The Sun. — London, England, 1861-12-05 00:00:00

/ I 0 YAL ENGLISH OPERA , CO VENT GARDEN. Uu.la the immageinen t ison, Sole Lesseeof Miss Louyne and Mr. Wm. Harre THIS EVENING, THE PURITAN'S DAUGHTER. 31is Louisa pyne, Miss Susan Fyne; Messrs. Santley, A. St. yell, IV allworth, T. Distin, Albyn, Corn, G. Honey , Patey, L E. Dus.ek, and W. Harrison. Conductor, Mr. ALFRED MELLON. _ To conclude with THE TOY MAKER. Mr. H. Haigh, G. Fyne ; Mesdames Susan Pyne and Thirhvall, Commence at Seven o'clock. The Box-office open from Ten to Five daily. No charge for boLaing, or tees to Box-keepers. sta:re-Manager, Mr. Leigh Murray. Acting-Manager, Mr. Edward Murray. ri.EATRk.:.IIOYAL, HAYMARKET, Lessee, Mr. J. B. Buotatonc.. THIS EVENING, FAMILY JARS. Mr. Compton and Mrs. E. Fitzwilliam. To be followed by OUR AMERICAN COUSIN. Lord Dunlreary, Mr. S,ithern. Mr. Buckstone, Mr. Farren, Mrs. C. Young, &c. After which, MY AUNT'S ADVICE. Mr. Howe, Mr. Sotheran, Miss Oliver, &c. To con lude with A KISS IN THE DARK. Commence at 7 ROYAL LYCEUM THEATRE. Manager—Mr. Edmund Falconer. TRIM EVENING, the Dertormanoes will commence with THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING. Mr. Walter Lacy and Mrs. St. Henry. `- Alter which, at a quarter to Eight (23d time) the new and original Drama, entitled PEEP 0' DAY ; or, Savourneen Deelish. Messrs. Walter Lacy , Flermann Vezin, Charles SAby, Edmun Falconer ; Mrs. D. P. Bowers, Miss Clara Weston. To conclude with AN UNPROTECTED FEMALE, in which Miss Lydia Thompson will Dance the Volunteer Step. Acting Manager—Mr. F. B. Chatterton. Prices as usual. Doors open at half-past 8, to commence at 7. Box-office open daily from 11 till 5. LO YAL PRINCESS'S THEATRE.- Lessee and Manager. Mr. A. Harris. THIS EVENING, THE MERRY WIVES OF WIND SOR. Sir John Falstaff, Mr. Ryder (his Bth appearance in that character.) Messrs. G. Jordan, H. Widdicomb, &e. To conclude with BLUE JACKETS. E W THEATRE-R0 VAL, ADELPHI.- Sole Pronriator and Manazer. Mr. B. Webster. Tars EVENING, VIE PRETTY TIORSEBREAKER, Mr. J. L. Toole, Mr. P. Bedford, and Miss Woolgar. Atter which, the new drama, entitled THE OCTOROON ; or, LIFE IN LOUISIANA ; written by the author of "The Colleen Bawn." Mr. George Jamison, from the Winter garden, New York ; Miss Latimer, from the provincial thea tres ; and Miss Denvil, from the Lyceum. Tho other prin cipal characters in ;he drama will be performed by Messrs. Emery, Stephenson Billington, Paul Bedford, Romer. Mrs. itilling - ,ton. Mrs. Marston, &c., &c. Entirely new scenery by f essrs. Dalby and Thompson. To conclude with DOMESTIC ECONOMY. Mr. Toole, miss K. Kelly, &c. Doors onen at half-past 6—Commence at 7. Box-office open from 10 till 5. No charge for booking. NEW ROYALTY THEATRE, Dean-street, Oxford-street. Under the Direction of Mdlle. Albina di Rhona. THIS EVENING, to commence with THE GOVERNOR'S WIFE. After which, Mdlle. di Rhona will appear in CAMELIA, and Dance two National Dances. After which, BAMBOOZLING. To conclude with LES PIE RROTS. Box-office open from 11 to 4. Doors open at half-past 6—Commence at Seven. C ANTERBIJ RY HALL CONCERTS AND FINE ARTS GALLERY. MR. SAIL COWELL at Eleven o'clock in several favou rite Songs, including " THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. " Grand Selections from STRADELLA and LA TRAVIATA, EVERY EVENING. If fifP__) r , , 7, . . biFil•F' ' , _ •• , . ~. 4r • 7 .- • s ' 41 , ••• , L ' ' 1, 11; i; , 7 314,11,, •I• 11 0 THE SUN. LONDON, THURSDAY, DEC. 5, 1861. By Miss Russell, lid Ito; Ernst, Mr. Herbert, and Signor Tivoli, with a powerful Chorus. The Comic department :—Mr. Sam Cowell ; Mr. Marshall, in his new song, "John Bull, you don't bamboozle me ;" Messrs. Harvey and French (the Nerves); Mr. Wood and his talented son, the best negro dOineators of the day; and Miss Harriet Coveney . Musical Director, Mr. Jonghmans. Admission—Hall, ed.; Stalls and Balcony, is. T HE 0 X F O RD, 6, OXFORD-STREET. Selections from " LA CIRCASSIENNE," " Simon BOOCA ncgra," and " Ernani," by Miss Russell and Miss Ernst; Messrs. Albert (his first appearance), Morley Greville, Full Band and Chorus.—Conductor, Mr. F. Jonghmans.— Balfe's new ballads by Miss Russell and Madame E , ders sohn (composed expressly for them). And Varied Comic Entertainments by Miss Harriet Coveney, Messrs. W. Ran dal., Harvey and French (The Nerves), E. Marshall, and SAM CO WELL. Hall, 6d. ; Balcony and Stalls, is ; Private Boxes, 10s. 6d. HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE. Tins DAY.—Morning, 3h. 50m.—Afternoon, 4h. sm. To-monnow.-Morning, h. 38m.—Afternoon, sh. sm. THE WEATHER.—SUN OFFICE, DECEMBER 5, 1861. THERMOMETER, IN THE BEIA.DE. 41-7kighear since noon yesterday. 35—lowest this morning and during the night. 40—this day at noon. BAROMETER-29.80; falling. WlND—North-Westerly ; light, with tine weather now, but cold. Some rain in the night. We are not likely to want opinions respecting the American outrage. Just at this moment we have three before us from persons all of whom are entitled to a hearing. Our great popular orator speaks for the peace party at Rochdale ; at Ashton-under-Lyne, the Hon. JOSEPH HOME, Prime Minister of Nova Scotia, speaks for the North American colonies ; and at Paris, the veteran General SCOTT speaks for his Government and his country. What would be the object of Mr. BRIGHT'S eloquence we knew of course before. The great peace orator has long taken under his wing the quarrelsome people of the late United States, and he would make out a case for them, which, while we listened to it, should seem a most magnificent one. Indeed it would not be easy to exaggerate the material ad vances made by our Transatlantic descendants since the period of their separation from us. But even Mr. BRIGHT is compelled to own that their slavery is an affair as dark morally as physically—the only thing he can say is, that it was inherited from us. A view in which there might be something, if we persisted in it ourselves, Or if we prostituted our flag to the slave trade. Since, however, we—an aristo cracy, and a monarchy—have repented in the face of the whole world, we cannot see how a republic -which inserts in its fundamental document that " all men are born free and equal" can taunt us with our example. We may say to them as AM BP OSE did to THEODOSIUS, when the latter pleaded the example of DAVID,—" imitate then our repent ance also." Mr. BRIGHT takes pains to show that the South had a bad cause at the beginning, which, we sup- Pose, no one will deny. Nor will he admit that the South, which enjoyed an over-representation in Congress, had as good a right to rebel as our un represented thirteen colonies had against the at tempt to tax them. The simple truth is, that the South willingly paid tribute to the North, in the shape of very high protectionist duties, for being allowed to name the Executive Government and the judges of the Supreme Court, and also to enact fugitive slave laws. That is, the North sold their own position and the freedom of 4,000,000 coloured Americans for the thirty pieces of silver offered them by Southern politicians. Mr. BRIGHT counsels a neutrality like that we observed towards Italy—a neutrality with sympathy for the North. Now this was just the feeling with which the war began. Few Englishmen could be found who were not heart and soul with the North, believing it to be a war of freedom, and not doubting that the North, with its vast re sources, would make short work of it. But how is it that all this sympathy has so completely sub sided. Mr. HOME, from Nova Scotia, can tell us ; for though close at hand there, and seeing the rising population every 4th of July taught hatred to Eng- , land, in that colony, when they heard of the affair at Fort Sumpter, " there was," he says, "no t riumphing, but they felt sad and sorry, and passed xesolution