The Sun.
London, England, 1855-10-20 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1855.

Kinburn has capitulated ! The gate to Nico-
laieff and to Kherson—or rather one of its pillars
—has fallen into our hands. Oczakoff must
speedily follow ; and, late as it is in the season,
we may still hope for some very decided results
against what we are told may be regarded as
the present granary and arsenal of Southern
Russia. The official account of this highly im-
portant operation will be found in another put
of our impression- It will be seen that the three
forts on the Kinburn Spit surrendered, and are
now occupied by the Allied forces. The troops
had previously landed to the southwaz a of the forts,
and thus, from the simultaneous action by sea and
land, the arrival of reinforcements, and the retreat
of the garrison were effectually cut off.
This brilliant affair was happily managed with
very trifling loss to the assailants. The enemy
had 45 killed, and 130 wounded ; while the gar-
rison of 1,500 men, and the guns-70 in num-
ber—and all the munitions of war have fallen
into our hands.

. We trust that the occasion may be improved,
so that the legitimate results may follow. It is
peculiarly important that both Nicolaieff and
Kherson, the entrance whereto are commanded,
should be fully disposed of before the setting in
of winter affords a temporary respite
and an opportunity of adding to the
defences, and enhancing the difficulties of the
necessary operations I As we have repeatedly
stated, we are quite satisfieel to leave the matter
in Sir E. LYONS'S hands, if he has only a carte
blanche to act according to his own judgment,
and to damage the enemy to the utmost degree.
After this work has been perfected there will
still be time sufficient to deal with Odessa, and
to teach the CzAit that the Western Powers are
really in earnest, and that he cannot hope
for extrication through the intervention or
intrigues of Germanism. H© has already been
sufficiently deluded by those soi-disant media-
tors. He must, even at this hour, know that
he cannot obtain peace save by a real submission,
and giving unexceptionable material guarantees
for his future good behaviour, and an ample
indemnity for the expenses which his misconduct
has occasioned to his inoffensive neighbour, and
to those who so nobly stood forward in the cause
of truth and justice, in defence of right against
might !

We are told on good authority that IC King
LEOPOLD of Belgium has lately been actively and
personally exerting himself with a view to the re-
establishment of peace!" We can easily credit
the rumour, which possesses a verisimilitude that
carries with it almost positive conviction. We
have already had occasion to allude to the strange
neutrality of the wily ULYSSES of the House of
neutrality perfectly
COBURG—a disgraceful to.
himself, when his c.l9'p aid intimate connection
with the British Court, and the deep debt of gra-
titude which be owes to the British nation, is
taken into consideration. But it appears that we
have something far worse than neutrality to guard
against. The pensioner of England, who, although
nominallythinks it ad-
an independent Sovereign,
visable to retain his claim against the British
Exchequer,
and to have Claremont maintained
for his exclusive
Ilse at the expense of the over-
burdened tag-payers, wishes to play the
game of Germanism, and, at the sugges-
tion of his new connexions, to save Russia
from the humiliation and injury which she
has richly merited. He has unfortunately an
opportunity of earwigging the English Court, and
exercising a very sinister influence over persons
closely connected with our beloved S OVEREIGN,
and there is but too much reason to fear that he
is availing himself thereof to the utmost extent.

It is one of the heavy 'penalties we pay for the
folly of requiring foreign alliances for the mem-

bers of our Royal Family, and if we perversely

act on the delusion we must be contented to
abide the consequences !
But it is not with the Court of St. James's only
that King LEOPOLD is intriguing. The visit of
the Duke DE BRABANT, with his Austrian Arch-
duchess, to our august Ally, bears a very
significant aspect at the present moment. It
follows rapidly on that of the heir presumptive
of the Prussian Throne to Balmoral, which, com-
ing so rapidly after the capture of Sebastopol,
excited the strong disgust and indignation of the
nation. Well may the English people exclaim—
" Save us from our (pretended) friends !"

We can confide in the valour of our soldiers,
and, despite the malevolent and calumnious libels
that have been industriously circulated, on the
skill and efficiency of our generals. But we must
exercise the utmost vigilance against the uncon-
stitutional influences that may be, and we fear
have already, been brought to bear on our Go-
vernment.

The British People must look to this through
their chosen representatives. They have
learned, from bitter experience, that Prussia can-
not be trusted. While pretending neutrality
she has rendered far more efficient aid to Russia
than if her troops were arraynd under the same
standard in open and. undisguised hostility to our
forces. Through her intervention the Russian
commerce has been carried on with but little in-
terruption or embarrassment ; and the sinews
and even munitions of War have been furnished
to our adversary. And at the very time
when this despicable conduct has rendered
the Court, not the people—for we shall always
distinguish between the pro-Muscovite faction
and the honest aspirations of a high-minded
nation—peculiarly contemptible, we have the
Royal " areQuoT" babbling anent his warlike
predilections, aid his "infinite regret" that he
has not been called, as his departed father was,
to be the leader of his army in War. Many may
have thought that the great poet of human na-
ture had drawn an exaggerated picture of ancient
PISTOL swallowing his leek, and at the same time
indulging in grandiloquent terms respecting the
martial ardour which he has had such. intense
difficulty in neutralising ! But the course of
Prussia shows that it was an ower•true represen-
tation of degenerate human nature.

