The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1861-12-10 00:00:00

THE PROBABILITY_ OF A WAR WITH

AMERICA.
TII6 latest news that has reached this country
from New York is of unprecedented interest.
The legal advisers of President Lincoln are in
direct variance with the law officers of the
British Crown in respect to the seizure of Messrs.
Slidell and Mason on board the Trent. The
Federal', too, just now, seem to be flushed by a
few local successes. They are in "full possession
of Accoinac, Northampton county, on the
eastern shore of Virginia." They have estab-
lished a provisional government at Hatteras, in
North Carolina; and have reviewed an army of
seventy thousand men at Washington the
mightiest legion that ever yet stood in ranks
and squadrons upon the American soil. Looking
at these things inlconnection with the facts, that
from the beginning of their difficulties they have
been an contemptuous and uncivil towards us SS
they could ; that they have stretched every
inconvenient and vexatious right of belligerents
to the utmost; that they have, either from
temper or design given the impression that they
were not only willing but rather anxious to
insult us ; and that they rejoice at the spirited
way in which Captain Wilkes has acted—all of
them professing to anticipate the "meek sub-
mission of Great Britain "in their interpretation
of international law. We cannot for a moment
expect either that the anthorities at Washington
intend to apologise for the act of their officer, or
to make restitution of their captives. But to
demand less is impossible ; for wore we to pass
over the outrage or to be!content with an informal
and inadequate reparation we should have to
submit to some further insult even more flagrant
and intolerable. The Federals are quite capable,
if we yield or temporise now, of boarding and
searching for rebels, envoys, and despatches,
every mail packet that plies between Dover and
Calais, and between Holyhead and Dublin.
Even if the case of wrong were made so perfectly
clear that Americans themselves could not gain-
say it, we doubt whether any American Govern-
ment would venture, or would be able, to make
an acknowledgment of error and to deliver up
their captives. The Money Power, the press,
and the populace, seam to be equally in favour
of quarrelling with Great Britain. The New
York Herald, which has the largest circulation,
and which has a much greater amount of influence
than any other American newspaper among the
men who pull the wires and manage the merce-
nary business of politics, is dexterously playing
upon the popular feeling of hatred to England.
The editor, who is a Roman Catholic emigrant
from Ireland, is strongly in favour of a war with
Great Britain, and the people, believing iu the
representations of their newspapers, actually
believe that they can easily conquer the South,
and " lick the Britishers ' into the baNain.
They are already growing wild with the prospect
of crowning their victories by adding Canada to
Texas. Of course President Lincoln and the
chief members of his Government know better,
and so do hundreds of well-informed and tra-
velled gentlemen in Boston. But what of that?
These are not the men who habitually decide the
policy of the United States. Only in the rarest
of cases are their voices heard, and even then
they are too commonly drowned in the tumul-
tuous roar of &passionate, misled, and ungovern-
able populace—" accustomed to make their own
laws, to avenge their own wrongs, to trample en
all obstacles, moral, legal, and material,—sin-
cerely fancying, for so they have always been
taught, that nobody ought to oppose them,
and that nobody can resist them." There
are few abhor war more than we do, but if
it be absolutely necessary to resort to that
method of settling the dispute between the Fede-
rate and ourselves, the sooner blows are struck,
the sooner the differences of the two will be
settled. England does not wish to find her
opportunity in (America's extremity, and if an
appeal to arms does ensue, the fault will be
theirs, not ours. Never were we better prepared
to meet them, and although a war would neces-
sarily cause much misery, it would be of short
I duration.