to the following effect :—That the 11ou"e "t Assembly of Nova Scotia has heard with great sorrow and re gret . of the ou tb rea k o f c i v il war amon g t h eir friends and neighbours in the United States ; and that this house, without ex-1 pressing any opinion upon the points of controversy between the contending parties, sincerely laments that those who speak the same language and share their civilisation should be shedding each other's blood, and desire to offer up a fervent prayer to the Father of the universe for the speedy restora- tion of peace." Soon, however, they were compelled to change their feeling. The North, calculating on a com mercial meanness and injustice but too like its own, thought we should actively aid them in crushing " the rebels." We honourably proclaimed neutra lity between the belligerents, and, says the Prime Minister of Nova Scotia, "From the moment the QUEEN'S proclamation was issued, announcing the determination of the Imperial Government to hold a neutral position between the contending parties, every newspaper in the United States, not merely the ' sensation' newspapers of New York, had breathed nothing but hatred and hostility to Eng land; and from that moment the Northern pro vinces had been menaced every hour of the day that those provinces would be annexed as compen sation for the territory they were to lose in the South. For six months they had thus been menaced, bullied, and bragged at. Perhaps seven-eighths of the people in the Northern provinces six months ago wished the North success. Now they felt as though every man in the provinces had been per sonally insulted, and they wished the SoUth success with all their hearts and souls." Mr. BRIGHT, as counsel for the North, avails himself of arguments from all quarters. He makes use of both the argument ad miserieordium, and the argument in terrorem, he appeals both to our pity and our fears. America—that is, the Fugitive Slave Law States—are now in distress ; do not add to their difficulties. But, in a few years these twenty millions of Freemen will mount up to thirty, and to fifty millions—beware how you make them angry. Now, we certainly do not wish to make them angry, but Mr. BRIGHT would do better if he used his potent eloquence in rebuking the bullies, like the Minister SEWARD and the naval Captain WILKES, on the other side the water. The Ministers who would make Nova Scotia and Canada tremble with the prospect of invasion, and an invasion for no earthly reason, bat that the North wants to be com pensated for its Southern losses—these are the really guilty causes of the alienation which Mr. HOWE so strongly expresses. Mr. BRIGHT says that only " misrepresentation the most gross, or calumny the most wicked, could involve in a war a people with such close ties." True ; bat even the French press bears witness to the wonderful modera tion of that of England. It is the American 4th of July orations, the American press, American Minis ters, and American captains, who stir up the American war feeling against England. We are exhorted to calmness ; but really we have seen nothing but what, under the circumstances, must be considered the most exemplary calmness. General SCOTT'S letter is right so far as it goes. There can be little doubt that Captain WILKES acted on his own responsibility. He has, it would appear, a character for indiscre tion already, and has even been convicted of it by a court martial in his own country. It strikes us that it would have looked better, especially if such men as Captain WILKES are numerous in the American navy, that general instructions had been issued to err in the case of neutral vessels in excess of caution rather than in excess of zeal. The Government might have been aware that its dangers were greater from affronting friendly powers, than from letting pass a cargo or two, or a prisoner now and then, which it would be their interest to stop. As to the worthy gentle man's argument, that the rebels were really contra band of war, all that may be excused in a soldier. The worthy old man does not touch what strikes us to be the real gist of the grievance, that a neutral vessel, taking a rebel, or a belligerent envoy, or what you please, from one neutral port to another neutral port, should have her passengers taken from her. We do not complain of the stoppage and the inquiry. Captain WILKES had a right to be satisfied of the character and destination of the vessel, though that, indeed, he knew full well. What can never be tolerated is that, after he knew all about her, he should think he had any more right to touch a man or thing on board, than he would have had to seize the same in the centre of London. We are glad , the old gentleman tb inks his country desires to avoid a quarrel ; she will be mad, if she does not ; but there is only one means by which it can be pre vented—reparation; Attention was drawn by a morning contempo rary, on the recent occasion of the opening of the Middle Temple Library by the Prince of WALES, that the time when men became barristers-at-law by means of eating so many dinners was well nigh over. The subject of legal education, and the defective state of it, in the Inns of Court, and the necessity of a com pulsory examination for every student previously to his call to the bar, which was exciting so much attention about 10 years ago, just at the period of the closing of our first Great International Exhibition, has during more recent years gone entirely to sleep. Men's minds have of late been by far too much occupied with Crimean Wars, Indian Mutinies, Volunteer Movements, and last, not least, the Ame rican Question, to trouble themselves about legal education and legal reform generally, to the same extent to which they did trouble themselves about it some 10 or 15 years ago. And yet the subject and necessity of an extended legal education in our Inns of Court has, instead of being diminished, increased and multiplied tenfold in the time—as we are now about to shew. The years 1861 and 1851 exhibit a marked and striking, not to add a lively,contrast as regards the system of competitive examinations, and examina tions generally. Ten years ago there were no exa minations for officers entering her MAJESTY'S ser vice, nor for any branch of the civil service, nor for Indian appointments. All this, it is well known, has for several years completely changed. For the last quarter of acentury there has been an examina tion, which is, and has always been, compulsory for what is termed the lower branch of the legal pro fession. And within the last five years prizes have been awarded and given to the most successful, most industrious, or most talented, as the case may be, of the articled clerks. And only this last ses sion the Legislature has, through the medium of the Law Institution, passed a law which will be applic able to all men who will be articled after the be ginning of the year 1862, enacting t hat al a l n men previously to being ar ti c l e d shall undergo exa mination in French, Latin, or Mathematics ; be sides having established occasional examinations in law for young men during their articles. Andyet what is the position of the Bar who profess to look down upon the attorneys and solicitors, not only as regards their position in life, but also with respect to their legal knowledge, to say nothing of their skill? Why, that they undergo no compulsory examination whatever, either before entering as students or be fore being called to the Bar. The attorneys and solicitors are, in point of fact; looked upon by the Bar as mere clerks to go about and obtain evidence, and to run to and from counsel's chamber after cases and opinions, being themselves tongue-tied, aild mere dumbies after all; whereas the barrister, the' real acting agent of the profession, undergoes no t only no examination, but