London, June 15. Sir Charles Napier has published a series of 
ietters about the Baltic Fleet,* the following being No. 1: 

‘People ask why our squadron in the Baltic, which did nothing to signify last year, 
is likely to do nothing thisr The question is easily answered, viz., because Sir James 
Graham did not attend to the plans I sent him last June, and which he pretended to 
know nothing about: and because the Admiralty did not attend to the plans I sent 
them last September. Had Admiral Dundas been furnished with the appliances I 
pointed out, Sweaborg might have been bombarded, and probably destroved. Instead 
of doing that, they spent about [...] a million of money in building iron floating 
batteries, which will hardly swim, and if sent to the Baltic will probably never return: 
and this, after it was proved, at Portsmouth, that 68-pounders would destroy them at 
400 yards; and at 800 yards evervbody knows they could do no harm to granite walls. 
Had the same money been spent in mortar vessels, something might have been 
expected, or had half the money been laid out in putting Lord Dundonald’s plans 
(which he communicated to me) in execution, I have no doubt they would have been 
successfully employed, both in the Baltic and Black Sea. My time will come, and before 
long, when I shall be able to expose all Sir James Graham’s conduct to me. He has been 
shown to have opened private letters” (in the Bandiera affair ~~) “by Mr. Duncombe. 
He endeavoured to throw the blame of poor Captain Christie’s death on Mr. Layard, 
and I have accused him of perverting my letters, which I am prevented from proving, 
by the pretence that the publication would afford information to the enemy. That 
pretence will soon cease, and the country shall know what means the Right Hon. 
Baronet used to induce Admiral Berkeley and Admiral Richards to sign instructions, 
which, .if carried out, would have lost the Queen’s fleet. The country shall know 
whether the First Lord of the Admiralty has the power to turn an officer’s private 
letters into public ones, and prevent him doing the same with the First Lord’s. 

Sir Charles Napier.’ 

 The Morning Advertiser, No. 19964, June 15, 1855.— Ed. 

Roebuck’s Committee met again yesterday, for the 49th time, to 
reach a decision about the report to be submitted to the House of 
Commons. After a four hours’ debate its members were just as 
incapable of reconciling their views as in earlier sessions. They 
adjourned again until Monday in the “hope” that they will finally 
be able to announce the conclusion of their proceedings. 

The ‘Administrative Reform Association”?” held a_ large 
meeting yesterday in the Drury Lane Theatre; not, be it noted, a 
public meeting but a ticket-meeting,* a meeting to which only those 
favoured with tickets were admitted. The gentlemen were thus 
completely at their ease, au sein de leur famille’ They were 
avowedly meeting to give “public opinion” an airing. But to shield 
public opinion from draughts from outside half a company of 
constables were posted at the doors of the Drury Lane. What a 
fragile public opinion that only dares to be made public with the 
protection of constables and tickets of admission! The meeting 
was, above all, a demonstration in support of Layard, who is at last 
due to present his reform bill to the House tonight. 

At a public meeting held in Newcastle-upon-Tyne the day 
before yesterday David Urquhart denounced “the treacherous 
Ministry and the feeble-minded Parliament”. 

About the meetings now being prepared by the Chartists in the 
provinces, another time.” 

_ While thus the status quo is coming in for criticism from various 
quarters and different points of view, Prince Albert, at a dinner in 
Trinity House, has seized the opportunity of stating the position of 
the Court with regard to the general ferment.“ He too has a 
panacea for the crisis. It is: “patriotic, [...] self-denying confidence in 
the Cabinet!”” According to Prince Albert only the despotism of the 
Cabinet can enable constitutional England to stand up to Russia 
and wage war against the despotism of the North. The comparison 
he made between England and Russia was neither striking nor 
felicitous. For example: The Queen‘ had no power to levy troops 
nor had she any troops at her command but such as offered their 

services voluntarily! Prince Albert forgets that the Queen has 
approximately £30 million at her disposal to buy troops with. Since 
when has forced labour been more productive than wage-labour? 
What would be said of a Manchester manufacturer who deplored 
the competition of the Muscovite manufacturers on the grounds 
that he only had at his disposal workers “offering their services 
voluntarily”? Instead of emphasising that the Emperor of Russia’ 
has had the purpose of his “holy” war clearly and firmly 
proclaimed to his people from the pulpit, whereas for two years 
England has been waging a war of which the Prime Minister” has 
said in Parliament that “nobody can state its object’, Prince Albert 
deplores the fact that 

“Her Majesty's Government can take no measure for the prosecution of the war 
which it has not beforehand to explain in Parliament”! 

As though Roebuck’s committee had not been set up only after 
two-thirds of the British army had been sacrificed! As though the 
debate on the Vienna Conferences had not been held after they 
were over! In actual fact there was not a single explanation of any 
war measure in Parliament apart from Russell’s blustering, 
unprovoked announcement of the Sevastopol expedition, whose 
only aim evidently was to give the Petersburg Cabinet timely 
warning! And if the blockade was debated it was not because the 
Ministry took this step but because it proclaimed it without taking 
it. Instead of deploring that in a war against Russia the Crown was 
compelled by parliamentary intrigues to submit to the dictatorship 
of an avowedly Russophile and notoriously peaceful Cabinet, 
Prince Albert complains, on the contrary, that an unfavourable 
vote in Parliament “forced the Queen to dismiss her confidential 
servants”. Instead of rightly complaining that blunders, foibles 
and acts of villainy which, in Russia, would render generals, 
ministers and diplomats liable for Siberia, in England are followed 
at most by a little half-hearted gossip in the press and in 
Parliament, Prince Albert complains, on the contrary, that 

“no mistake, however trifling, can occur, no want or weakness exist, which is 

not at once denounced, and even sometimes exaggerated, with morbid satisfac- 
tion”. 

Prince Albert inserted these morbidly irritated expectorations in 
a toast to his long-standing enemy Lord Palmerston. But 
Palmerston is not given to magnanimity. He at once used the false 

position taken by the Prince in order to beat his own breast in 
front of him, protesting loudly: 

“I am bound to say that the English people have given us the most generous 
support.” 

He went further. He declared outright that he possessed “the 
confidence” of the English people. He spurned the Prince’s 
obtrusive exhortations to the people. He paid court to the people 
after the Prince had paid court to him. He did not even think it 
worth the trouble to reply with a compliment to the Crown. Prince 
Albert had sought to set himself up as the protector of the 
Ministry, hence proclaiming the Cabinet’s “independence” of 
Parliament and the people; Palmerston replied by pointing out the 
Crown’s “dependence” on the Cabinet. 

No. 277, June 18, 1855 Published in English for the first