The Express.
London, England, 1867-07-18 00:00:00

BILITA!fFIA.

Tiffs EVErmin, JAC IC 071.A1iiiii.5(7018., THE RACECOURSE,
NI) TII E ULU E I: I !OWN OF THE T I *RY.—Mr. G. Buckstone
Mr. and Mn.s MallaMe ; the Champion Skaters of England —And
MUON LW UT JACK. Mn. J. B. Howe it Miss J. Covens,.

MOH NATICK AT LONDON BRZDOL
Two DAT —Noosing. :11%. Yin Afternoon, ah.
Sr-Ifolutow—Mortilne, 35n Afitensoon. btu.

LONDON, THURSDAY, JULY 18.

A NAVAL Review, when we come to con-
tiler it less in its moral and metaphysical than its
material aspects, is, it must be owned, much more
dependent than grand military displays ashore on
the changes of the moon and the caprices of '
weather for its effect and success. All the 11
Monarchies of the east and west cannot " charm
" the narrow seas to give them gentle pass."
" What care these roarers for the name of King ?"
many a qualmish courtier may have asked
yesterday, when the royal yachts began to
rise and fall upon the crests of the
white horses of the Channel, plunging and
foaming under the western gide. It is to be re-
gretted that our Oriental visitors were not with
us when the moon was young, and the en-scent
shone serenely in a clear sky. Our western full
moons are not happy in their auguries : they rise
in rain and set in tempest in this month of
thunder. On Tuesday night it needed no sea-
man's eye to read the signs of change and storm.
At sunset the rain had lifted, and a hard keen
sky, traversed and torn from hour to hour by
Eying squalls and scuds of driving air, with fitful
ells and battling pauses of the wind, foretold un-
certainty, trouble, and change in those regions,
" over which," as Mr. DISRAELI remarked, " we
" have no control" The raw and ragged beauty
of the early morning must have warned the most
knowing of the select thousands who left the West-
end deserted, that, though Britannia rules the
waves, wind and sea are no respecters of
persons, and that British landsmen, espe-
cially at the height of the London season,
are very fit and proper persons to offer sacrifice
to the sea gods at whose Altus they presume to
worship. " We'll not offend one stomach with
" our play " is a promise that even the British
Admiralty cannot obtain from the facile Nereids
of the Solent when they offer the two Houses of
Parliament as hostages. A July gale is not so
bad, perhaps, as a March or September one ; but a
gale is a gale, and the eager venturers who paid
so dear for their whistle yesterday had the satis-
faction of facing, if not a whole gale, something
very like half a gale. We would rather not
attempt to picture to our readers or to ourselves
the secret sufferings of many an illustrious and
many an obscure pleasure-seeker yesterday, in
pursuit of patriotic emotions under difficulties.
A fleet of fifty war-ships riding out a storm is in
itself a splendid sight : a fleet of steamers and
yachts freighted with ardent and curious idlers,
who, disdaining the "suave man 'nave " philo-
sophy, go out to share the " great labour " of
their naval fellow countrymen, is a spectacle that
almost reaches the moral sublime. On the whole,
we are inclined to suspect that those who declined
or missed the honour of being present at Spithead
yesterday were not too deserving of pity. With a
very moderate effort of imagination they may
have beheld all, and more than all, the privileged
eye-witnesses can have contemplated on the scene
of the Review through the mist and rain.

0 ! do but think
Yon stand upon the rivage, and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical.
And they may have seen this magnificent affair
withont for one moment dissembling that most
shameful vow for any true Briton to utter—" I
" would give a thousand furlongs of sea for an
" acre of barren ground—long heath—barren furze
" —anything"!

THE New York journals, in referring to the exe-
cution of the Emperor MAR/MILIAN, express them-
selves with a severity of censure which has not been
surpassed by the European press. Some of their
displeasure, it may be, is to be set down to natural
vexation at finding that so little attention has been
paid to the declared wishes of their government,
and some to disappointment at not being able to
stand before the world as the Republican saviours
of an Emperor and the son of an Emperor. But
there is no need to search for secondary motives
to explain the indignation which they feel at the
ruthless execution of a helpless prisoner. Tho Amer-
icans are not only a humane people, but they have
carried clemency to fallen political enemies further
than even we have thought it safe to do. They have
the better right to speak out against this execution
from having protested with equal indignation
against those which took place under Maxima-
LIAN'S decree of October, 1865, when so many
other Christian communities were silent. Our
New York contemporaries generally ammo, as we
have done in Europe, that MAXIAIILIAN'II execution
was simply an act of vengeance in retaliation fer
the blood of prisoners of war shed by his order ;
and this was all the more probable, inasmuch as it
wonld be next to impossible to form a Mexican
council of war without including among its mem-
bers some relatives of the numerous victims of
that most impolitic decree. It is to be noticed,
however, that President JUAREZ said, in reply
to the remonstrances of the diplomatic body,
that the safety of the country required MAXIMI-
LIAN's execution. We, with our calmer judg-
ment and wisdom, surveying the whole enterprise
of MsxturmAN, know that this belief had no
foundation whatever in fact, and that the unfor-
tunate Prince might have been liberated without
the least danger of his return to that country.'
Tho Mexicans, with narrower view, remembered
their !wit Eznperur, after having voluntari'y