does not require any further education than just to be able to sign his own name ! And yet Counsel, unin- formed and uneducated as he may be (to the deep disgrace 3f the Legislature and the Inns of Court be it spoken) is the individual on whom falls the responsibility of conducting the case, and to whom attorneys and solicitors are to look up. depend upon, and be guided by. Barristers are alone allowed to plead in the superior courts of Westmin stex, and they are not responsible to their clients for vegligence or otherwise. Besides which, they alone Are eligible for numerous appointments of considerable emolument and responsibility from all which appointments attorneys are and always have been excluded. Some ten or twelve years ago, the limes wrote an article, in which it stated that, ow- ing to the introduction of our railway sys tem, our high roads were brought back again, in the middle of the 19th century, to much the same state thoy were in during the days of JONA THAN WILD and the middle or rather early part of the 18th century. Now, there is an analogy here to the present state of our Inns of Court. Just little more than 100 years ago our great commen tator, Sir WM. BLACKSTONE, thus addressed the students of Oxford in the first section of his Com mentaries :—" Indeed, it is perfectly amazing that there should be no other state of life, no other oc cupation, art, or science, in which some method of instruction is not looked upon as requisite, except only the science of legislation. The noblest and most difficult of any apprenticeships are held necessary to every art, commercial or mechanical; a long course of reading and study must, from the divine, the physician, and the prac- tical professor of the laws (now in good truth the attorneys and solicitors are the sole practical professors of the law), but every man of superior fortune thinks himself born a legislator." Now, that this is the same state of things which existe at present, it is by nomeans difficult to prove. The Bar is at present the only public profession or employ ment of any kind to which access may be had without the necessity of undergoing an examina tion ; and one of the principal reasons given by the benchers of the Inns of Court for not making these examinations compulsory is, that by so doing, we should drive away many men of high rank and pro perty who are now useful ornaments of the Bar, thereby proving the truth of what Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE asserted about 160 years ago, that "every man of superior fortune thinks himself born a legislator." We will here proceed to take a review of what little improvement has been made in the system of legal education in the Inns of Court during the last fifteen years. In the early part of 1846 the Times newspaper wrote several articles stating that the time had now arrived when there should be some more effective mode of testing a man's capabilities of being competent to have the degree of barrister-at-law conferred upon him, than eating a stated number of dinners, and having no further training than would be given to animals fattened for the Baker-street Cattle Show. The result of this was, that in the following year, 1847, the benchers of the four Inns of Courts insti tuted optional examinations for students prior to their call to the Bar. In these examinations, we believe the students were only orally and by written questions examined in the different branches of the law, and honours awarded accordingly. Five years later, in 1852, the Benchors, compelled by the force of public opinion and the press, legal and general, went a step further, and appointed five different readerships of five different branches of the law, viz., Common Law, Real Property, Equity, Civil Law, and General History. They also made it compulsory upon evwy Bar student, either during one whole year embracing four consecutive terms, to attend the lectures of two of the readers on any of the abovenamed subjects, or else to undergo an examination previously to his being called to the Bar. Now, in many respects, this change was worse than the old system, because it professed to have Bar students better instructed, and there is (we speak in the present tense, for the system is still in existence) no better guarantee for it than there was prior to the year 1852, when the present system came into operation. Few people will (whether young or old) take the trouble to inform themselves, unless they be compelled to do so, but far less young men (and Bar students are, generally speaking, among the number of these) than older ones; and what has been the consequence ? Why, that the bulk, say 99 out of 100, of the students going to the Bar, have of course, preferred attend ing the year's lectures to undergoing an examina tion, find oftener than not have been asleep, draw ing caricatures of one another, or, perhaps, of the lecturer, as the case may be, reading Punch, the limes newspaper, or some popular novel, and very likely at the end of the lecture, or attendance upon their year's course of lectures, knowing no more of the subject matter than if they had been 1,000 miles off. Thus is the present system of legal education, which has now been in existence for upwards of nine years, and which has proved worse than use less in by far the great majority of cases, Some few ambitious students there have been who have hon ourably competed for studentships and certificates of honour, and have obtained them, but these have been the exceptions and not the rule. The majo rity of men called to the Bar during the last 10 years may be, for any guarantee which the benchers of the different Inns of Court could pro duce, just as ignorant of their profession as any called under the old system, with the additional hypocrisy of ,th© present system professing to educate, whereas the old one never did anything of the kind. Until there be a regular compulsory ex amination for the Bar, which there is for not only the other branch of the profession, and for all the other learned professions, but even for every branch of the army and navy and for all civil appointments as well, neither solicitors, nor (what is much more to the point) the public, have any guarantee that the individual who conducts their case has any proper knowledge of his profession, or that they have had real justice done them. We now have a Chan cellor who has ever shown himself for a great many years past the friend of law reform in all its secret mazes and windings. It is to be remembered also now that the fature King of England has become both a barrister and bencher, and has, moreover, had the advantage of being educated under a mother whom all England acknowledges to be one of the most virtuous and popular Monarchs that ever sat on the throne of these realms, and who has, in the well•nigh quarter of a century that she has been on the throne, shown herself the friend of reform in all its branches. We trust that another session of Parliament may arr i s t beinger -at - not be suffered to pass over our heads without such a public aw c o n removed, fe as rr e dup men having the by degree of scandal barrister-at-law merely attending so many lectures, eating so much roast mutton, and drinking h so much port and sherry wine. A capital anecdote is related this month in the Cornitill at the commencement of a patriotic argu ment " On a Further Reconstruction of the Navy." The anecdote referred to is so thoroughly charac- THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 5, 1861. teristic of the Age, of the Nation, of the Old King (GEORGE III,), and of the bluff old salt who is the other interlocuter in the brief but suggestive dia logue therein recorded, that we transfer the little incident precisely as it is related in Mr. THACKE RAY'S magazine to our own columns. It runs, then, simply as follows :—" During the great war with France, in which our most brilliant naval victories were won, his Majesty GEORGE the THIRD visited Portsmouth dockyard, and was surprised to find the master-builder of that establishment enlarging one of the docks on his own responsibility ? ' And why,' asked the King, have you presumed to do this without authority ?' 