The Express.
London, England, 1861-12-07 00:00:00

wog WATIII AT WIDOW IMIDOL

To Dg?-WIC. CI AR..... iiimrii.V. M. U.
To-siatior —Nimes& Ilk 1taa..... aliessen,, GIL Um

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LONDON, &ITURDAY, DEC. 7.

By the arrival of the steam-ship Edinburgh at
Queenstown we have intelligence, more or leas de-
tailed, from New York to the 27th ult. The
eeizure of Messrs. Suomi. and Mssom having
been made known there on the 16th, the facts had
been before the American public eleven days at
the date of our latest advice& The period, how-

ever, had not been prolific of occurrences of a
nature to throw light on the course of the Go-
vernment of the United States. We are told,
indeed, that the "leading American legal autho-
" rities " declare the recent capture to be in ac-
cordance with international law. But as the only
names given in support of this statement are those
of Mr. Evzerrr and Mr. G. SUMNIa, of both of
whose opinions we were informed by the last
mail, the information is neither new nor im-
portant. Mr. Evearrr is a statesman
well versed both in the constitutional policy
and the foreign relations of his country; but we
are not aware that his opinion can be appealed to
as of peculiar authority on a question of public
law; while Mr. Breeze's conclusions are rendered
valueless by the circumstance that he has mistaken
au essential fact. We need not suppose an undue
bias of patriotiam in the formation of these gentle-
men's opinions ; we have only to recal the doubts
and limitations which at first restrained and em-
barrassed some among us who were in nowise un-
willing to find the Americans in the wrong, to be
reminded that there is at least material for argu-
ment on the American side of the dispute. The
course of Mr. Lifteote's Government, however,
will be determined not by the volunteered opinion
of amateurs, however eminent, but by that
of the responsible law advisers of his Ad-
ministration. And nothing has hitherto appeared
to enable us even to guess at the probable nature
of that opinion. We know the case well enough
to see that in its widest generality it lace two sides ;
but the question has been wisely narrowed in the
demands of the British Government. No power,
or agent of a power, can proceed to seizure under
the general right of search and nevertheless decline
the jurisdiction of a Prize Court. We do not
believe the American lawyers will sanction such
a pretension, and if not, there can be no difficulty
in making a suitable apology.
It is not eurprisCig that we are told that the
imminence of this question is mating everywhere
in the States an mummy feeling in the public mind
as to the relations of the Federation with England.
The good sense of the American people, as it has
not been deluded, so it ought not to be misjudged
by the silly braggart of one or two New York news-
papers. The friendship of Engisnil is not so
lightly esteemed in the Union as some amoebas
of the Slave Coufederacy are anxious to pomade
ne. The notion that it could ever be a matter of
policy with American statesmen in the present
situation of their country to engage in a war with
Great Britain is too preposterous to be entertained.
General Scow unquestionably expressed the truth
when he wrote : " At no period of our history has
" the friendship of Great Britain been of more
" importance to our people : at no period has oar
" Government been in a oondition to make greater
" concessions to preserve it. The two nations are
" united by iuterelts and sympathies—oonuner-
" cial, social, political, and religious--almost as
" the two arms to one body, and no one is so
" ignorant as not to know that what harms one
" must harm the other in a corresponding
" degree." If the Cenarare fellow-citizens adopt
his sentiments, as wo confidently expect, they
have only to remember that those who would
have friends must show themselves friendly.
Let them in fiv.ure be prepared to do
justice to our public conduct, and, since it is plain
that their relations with foreign, and especially
with European powers will henceforth 111111U101)
unusual importance, let them begin, although late,
to form the habit of looking at the acts of other
governments in all their aspects, and no longer ex-
clusively in those which look towards Washington.
If this had been done more frequently, if for in-
stance, when we recognised belligerent rights in
the Confederates, it had been considered that pos-
sibly we might not be betraying a leaning, that we
owed duties to ourselves, that we were placed in
the alternative of making that acknowledgment
or, treating as pirates the first Southerners who
exercised the right of search on board our ships
—an extreme course upon which the United States
Government itself has not ventured—if these
things had been remembered in the Union, as
surely it was worth while to remember them, moth
dangerous misconception, much groundless passion
would have been prevented.
But we have news from the South as well as
the North by this maiL Mr. Jarrnasoe Davis
has delivered another message to the Confederate
Congress. Mr. DAVIS is angry at the loss of
his Commissioners, but not so spry as not to
perceive what advantage m►y be drawn from the
irregularity of their capture. It is not, however,
quite true th►t "the claim of the United States
"to seize them in the streets of London would
" have been as well-founded as the asisme of the
" Trent." Hod Commander WUJJIII taken the
vessel se well as the Commissioners and carried
them before a Vri,e Court, nobody would have
said the act was illegal. And when, like Mr.