The Express.
London, England, 1858-06-08 00:00:00

THE UNITED STATES.

Mon OUR OWN 00111WIPONDINT.)
NEW YORE, Mir 26.
The " British outrages " still occupy the attention
of Congress and of the press, but the tone of the
latter is not so ferocious as at first. Most people are
becoming sensible of having made a great deal more
uproar about the affair at the outset than it de-
served, and are beginning to see its ludicrous side.
The notoriety attaching to everybody at all mixed
up in it has rendered a great many skippers a little
over anxious to have °afters committed on them. One
of those whose vessels which were boarded in the port
of Lague reports u an intolerable insult the British
officer having asked him if the sugar on board was•
his own, and represents the intruder as having been
completely cowed by the information that he, the
skipper " never owned a hogshead of sugar in his
life." In the meantime, however, the government
is availing itself of the patriotic excitement
to the fullest extent for the furtherance of
its own ends. A loan of fifteen millions of
dollars is asked for, and will probably be granted,
and everything in dock capable of carrying a gun is
being furbished up and sent to the Gulf. Better
still, a Bill has been introduced by Senator Douglas,
and will certainly be passed, empowering the Presi-
dent at all times to take instant measures to repress
or obtain satisfaction for outrages committed on the
American soil, or the American flag, upon his own
responsibility, and lay the matter before Congress
afterwards. This is in effect the grant to the Execu-
tive of a power of declaring war without consulting
the Senate, which the President does not possess
under the Constitution. Its danger may be esti-
mated when it is remembered that the President
has all the powers of your Prime Minister without
his Parliamentary responsibility, as he cannot be
turned out for four years, and may persevere
in a course of which the nation disapproves
for the whole of that period. In cue he
should, under this new Bill, plunge into
unjustifiable hostilities, there would be no means of
checking him, except by stopping supplies, and this
is a course which no Congress could, in the face of an
enemy, and with the national honour at stake, be
got to adopt. It may be easily conceived, too, how
readily bad schemers, such as Buchanan has proved
himself to be, may avail themselves of these new
powers to carry oat the filibustering projects of the
South. He may readily find " outrages" to uk
redress for at the hands of Spain or Mexico, and
actually take measures for annexing Cuba, before he
consults Congress at all in the matter ; and you
know yourselves how difficult it is to find any
Parliamentary assemblage Christian enough, or wise
enough, to recede from bad courses when blood has
once been drawn. The North finds its commercial
interests touched by the apparent revival of the
British claim to the right of search, and is accord-
ingly lending itself with somewhat unusual readi-
ness to the schemes of the Southern fire-eaters ; but
lam persuaded it will discover the blunder it is
committing before its struggle with the South pro-
gressesvery much further. One thing is certain,
however, that all classes and conditions of people
here are unanimous against your proceedings in the
Gulf, and will not allow American vessels to be
boarded by your cruisers under any pretext whatso-
soever. This has been a sore point ever since 1812,
and it is most unfortunate that anything should
have been done just now to re-open the old wounds.
Yon are disposed to show a distinction between the
right of visit and the right of search, but no such dis-
tinction will be acknowledged here, either for the
purpose of suppressing the slave trade or for any
other purpose. If you want to have the co-opera-
tion of the American Government in suppressing the
slave trade it must be under a new treaty, and the
present administration will certainly not enter
into any fresh stipulations 00 the subject.
Unless, therefore, you mean to go to war on the
point, you had better drop it. It Is unfortunate, I
admit, that the American public does not take a
better view of its duties and responsibilities in the
matter, but it does not ; and boarding and firing into
their vessels, or fighting them openly, will only
harden thsir hearts.