'Please your Majesty,' he replied, I learnt that the French were building a ship too large to come into the dock as it was :' and the King was thoroughly satisfied with the explanation. It is a mere matter of fact to add, that the French ship was captured very soon after wards, and brought into the dock so thoughtfully provided for her." And the writer adds immedi ately :—" It is impossible to recal this incident without contrasting the state of things in GEORGE the THIRD'S day with that which now exists, and has existed for several years past." In testimony of which startling contrast, it is thereupon ob served, alas! with only too much reason :—" That consciousness of superiority on the sea which then kept us tranquil in the midst of war, has, of late years, given place to apprehensions which have kept us agitated in the midst of peace. During'the last session of Parliament, for example, the representa tive of our Admiralty in the House of Commons was continually reminding us of the great naval power of Franco ; our Prime Minister pleaded more than once for defensive works ; and the close of the session was signalised by an acclamatory vote de signed to secure further protection for us. We need hardly add, that this decline of confidence in ourselves has caused the confidence of others in us to decline, until our prestige on the Continent has sunk very low. When naval matters are now talked of there, it is no longer of England, but of ' the EMPEROR' that men think first ; and the great name of PALMERSTON, once so profoundly respected throughout Europe, is now more prominently asso ciated with mid-water forts at Spithead than with mighty fleets floating there." The reason for all which we hardly think, however, that the writer in the Cornhill has quite explicitly enough stated, when he maintains that "The sole cause of these humiliating changes is our culpable delay, twice repeated, in adopting great mechanical improve ments." Meaning, of course, by this—the delay which took place at first in regard to the applica tion of steam power to the propulsion of our men of-war—and the delay, in the next place, in regard to the steel-plating of our line-of-battle ships. The cause, however, of this double declension in what may be called our maritime preparedness—the de clension, that is, in our own confidence to begin with, and by necessity afterwards in the awe in spired by us hitherto among the rest of the great Powers of Christendom—is, we cannot but think, only half put when it is thus stated. For, as it appears to us, the cause of the " humiliating changes," but just now referred to, is, like the result of those changes themselves, of a duplex character. The fault, in other words, is ours, of course—but it is also, of our imperial neighbours. True, we have been shamefully lax in our negligence—delaying thus until our delay has become matter of serious, almost vital consideration, now to apply steam propulsion to our war vessels, now to incase those war vessels with plates of iron. But, while the guilt so far is ours indubitably, while we ourselves must bear the full brunt of the blame provoked by the fact of this neglected responsibility—there is the no less cer tain truth that an enormous amount of blame attaches to the Frenth Government for the unfair advantage taken by it in availing itself of the op portunity (certainly tempting) presented to view by the incomprehensible Ar athy of England. We htive been in th• wrong, not a doubt of it. Let that be granted. But our Imperial neighbour has been far more flagrantly in the wrong—in the eyes of France herself—in the eyes of England, her faith ful ally—in the eyes of all Europe. For, without provocation of any kind, without remote and scat tered colonies to care for, without plea or pretext of the flimsiest description, France has been exert ing herself, with the utmost possible stretch of her undoubtedly:large energies, to vie with Great Bri tain in the magnitude and majesty of her maritime armaments. England, on the contrary, having vast and widely-distributed provinces in all quarters of the globe, in every sea, in both hemispheres.—stretch ing northwards far into the Arctic, south wards far into the Antartic regions. The European territories of England, for example, lying far to the east and far to the west from our own wonderful little archipelago—past the rocky fortress of Gibraltar, past the insular " keep" of Malta, away to the lonian islands with its restive Geeek population ! And, extending far and wide to ' i the uttermost limits of the habitable globe, the domain of England lying scattered throughout Asia, Africa, North and South America, Australia and the rest of Polynesia. Yet, with scarcely a colony herself to care for, France all this while, like the Frog in the presence of the Ox, in the old lEsopian apologue—little JOHNNY CRAPAUD! in the presence of lusty JOHN BULL ! !—must needs be enlarging her naval force to the most extravagantly disproportionate dimensions. Until—quite in keep ing with the sequel of the fable—the ambitious rival suddenly bursts in the very effort of emulation. The Financial Break-up that has so very recently led to the return of M. ACHILLE FOULD to the Ministry, marking the term, let us hope, of this unnatural attempt on the part of France to out strip upon the ocean the energies and the enterprises of the greatest maritime power the world has ever seen. F.:ance compelled at length to moderate her efforts in this unwonted direction—England awakened at last fully and completely to a recogni tion of her own culpable apathy and negligence— Britannia, we may now rest confident, is in a fair way to resume her old supremacy over the deep. A Cabinet Council was hell yesterday at the official residence of the first Lord of the Treasury in Down ing-street. The Ministers present were Viscount Palmer ston, the Lord Chancellor, Earl Granville, Sir G. Grey, Earl Russell, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Duke of Somerset, the Right Hon. Thomas Milner Gibson, the Right Hon. Edward Cardwell, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and the Right Hon. C. P. Villiers. We understand that the 100-pounder Armstrong guns, the issue of which had been temporarily suspended during some experiments, will now be again delivered for service. WARLIKE MOVEMENTS.—The Freeman states that in all probability a division of sailors from the Ajax, which has been prepared for sea in case of necessity, will leave Kingstown to join the Black Prince. AMERICAN CORN.