The Sun. — 1845-07-07 (London, England)

COLBURN'S UNITED SERVICE MAGA  ZINE. This Number opens with an account of" Nelson's second visit to Naples," and both for the fair fame of Nelson himself, and for the honour of our common country, we would that all record of the second visit (during which, to please an imbecile King and an abandoned woman, the hero of the Nile consented to the murder of Caraccioli) could be for ever blotted out of the page of history. We gladly turn to the next article, " Narrative of a sea trip to China in the autumn of 1844, by Heathcote Gooch, of the ship Duke of Bedford," a lively, well written narrative, from which we extract the following account of an adventure on the homeward voyage with the pirates of Sumatra  " We came through the Straits of Banca, Sunda, &c., but not without interruption from the pirates, who infest those parts, one of whom made an abortive attempt to board us in the night, by a trick that is now considered rather stale, though many crews have been murdered through such. Large portions of earth, covered with long wild grass, and sometimes with the addition of stumps of trees, are often seen in the above straits, floating down with the currents. These the pirates imitate, by constructing a raft, or something of that description, capable of holding a number of cut-throats, armed to the teeth, and over whom a covering, well calculated to deceive strangers, is placed, resembling the floating masses before named. So prepared, the pirates float down upon vessels in the night, and having succeeded in boarding them, proceed to murder the slumbering crew and plunder the cargo. While off the west coast of Sumatra, about nine o'clock one evening, one of those dens of infamy was quietly dropping down on our starboard-bow, when our look-out, suspecting its true character, ran and reported it to the officer of the watch. We had two six-pounders ready for them, besides abundance of small arms, and just as he was quietly dropping unto our bow, and within nice reach, we fired a gun to let him know we were not dozing. He still took no notice, but kept dropping on, thinking he should still deceive us with the fancy he was only a floating mass of earth. We now, however, took effectual means to put him on the right scent, by letting fly the contents of one of our six-pounders clean through him. We could plainly hear, by the howling inside, that our present was certainly not a welcome one. He instantly sheered off, by means of some contrivance we could not make out, and we saw no more of him." _ _ _  Captain Hippisley's account of the siege of Oporto in 1832 and 1833 is continued, as is Marshal Marment's work on Military Institutions. Lieutenant-Colonel Wilkie's paper on the Defensive Force of Great Britain contains some valuable hints for forming the yeomanry cavalry into a really efficient corps. We would commend Capt. O'Connor's paper, entitled " Twelvemonths Service in Western Africa," to the attentive consideration of our legislators. It would appear from this, that the colony of Sierra Leone is of all jobs the grossest. Not only is it the white man's grave—not only are large sums of money uselessly squandered annually in maintaining a staff of officials who have nothing to do, but instead of being a sanctuary for emancipated negroes, they are actually kidnapped for the free town itself, and sold into slavery. " On one occasion, a soldier of the Royal African Corps, while on sentry at the east battery, was persuaded to drink some palm wine, which had been previously drugged ; and, on awaking from his stupor, he found himself, arms, accoutrements, and all, a prisoner at the mercy of some Mandinge slave-dealers. He made such a row, threatened so much, and fear of the consequences which might follow, operating at the same time in the robbers' mind, he was put on shore at a point near a British factory, and from which place he made his way back again to Sierra Leone." It is of little use destroying barracoons at Gullinas, while we maintain at our proper cost a magazine like Freetown, to which Alandingo slave dealers can resort whenever they want to replenish their stock. Unless Captain O'Connor's account be an actual fabrication, no time should be lost in abandoning the colony altogether —at all events, we hope the Legislature will, during the course of the ensuing session, institute a searching inquiry into its state and prospects. There are also several valuable papers on strictly professional subjects in the present number of this magazine.