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freightage back to New York. And even if the Louisianian planters were to prefer dollars to patriotism -which they are little likely to do -and were to bring a goodly supply of cotton to the market of New Orleans, we must remember that a considerable time would have to elapse before such supplies could reach this country. At the best, therefore, the widespread distress in our manufacturing districts must go on increasing until autumn; and how much longer it may endure, it is as yet impossible to say.

Mr Gladstone is not likely to be in office for another year, but it would be a good lesson for him if he were. He would then have to face the consequences of his own acts, and encounter a House tardily but thoroughly awakened to the disastrous nature of his financial policy. The time for trifling is past. Eloquence and deception have had their hour-a woeful one it has been for the State; and when the Budget is laid on the table next spring, we feel confident that there will be an expression of feeling on the part of the House such as has not been witnessed in matters of finance for many years. Only twice during the last nine years has there been a surplus-in 1858-9, when Mr Disraeli was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and in 1859-60, the year when he quitted office. Despite the lapse of the terminable annuities, the National Debt is now greater by £30,000,000 than it was in 1853. We cannot go on in this way. It is certainly a remarkable sign of the times-of the increased difficulties of our financial position-that the same man who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1854, advocated the extraordinary principle that even in the time of a great war the whole expenditure should be met and covered by the revenue of the year,

should, when again in office, declare that it is now hopeless to obtain a surplus in these times of peace. In 1854 Mr Gladstone spoke absurdity; in 1860-62 he has done worse, for he has acted absurdly. If a surplus be hopeless now, to himself more than to any one is the deplorable change due. Thanks to the impressive speeches of Mr Disraeli, the House, awakening to a sense of the unsatisfactory condition of the finances, has rejected the vote of £700,000 for the British Museum, as well as the costly proposal for consolidating the Law Courts, on the ground that at present the country cannot afford to make such an expenditure; and sundry other votes, such as that for the fortification of Alderney, have been opposed by formidable minorities. It is not merely that the wealth-producing power of the country is so much diminished that the strictest economy is necessary on the part of the Government, but Parliament has now be come aware of the reckless expedients by which Mr Gladstone has sought to sustain his financial mismanagement. It now knows that, in order to cover his annual deficits, he has diminished the Exchequer balances to the extent of two millions and a half, and has at the same time encroached to the extent of three millions upon the future revenues of the State by forestalling taxation. When such is the case, it is easy to see that the financial debates of the session, which have already proved so damaging to the Ministry, are not yet at a close; and before August brings temporary relief to the reeling Ministry, its financial policy will have been as thoroughly exposed and discredited in the eyes of the country as was that of Lord Melbourne's tottering Cabinet in 1841.

WHO PLANNED THE MONITOR ?

A LETTER FROM AMERICA.

[We think it only common justice to Captain Coles, and to ourselves, to insert the following Letter, received by him from Baltimore. The writer, it will be seen, gives authority to use his name; but, for reasons which will naturally occur to any one, we refrain from doing so at present.-ED. B. M.]

BALTIMORE, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
April 24, 1862.

To COWPER P. COLES, Captain R. N.
SIR,
In your letter of the 31st inst., published in the London
'Times,' and reproduced here in the New York Herald' of yesterday,
there occurs the following paragraph:-

"I have persevered and succeeded so far; but, alas! for what? To have the deep mortification of finding that America, instead of England, should have the palm of floating this Monitor, which is to dictate the reconstruction of navies to the world."

Now, sir, I think I can throw some light on this subject, and show to yourself and the world conclusively, and without the shadow of a doubt, that the "mortification" should be on the part of the American people for allowing themselves to be so egregiously hoaxed in this matter of Captain Erricsson's "so-called invention" of the Monitor.

6

That your invention of iron-clad raft, with revolving cupola à la Monitor, and also of a sea-going war vessel embodying alike defensive and offensive principles, together with your plans for cutting down wooden vessels of war of the largest class, and rendering them impregnable by armour-casing, in a manner since successfully adopted in the Merrimac, was known to hundreds, nay thousands of Americans-including editors, mechanics, navy and army officers, and indeed to all who, either by profession or inclination, are attracted by the higher class of literary publications-I unhesitatingly assert, and am prepared to prove. And now to the proofs. If you will turn to Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine' for the year 1860, vol. ii., numbers for November and December, pages 616 to 649 inclusive, being in all 35 pages, you will find two articles entitled 'Iron-Clad Ships of War.' In the first of these articles, number for November, is given the history of iron-plated vessels, and the progress made in regard to them in the French and British navies, with a passing tribute to the experiments of Mr Stevens, the American projector, in 1845; together with a very favourable report by a board of naval officers, appointed "pursuant to an order from Rear-Admiral Sir E. Lyons," to inspect the model of a gun-raft invented by you. This report is dated Kussatch, in the Black Sea, on board your then ship, the Stromboli: the date is 13th November 1855.