—Thirty years ago breadstuffs were sent from Buffalo w, st ward to sup , ly settlers in the wilderness. That wilderness has flaw become the granary of the world. The first shipment of wheat at Chicago for the eastward was made in 1838, and consisted of only 2,000 bushels during the year. In 1855 upwards of 20,000,600 bushels were shipped. During the month of October last 12,483,797 bushels of grain and flour were received at Buf falo; and during the 13 months ending the 31st of October last the receipts at Buffalo were 51,939,142 bushels of grain and flour. Her Majesty's ship Donegal (line.of-battle) passed Madeira on the 25th ult., and her nijesty's gunboat Dot terel passed on the 27th ult., both on their way to the Gulf of Mexico. Commanders P. G. Nettleton and H. B. Burnaby, R.N., have been appointed Admiralty agents on the India and China stations, 1-4 AT E T NEW TURIN, DEC, 4. Contrary to all expectation, Garibaldi has ar rived here, lie will not attend to-day's sitting of the Chamber of Deputies. TURIN, DEC. 4, EVENING. The discussion on the Roman and Neapolitan questions was resumed to-day in the Chamber of Deputies. Signor Ratazzi said— "lt would be unjust to wish to make the Government responsible for the failure of the nego tiations relative to Rome and for the disturbances in the Neapolitan provinces. Another Ministry would be in the same situation. I will not discuss the documents which have been communicated to the Chamber by the Government, as it is useless to consider whether the concessions offered to the Church were dangerous to the State, because they have been without any result. Rome is naturally, and will soon really be the capital of Italy. lam convinced that the French Government desires that the occupation of Rome may cease. It is the in terest of France to have a strong Italy as an ally. The French Government is our sincere friend. It recognized us after we had proclaimed Rome as the capital of Italy. Our adversaries are their adver saries." Signor Ratazzi then alluded to his visit to Paris, whieh, he said, was of a purely personal character. He denied the malevolent rumours which had been circulated with regard to his intentions. He con demned the propositions of Signor Ricciardi, and said he believed that France would aid the Italians against the brigandage in Naples. He concluded by urging the union of all the constitutional factions. Signor Ratazzi's speech was received with unani- mous applause. ROME, DEC. 3. The Marquis de Lavalette, the new French Am bassador, has arrived here. RAGUSA, DEC. 4. On Monday last 16 battalions of Turkish troops were concentrated at the position taken up by Omar Pasha. Dervisch Pasha, in pursuance of his orders, pro ceeded to attack the camp of the insurgents at Piva, but found they had fled, after having burnt their camp. Their arms and baggage, however, fell into the hand of the Turks. BOMBAY, Nov. 12. Sir Richmond Shakespear is dead. Lord Canning invested Scindia and the Rajahs of Puttiala, Chopal, and Rampore with the Order of the Star of India at Allahabad on the Ist inst. Holkar and the Guico war were also invested with the Order on the same day. Lieutenant Singer, of the 75th Regiment, has been killed by an armed mob in Nowgong, Assam, while trying to collect the taxes. Troops have been ordered up to restore quiet. FRANCE. PARIS, DEC. 4. The Patrie of this evening has an article, signed by M. Lapenterie, on theAnglo-American difficulty, of which the following is a summary : " It is not the mission of France to avenge insults offered to England. If an outrage has been com mitted on the high seas against the British flag, it does not rest with our Government to demand reparation, nor is it the duty of public opinion in France to resent it. Let us suppose that by an outrage on the French flag we were placed in a similar position to that of England. Under present circumstances we are disinterested. We are not the judges of what becomes the honour of England. For two years the Cabinet of Lord Palmerston has been calling together VOlUutccro, pichtius fl; 6 t.co with iron, manufacturing rifled cannon, surround ing the English ports with formidable defences, and sustaining itself in Parliament and the country by the aid of a warlike popularity. Having seen such a display and such preparations against phantoms of fear, the counsels which we should give to England must necessarily appear very moderate and timid. If the Cabinet of Washington does not disavow the proceeding of the captain of the San Jacinto, and if England insists on obtaining reparation, a new state of things may be brought about affecting the inte rests of all the European Powers. If England recognises the Southern States the Powers must necessarily take such a change into consideration for the sake of their commercial interests, and must desire the termination of the war. If the Southern Confederacy, by its recognition by one of the Great Powers, should enjoy public rights as a nation, the other States would have to consider what attitude such an important modification would impose upon them, and the Cabinet of Washington would bear the responsibility of a resolution which the necessi ties of commerce and political influence would im pose upon Europe." The Moniteter declares that the statem9nt made by the Toulon journals of the intention of the Ern press to shortly visit Nice and spend part of the winter there is altogether devoid of foundation. BOURSE, DEC. 4.—The market has been more buoyant, and a fair amount of business has been transaeted at an improvement on the closing rates of yesterday. Threes, for the Account, are now at 69f 50c. Railway shares have in some cases im proved. The following are the last quotations :- 41 per per Cents ... 95 60 Credit Foncier ll9O Do. end month.... —1 Belgian 41 lOO 3 per Cents Do. end month 69 521; Roman Bank Shares 2975 —1 Austrian Credit Mobilier.... 745 Spanish Threes, — Do. Account 747 501llome Debt RAILWAYS. Cash. Account. Orleans Northern New ditto Lyons and Mediterranean 1022 50 .. 1025 Geneva — • Southern 665 .. 666 25 Western .. Eastern Sardinian Austrian Lombard - The boa constrictor at the Garden of Plants, Paris, which swallowed its blanket some time ago, and dis gorged it about a month afterwards, has just died, owing, as was supposed, to its having retained so indigestible a mass such a length of time in its body. GALLANT RESCUE FROM SHIPWRECK.—The fol lowing extracts are from a letter, dated the 25th Nov., from Captain Weatheley, of the steamship Ward Jackson, ply- ing between West Hartlepool and Hamburg : —" I arrived home yesterday morning, after a very severe passage; not, however, to be compared to the outward one, of which I will give you a brief account. I sailed from here at midnight on Wednesday, the 13th inst., and was due at Hamburg on Friday evening, the 15th. I did not, however, put in my appearance until the Sunday evening. After I got to sea a gale came on from N.E., which by daylight on Thursday had increased to a perfect hurricane, with a most terrific sea. At noon I was compelled to heave the ship to, under a close-reefed mainsail. I lay to all that night, and at 9 a.m. on Friday saw a vessel with mainmast gone and signal of distress flying. I bore down to her, and found her to be the Nord Star, Captain Allwords, from Memel to Newcastle, with timber, waterlogged, and the sea running mountains high over her. I succeeded in getting crew of seven men on board the Ward J.ickson. At 11 30 a.m. I saw another ship, with signals of distress flying on the stump of her mhin mast. Bore away to her, and found her to be the Norwe gian brig Vests, about 400 tons, Captain Hanson, of Grim • stadt, timber laden, for Honfleur, waterlogged, dismasted, rudder gone, and sea making a clean breach over her, took off her crew of ten men. Again, at 3.30 p.m., saw another wreck to leeward, and ran clown to her. She proved to be the Dutch galliot schooner Thea, Captain Pothius, timber laden, from Frederickstadt to Harlingen, totally dismasted, waterlogged, and decks blown up. Took off her crow of six men, making it. all 23 souls, from these three vessels, in 6i hours. Landed them all at Hamburg on the Sunday night, and I need not say how happy I felt in being the in strument under God of saving all these poor fellows from a watery grave." MR, BRIGHT ON THE AMERICAN WAR. MANCHESTER, WEDNESDAY NIGHT. Mr. Bright, M.P., was entertained at dinner by his fellow-townsmen, at the Rochdale Public hall, ,his evening. There were about 250 gentlemen present, among whom were Mr. Bazley, SI.P., Mr. George Wilson, and the Mayor of Manchester. The galleries were occupied by ladies. The Mayor of Rochdale presided, and gave in succession the toasts of " The Queen," " The Houses of Parliament," and " The Health of Mr. Cobden, M.P.," all