Some single schemer has put an end to Britain's greatness: BONAPARTE, at the head of all the armies of Europe, was a mere fly, compared to this giant of destruction. The great deed, however, which the Times seems to have expected of him, was to blow the Ministers out of office ; but they enjoy " a few months' salary," in spite of this potent genius, and his potent ally. Neither our wooden-walls nor the Ministers, are yet destroyed by these annihilators, who resemble each other in making a prodigious fuss, and effecting nothing. They may ruin themselves by their inventions, but we must see the proof, before we believe that they will injure others. Within our recollection there have been at least a score of similar inventions, each of which was to change the whole face of war. They have, however, had but a very slight influence, and have not altered in the least, that we are aware of, the relative power of the different nations of Europe. Such inventions soon cease to be secrets, and their advantages or disadvantages arc shared alike by all. The greatest change in the art of war folloted the invention of gunpowder. Whatever influence that may have had in insuring the superiority of Europeans over the natives of America and Asia, it does not seem to have altered the relative force of the different civilized powers of Europe. The whole article in the Times, therefore, is framed on false analogies and exaggerated views ; the reasoning is , '