The second article, however, in the December number, is the one more immediately bearing on the present question. It is, in fact, a pamphlet of seventeen pages, almost exclusively devoted to a description and criticism of your plans for iron-clad shield-protected ships of war, and contains, at page 644, three diagrams of your invention, with a broadside view of a 14-gun shield frigate, modelled after your system. These drawings are beautifully executed, and so clearly described in the contents, that the

merest tyro in mechanics cannot fail to understand and appreciate their value. The treatise is entirely exhaustive; the plans and measurements so complete, that any clever marine architect, with this number of 'Blackwood' on his desk, could go to work and make out his working plans and specifications at short notice.

Now, it may be said that all this is very true; but why suppose that Captain Erricsson had ever seen or ever heard of 'Blackwood's Magazine?' Well, it is possible he never did; but after what I have to say on this point, I think it may be put down as highly improbable.

'Blackwood's Magazine' is republished by Messrs Leonard, Scott, & Co. of New York, in this country, as regularly as it appears in Edinburgh, and, as I am informed, has a more extensive circulation here than in Great Britain. I have been a subscriber to it for seven years past, and never missed receiving my number regularly each month. Upon its appearance each month, it is extensively advertised in the various papers, with the several articles it contains appended seriatim. Every editor of note in the country has a copy sent him, and in his book-notices, in nine cases out of ten, a list of the articles contained is given, with short criticisms attached; and it is to be found on the counters of the principal booksellers in every prominent city of the Union.

Under these circumstances, I think it will be a hard matter for Captain Erricsson to prove that he never heard of 'Blackwood,' and do away with the awkward coincidence that the plans and drawings of your vessels were well known here a full year before he commenced to build the Monitor, and fifteen months previous to her fight with the Merrimac.

From the New York papers I perceive that Captain Erricsson claims to have put his plans before the French Emperor as early as the fall of 1855. Very likely it was on the 13th November of that year, the very day upon which the Naval Commission visited your ship in the Black Sea. Truly a most astonishing coincidence! If so, it seems astonishing to me that, throughout all the excitement which has been raging in France and England ever since in regard to iron-plated vessels of war, and which has been duly noted and commented upon by the press of this country, he should have observed such an extraordinary reticence on this important subject.

And that amongst the thousand and one projects for rapidly increasing the efficiency of the American navy which the events of the past eighteen months have called forth, not a word should appear from Captain Erricsson in regard to his invulnerable Monitor. Why was this? For the past ten years his name has been prominently before the people of this country in connection with marine inventions. He came here avowedly to develop his plans in regard to marine architecture, which, it is alleged, prejudice and jealousy prevented him from perfecting in England.

If ever there was a time when a nation needed and prayed for a "Monitor," it certainly was during the siege of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbour. The garrison were from December 1860 to April 1861 beleaguered by formidable batteries, impassable by wooden vessels. The whole mind of the inventive people of the Northern States of the Union was exercised to find some means of throwing in supplies and reinforcements to the weak and starving defenders. Never before had the possessor of a Monitor such a chance of earning the eternal gratitude of a people. But, notwithstanding all this, not a word from Captain Erricsson. Why was this? Did he consider himself bound not to break faith with Napoleon, who had for five long years declined to adopt his plans of 1855? Or was it that he considered the time too short in which to build a Monitor? That could scarcely be, for the present Monitor was built and made ready for sea in the short space of one hundred days. Now, the threatened condition of

Sumter was known considerably more than one hundred days previous to its surrender; and surely the man who had all his plans perfected so long ago as 1855, could have had little difficulty in constructing his Monitor in time to relieve Sumter and if not, there was Fort Pickens, then thought to be in almost as bad a strait as Sumter. Or was it that 'Blackwood's' not being published here until about the 24th December 1860, completely put it out of the power of Captain Erricsson either to plan or build a Monitor? I may mention that, upon the occurrence of the fight between the Monitor and the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, and when it was seriously contemplated to present Captain Erricsson with a testimonial, I called the attention of some of the press of this country to these publications in Blackwood,' but, for reasons best known to themselves, they declined taking any notice of them.

In conclusion, sir, allow me to say that I am in no way conversant with mechanical science, or connected with mechanical inventors-have not the pleasure of knowing either yourself or Captain Erricsson further than by reputation; and my sole object in this is that justice may be done, and honour accorded, in the premises, to whom honour is due.