of which were cordially received. Mr. BAZLEY, M.P., responded. He expressed his opinion that there was no more distinguished mem- ber in the house than their esteemed friend and representative, Mr. Bright. (Cheers.) And, just as people were very often asking, " What will Mrs. Grundy say ?" so in the House of Commons he heard on every occasion the inquiry, " What will Bright say ?" (Laughter and applause.) The MAYOR next proposed the health of the member for the borough, Richard Cobden, Esq., and read the following Letter from the hon. gentleman : Midhurst, Dec. 2, 1861. Dear Sir,—l need not assure you with what pleasure I should accept your invitation to be present at the enter tainment which is to offered by his neighbours to my friend Mr. Bright. It tempts me sorely, and yet I will not break the rule by which I have prohibited myself from attending any public meeting this winter, with the view of husband ing my health for the labours of the coming session. The circumstances of the present moment make me regret my inability to meet my constituents. I should have been glad to have expressed my views on the public questions of the day, especially in reference to our relations with the United States, to which a recent event has given a sudden importance. I allude, of course, to the capture of Messrs. tilidell and Mason on board a British steamcr. On this sub ject I should have urged the propriety of suspending a final judgment until we had time to hear whether the American Government had authorised this act of their naval officer : and if so, on what ground they justified the proceeding. have seen with some surprise the assumption in certain quarters that, from the moment when our legal authorities have given their opinion on the point at issue, the. question is settled, and that we have only to proceed to enforce their award. It is forgotten that the matter in dispute must be decided not by British but by international law, and that if the President's Government should assume the responsi bility of the act of their naval officer they will claim for the reasoning and the precedents urged by their legal advisers at Washington the same consideration which they aro bound to give to the law officers of the British. Crown. To refuse this would be to deny that equality before the law which is the rule of all civilised States, and to arrogate for ourselves, as interested parties, arbitrary and dictatorial powers. Had I been able to meet my constituents, I should have in their name, and with, I know, their full concur rence, repudiated the language of those public writers who, without waiting till both parties have had a hearing, have given utterances to threats which, if they are supposed to emanate from the British people, must render compliance on the part of the American Government difficult, if not impossible. Whatever be the issue of the legal controversy, this is a question which we cannot hope to bring to a more satisfac tory issue by an appeal to arms. We ende tvoured to im pose our laws, by force, on the Americans when they were three millions of colonists, and we know the result. Again, in 1812, when we were belligerents, and the United States, with eight millions of people, were neutral, and after we had for years subjected their vessels to search and seizure—which will now probably be adduced as precedents to justify the recent proceeding on their part—a war broke out on this very question of belligerent rights at sea, which, after two years of mutual slaughter and pillage, was termi nated by a treaty of peace in which, by tacit agreement, no allusion was made to the original cause of the war. With these examples, can we reasonably hope by force of arms to compel the twenty millions of Americans who are now united under the Federal Government to accept our exclu sive interpretation of the law of nations ? Besides, the mere settlement of the question of the Trent does not dispose of our difficulties and dangers. We re quire a complete revision of the international maritime code with a view to its simplification, and to bring it into harmony with the altered circumstances of the age; and to this, it must in justice he admitted, the Americans have not been the obstacle. More than five years ago the Government of Washington proposed to the European powers to exempt private property at sea from capture by armed vessels of every kind—a proposal which, in his Mes sage to Congress, President Pierce stated had been favour ably received by Russia and France, but which was rejected by our Government, acting in opposition to the unanimous opinion of the commercial bodies of this country. Subse• quently, Mr. Buchanan's Government enlarged this offer by proposing to abolish blockade so far as purely mercantile ports were concerned, but again this met with no favour from our Government. Th details of this plan are but imperfectly known, as no official documents have been given to the British public. But after perusing the statement made by our Foreign Minister in the House of Commons, on the 18th of February last, the painful impression is lett on my mind, that had this offer of the United States Govern ment, instead of being opposed, been promptly and frankly accepted by England, our commerce with the Southern ports of that country might have at this moment been uninterrupted, and Lancashire would have hardly felt any inconvenience from the civil war in America. I was absent from Parliament when these great questions were inciden tally referred to, for all serious discussion on the subject seems to have been discouraged by the Government ; but I think I shall be able to show on a future occasion that no other country is interested to half the extent of England, in carrying out these propositions of the United States Go vernment. I would go a step further, and exempt from visitation, search, and obstruction of every kind, all neu +-sr .liips Ott lite ocean or opett cu, ILL et we vc war, as well as in time of peace. The commerce of the world has become too vast, and all its movements too rapid, to permit of merchant vessels of all nations being, every where, liable to search and detention, merely because two powers in some quarter of the globe choose to be at war. This state of things might have been endurable some cen turies ago, when war was regarded as the normal state of society, and when the neutrality of a great power was almost unknown, but it is utterly intolerable in an age of steam navigation and free trade. But let it not be for gotten by the British public, in the present moment of irritation, that England has always been, and still is, the great obstacle to a liberal and humane modification of the maritime law of nations in the interest of neutrals, and that her assent alone is wanting to sweep the musty maxims of Puffendorf and the rest into that oblivion which has happily engulphed the kindred absurdities of protection. I will not attempt within the space of a letter to touch upon the other issues involved in this deplorable civil war. There is one point only on which I will add a remark. An opinion seems to be entertained by some parties, here and on the Continent, that it is in the power of the Governments of England and France to control if not put an end to the conflict. I entertain the strongest conviction on the contrary, that any act of intervention on the part of a European Power, whether breaking the blockade, or a premature acknowledgment of the independence of the South, or in any other way, can have no other effect but to aggravate and protract the quarrel. History tells us how greatly the horrors of the French revolution sprung from the intervention of the foreigner. Were a similar element thrown in to infuriate the American contest, every restraining motive for forbearance, every thought of compro mise or conciliation would be cost to the winds,—the North would avail itself of the horrible weapon always ready at hand, and by calling in the aid :of the negro would carry the fire and sword of a servile war into the South, and make it a desolation and a wilderness. So far from expect ing that the raw material of our great industry would reach us sooner in consequence of such an intervention, the more probable result would be the destruction of the cotton plant itself throughout the Southern States of the Union. I cannot conclude without thanking) you for your kind offer of hospitality; and I remain, my dear sir, yours very truly, ED. COBDEN. John T. Pagan, Esq., Mayor. The sentiments of the letter wero received with repeated tokens of approbation, and Mr. Cobden's health was drunk with " three times three" hearty cheers. Mr. THOMAS Asirwonzit briefly responded. The CHAIRMAN then gave " The health of John Bright, Esq., Member for Birmingham." Mr. BRIGHT, who was received with tumultous cheering and waving of handkerchiefs, rose and said,—When the gentlemen who invited me to this dinner called upon me, I felt their kink:less very sensibly, and now lam deeply grateful to my friends around me and to you all for the abundant manifestations of kindness with which I have been received to-night. I am, as you all know, surrounded at this moment by my neighbours and friends—(hear, hear) —and I may also say, with the utmost truth, that I value the good opinions of those who now hear my voice far be yond the opinions of any equal number of the inhabitants 1 of this country selected from any portion of it. You have by this act of your kindness that you have shown me given proof that in the main you do not disapprove of my toil and labours—(lx ud cheers)—that at least you are willing to express an opinion that the motives by which I have been actuated have been honest and honourable to myself, and that that course has not been entirely without service to my country. (Applause.) Coming to this meeting, or to any similar meeting, I always find that the subjects for discussion appear too infi nite, and far more than it is possible to treat. In these times, in which we live by the influence of the telegraph, and the steamboat, and the railroad, and the multiplication of newspapers, we seem continually to stand as on the top of an exceeding high mountain, from which v. e behold all the kingdoms of the earth and all the glory of them—un happily, also, not only their glory, but their crimes, and their follies, and their calamities. Seven years ago our eyes were turned with anxious expectation to a remote corner of Euro , e, where five nations were contending in a bloody strife for an object which possibly hardly one of them com prehended, and, if they did comprehend it, which all sensible men amongst them must have known to be ab solutely impracticable.' Four years ago we were looking still further to the East, where there was a gigantic revolt in a great dependency of the British Crown, arising mainly from gross neglect, and from the incapacity of England, up to that moment, to govern the country which it had kno . ,v n how to conquer. Two years ago, we looked south l o the plains of Lombardy, and saw a great strife there, in which every man in England took a strong interest— (hear, hear)—and we have welcomed, as the re sult of that strife, the addition do, great kingdom to the list of European States. (Cheers.) Now, our eyes are turned in a contrary direction, and we look to the west. There we see a struggle in progress of the very highest in terest to England and to humanity at large. We see there a nation whom I shall call the transatlantic Engl'sh nation —(hear, hear)—tlio inheritor and partaker of all the his toric glories of this country. We see it torn with intestine broils, and suffering from calamities from which more than a century past, in fact for more than two centuries past, this country has been exempt. That struggle is of especial iuterest to us. We remember the description which one of our great poets gives of Rome— " Lone mother of dead empires." But England is the living mother of great nations, on the American and on the Australian continents, which promise to endow the world with all our know- . ledge and all our civilisation, and even something more than the freedom which she herself enjoys. (Cheers.) Eighty-five years ago, at the time when sovae of our oldest townsmen were very little children, there were on the South American co tinent colonies, mainly of Englishmen, containing about three millions of souls. These colonies we have seen a year ago constituting the United States of North America and comprising a population of no less than 30 millions of souls. We know that in agriculture and manufactures, with the exception of this kingdom, there is no country in the world which in these arts may be placed in advance of the United States. (Applause.) With regard to inventions, I believe, within the last 30 years, we have received more useful inventions from the United States than we have received from all the ether countries of the earth. (Heat, hear.) In that country there aro probably ten times as many miles of telegraph as there are in this country, and there are at least five or six times as many miles of railway. The tonnage of its shipping is at least equal to ours, if it does not exceed ours. The prisons of that country—for even in countries the moat favoured prisons are needful — have been models for other nations of the earth; and many European nations have sent missions at different times to inquire into the admirable system of education so univer sally adopted in their free schools throughout the Northern States, If I were to speak of this country in a religious aspect 1 should say that, considering the short space of time to which their history goes back, there is nothing on the face of the earth besides, and never has been, to equal the magnificent arrangement of churches and ministries, and of all the appliances which are thought necessary for a nation to teach Christianity and morality to its people. (Cheers.) Besides all this, when I state that for many years past the annual public expenditure of the Government of that country has been somewhere between £10,000,000 and £15,000,000 a-year, I need not perhaps say further, that there has existed amongst all the population an amount of comfort and prosperity and abounding plenty such as I believe no other country in the world, in any age, has displayed. (Applause.) This is a very fine but a very true picture, but it has another side to which I must abort. There has been one great feature in that country, one great contrast, which has bees pointed to by all who have commented upon the United States, as a feature of danger and contrast calculated to give pain. You have had in that country the utmost liberty to the white man and bondage and degradation to the black man. Now, rely upon it, that wherever Christianity lives and flou rishes, there must grow up from it necessarily a conscience hostile to any oppression or to any wrong ; and, there fore, from the hour when the United States coo stitution was formed, so long as it left there this great evil—then comparatively small, but now so great—it left there the seeds of that which an American statesman has so happily described, of that " irrepressible conflict" of which now the whole world is the witness. It has been a common thing for men disposed to carp at the United States to point at this blot upon their fair fame, and to compare it with the boasted declaration of freedom in their deed and declaration of independence But we must recollect who sowed this seed of trouble, and how and by whom it has been cherished. Without dwelling upon this stain any longer, I should like to read to you a paragraph from the instruc tions supposed