I am, Sir, respectfully yours,

A LOVER OF FAIR PLAY.

P. S.-Herewith I send you two papers, one of which contains the Report of the "House" Committee on National Defences, and the other the Southern Committee's Report on who planned the Merrimac; these may be interesting. I append my name, which, of course, you are at liberty to use as you think proper.

INDEX TO VOL. XCI

Abercrombie, General,invasion of Canada Bromby, Mr, his letter on the education

under, 230 et seq.

Addison, the style of, 704.

Albert, Prince, his death, &c., 131.
Alderson, Mr, evidence of, on the educa-
tion question, 87.

ALFORD'S TRANSLATION OF THE ODYSSEY,
review of, 345.

Allies, Mr, evidence of, on the education
question, 84, 85, 93.

AMERICA, THE CONVULSIONS OF, 118.
Amherst, General, invasion of Canada
by, 230 et seq.

ANGLO-SAXON CHRONICLE, THE, 629.
Architectural revival, the present, 283 et
seq.

Architecture, present character and ten-
dencies of, 290.

Aristotle, errors of, in anatomy, &c.,
174.

Arnold, Dr, his mastership of Rugby,
559.

Arnold, Mr, his views on poetical trans-
lation, 346.

Arnold, General, the invasion of Canada
by, 236.

Ashbridge, Robert, master of Rugby, 542.
Belesme, Robert de, Earl of Shropshire,
447.

Berber, sketches at, 693.

Blandford, Mr, evidence of, on the edu-

cation question, 84.

Birmingham, the town hall of, 291.
Blue Books, the, 77.

Bolingbroke, sketch of the career of, and

his style, 704 et seq.

BOX OF BOOKS, A, 431-Rymer Jones's
Animal Kingdom, 435 Müller's
Science of Language, 436-Gosse's
Romance of Natural History, 444-
Mrs Lynton's Witch Stories, 446-
Wright's Domestic Manners, &c., 447
-Mrs Browning's Poems, 449.
Braddock, General, his invasion of Can-
ada, and its defeat, 228 et seq.
Bradford, the public hall at, 291.
Bradstreet, Colonel, invasion of Canada
by, 231.

Brock, General, operations of, in defence
of Canada, 239 et seq.

question, 88.

Browne, Sir Thomas, the style of, 703.
Browning, Mrs, the poems of, 449.
Bulwer's Zanoni, on, 565.
Burke, the style of, 710 et seq.
Burroughs, Mr, master of Rugby, 547,

548.

CANADA, THE DEFENCE OF, 228.
CANADA, OUR FROZEN FRONTIER, 102.
Canada, general loyalty of, 103-sketch
of previous invasions, &c., of, 228 et
seq.

Cape Breton, reduction of, by the
British, 231.

CAPTAIN CLUTTERBUCK'S CHAMPAGNE,
Part IV. Chap. xii. 35-Chap. xiii. 40.
-Chap. xiv. 48-Conclusion, Chap.
xv. 178-Chap. xvi. 186-Chap. xvii.
189 Chap. xviii. 194-Chap. xix.
196-Chap. xx. 198.

CARLINGFORD, CHRONICLES OF: THE
DOCTOR'S FAMILY, Part IV. Chap.
xiv. 55-Chap. xv. 59-Chap. xvi.
63-Chap. xvii. 70-Chap. xviii. 75

-Salem Chapel, Part I. Chap. i. 207—
Chap. ii. 215-Chap. iii. 228-Salem
Chapel, Part II. Chap. iv. 261-Chap.
v. 268-Chap. vi. 274-Chap. vii. 278
-Salem Chapel, Part III. Chap. viii.
489-Chap. ix. 495-Chap. x. 500—
Chap. xi. 509-Salem Chapel, Part IV.
Chap. xii. 605-Chap. xiii. 611-Chap.
xiv. 622-Salem Chapel, Part V.
Chap. xv. 758-Chap. xvi. 767-Chap.
xvii. 773.

Carlyle, his views on genius, &c., 17.
Carpenter, Miss, on the education of the
poor, 82, 84.

CASTLEREAGH, LORD, 332.
Catholic emancipation, Castlereagh's ad-
vocacy of, 334.

CAXTONIANA: A series of Essays on Life,
Literature, and Manners. No. I. On the
increased attention to outward Nature
in the Decline of Life, 137-No. II. On
the differences between the Urban and
Rural temperament, 139 - Part II.
No. III. On Monotony in Occupation
as a source of happiness, 302-No. IV.

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