to be given to the Virginian delegates to Congress, in the month of August, 1744, by Mr. Jefferson, who was perhaps the ablest man that the United Suites had produced up to that time, and who was then actively engaged in its affairs, and afterwards for two periods filled the office of President. He represents this very slave State —the State of Virginia—and he says— For the most trifling reasons, and sometimes for no con ceivable reason at all, his Majesty has rejected laws of the most salutary tendency. The abolition of domestic slavery is the great object of desire in those colonies, where it was unhappily introduced in their infant state. But previous to the enfranchisement of the slaves we have, it is neces sary to exclude all further importations from Africa. Yet our repeated attempts to effect this by prohibitions, and by imposing duties which might amount to prohibi ion, have been hitherto defeated by his Majesty's negative—thus pre- • ferring the immediate advantages of a few British corsairs to the lasting interests of the American States, and to the rights of human nature, deeply wounded by this infamous practice. I read that merely to show that, two years before the de claration of independence was signed, Mr. Jefferson, acting on behalf of those he represented in Virginia, read that protest against the course of the English Government, which prevented the colonists abolishing the slave trade, preparatory to the abolition of slavery itself. Well, the United States constitution left the slave question for every State to manage for itself. It was a question too difficult to settle then, and apparently every man had the hope and belief that in a few years slavery in itself would become extinct. Then there happened that great event in the annals of manufactures and commerce. It was discovered that in those States that article which we in this country now so much depend on could be pro duced of the best quality necessary for manufacture, and at a moderate price. From that day to this the growth of cotton has increased there, and its con sumption has increased here, and a value which no man dreamed of when Jefferson wrote that paper has been given the slave and slave industry. Thus it has 4, -- 4 hr.' l "°"g either its own overthrow, or the overthrow of that which is a million times more valuable - the United States of America. (Cheers.) The crisis to which we have arrived —I say " we," for after all we are as much interested as if I was making this speech in the city of Boston or the city of New York - the crisis I say, which has now arrived was inevitable. I say that the conscience of the North, never sa tisfied with the institution, was constantly pricking some men forward to take a more extreme view of the question ; and there grew up naturally a section - it may be not a very numerous one—in favour of abolition. A great and power ful party resolved at least upon a restraint and a control of slavery, so that it should not extend beyond the states and the area which it now occupies. But if we look at the go vernment of the United States almost ever since the union, we shall find the Southern power has been mostly demi" nant there. If we take 36 years after the formation of the present constitution—l think about 1787—we shall find that for thirty-two of those years every President was a Southern man ; and if we take the period from 1828 until 186 e we shall find on every election for President the South voted in the majority. We know what an election is in the United States for President of the republic. There is a most extensive suffrage, and there is the ballot box. The presidents of the House of Representatives are elected by the representatives, and generally they aro elected at the same time. It is thus, therefore, almost in evitable that the House of Representatives is in accord in public policy with the President for the time being. Every four years there springs from the vote created by the whole people a President over that great nation. I think the world offers no finer spectacle than this; it offers no higher dignity; and there is no greater object of ambition on the political stage on which men are per mitted to move. You may point, if you will, to hereditary rulers, to crowns coming down through successive generations of the same family, to thrones; based on prescription or on conquest, to sceptres wielded over veteran legions, and subject realms—but to my mind there is nothing so worthy reverence and obedience, and nothing more sacred, than the authority and the freely chosen majesty of a great and free people—(applause)and if there be on earth and amongst men any right divine to govern, surely it rests with a ruler so chosen and se appointed. (Renewed applause.) Last year the cere mony of this great election was gone over, and the South, which had been so long successful, found itself defeated. That defeat was followed instantly by secession, and insurrection, and war. In the multitude of articles which have been brought before us in the newspapers within the last few months, I have no doubt you have seen it stated, as I have seen it, that this question was very much like that upon which the colonies originally revolted against the Crown of England. It is amazing how little some news paper writers know, or how little they think you know• (Hear, and laughter.) When the war of independence was commenced in America, 90 years ago, there were no representatives there at all. The question then was, whether a Ministry in Downing-street, and a corrupt and borough' mongering Parliament, should continue to impose taxes upon three millions of English subjects, who had left their native shores, and established themselves in North ArileriC 3 . But now the question is not the want of representation, be' cause it is perfectly notorious, the South is not only repro' sented, but is represented in excess, for in distributing the number of representatives, which is done every 10 years, three out of every five slaves are counted as one free man, and the number is consequently so much greater than if the freemen, the white men, only were counted. From this cause the Southern States had 20 members more in the House of Representatives than they would have if the members were apportioned on the same principle as ill the Northern free States. Therefore you will see at once that there is no comparison between the state of tbingS when the colonies rev. , lted and the state of things now when this wicked insurrection has broken out. There is another cause which is sometimes in England assigned for this great misfortune, which is the protective theories in operation in the Union, and the maintenance of a high tariff. It happens with regard to that, unfortunately, that no American, certainly no one I ever met with, attributed the disasters of the Union to that cause. It is an argument made use of by ignorant Englishmen, but never by in' formed Americans. (Hear, hear.) I have already shown you that the South, during almost the whole existence of the Union, has been dominant at Washington; and during that period the tariff has existed, and there has been no dis' satisfaction with it. Occasionally, there can be no doubts their tariff was higher than was thought just or reasonable or necessary by some of the States of the South. But the first act of the United States which levies duties upon lin' ports, passed immediately after the Union was formed, tee cites that—" It is necessary for the encouragement and; protection of manufactures to levy the duties which follows;' and during the war with England from 1912 to 1815 the people of the United States had to pay for all the articles they brought from Europe many times over the n atural cost of those articles on account of the interruption to 01 0 traffic by the English nation. When the war was over