Nor is Austria, in any degree, in a better posi-
tion. To contemptible meanness she has added
duplicity and insincerity, and an infamous breach
of her solemn undertakings. She, too, strives to
save the twin despotism—and when Russia is
driven to extremities, when the stringent penalty
of her transgressions h about to be exacted, seeks
to avert th• well-merited punishment, and to
asserts the course of retributive justice. Had she
acted in an honourable and straightforward man-
ner, on the first invasion of the Principalities,
the War would have been altogether averted.
Had she faithfully observed the terms
of the Treaty of the 2d of December it would long
since have been brought to a conclusion. Under
the peculiar circumstances of the cases it is more
than ridiculous to attempt any farther interposi-
tion, directly or directly, through her diplomatists,
or, still worse, through connexions of the Royal

Family.
But worst and most contemptible of all is our
faitikft4 friend and relation, King LZOPOLD I He
who owes his throne, his position, and his in-
fluence to England, to be intriguing against her !
—intriguing to make her sacrifice the advantages
she has acquired by the valour of her troops, and
the enormous pecuniary sacrifices which she has

so freelylencountered. • Ho should receive a sig-
nificant hint, such as can only be given by the
Parliament, that such conduct will nob be tolerated,
and that should he persevere in the course on
which he has entered, he must submit to the in.
evitable consequences. It is not when Sebastopol is
in our bands, and when Kinburn has capitulated,
and the road to Oczakoff, to Kherscoi, and to
Nicolaieff has been opened, that such proceedings
can be sanctioned.
Under such circumstances we see with deep
regret the protracted prorogation to the 11th day
of December. We do not distrust Lord PAL-
MERSTON, but seeing the back stairs and sinister
influences against which he has to contend, we
desire to strengthen his hands by the moral sup-
port which he will readily receive from the Re-
presentatives of the people, tho legitimate expo-
nents of the popular wishes.

It is so frequently repeated by the Legitimist
party in France, and by writers, and in society
on the Continent, that England has the greatest
cause for rejoicing at the defeat of the Russians,
inasmuch as we have the greatest interest in the
contest, on account of our Indian possessions, that
the statement may, unless it be repeatedly contra-
dicted, obtain currency as a generally admitted
truth.

Now it should be made known that the best
military authorities in England and India were
agreed, that if Russia were to have India as a gift
on condition that she should send thither an army
fully equipped and sufficiently strong to hold that
continent when it got there, the odds were greatly
against her being able to do so. She might dis-
turb our relations with Persia, and give us trouble
on our borders—she has done as much as she
Could there already without military force—and
with her strongest military force, and with
all her barbarian alliances, she was never
seriously feared or thought of. It should be
known that, by all sound Indian statesmen, the
Affghan war has ever been viewed as a culpable
blunder and a great disaster. It is pointed at as
a case where the avowed responsible Minister, Sir
Jowl Cur Homrousz, ought to have been im-
peached ;and, in the recent discussions on Ad-
ministrative Reform that very ease has been
adduced
Latle:kd ing the responsibility of as showing the necessity for measures
fe
the holders of
high e
v officeser,
b e assured a
truth. Foreign politicians may,
h
that, in the welcome given
Guards of Paris, when they
visited London
five years ago—the first
friendly step, perhaps, between the people of
the two countries—neither our Lerd Maire
.
nor our Aldermen, nor the people at large, had
any arriere poise that more friendly relations
with the French people would be a source of
safety for India against Russia. We can tell
them that India has been as little thought of by
the English people, during the later
periods of
the present War, and, except that it is a matter
of just discontent, that a large proportion of the
Indian army, which is not needed there, for its
safety should not have been made available during
the present War.
It is amusing, if it were not socially mis-
chievous, to see, all over the continent, politicians
attributing to our diplomacy long lines of finely-
spun Policy ; whilst they are, in the great
majority of instances, ridiculing the whole
of the diplomatic service, and the appointments

of our ambassadors, and the lowest attaches, as
well as the consular service for the neglect of
;public duties and exclusive attention to private
pleasureo, or for the utterly inefficient manner in

which diplomatic appointments are made to our
consular and diplomatic offices. Our diplomacy
has been the scoff of continental statesmen from
the first BONAPARTE downwards, that from its very
stupidity and inferiority we have lost the most
important results of our power, of our victories,
when we got them, and of our vast expenditure.
Why, for example, when we had got possession
of Egypt, and had Alexandria and the route to
India secure, we gave it up and left the highway
of our commerce, and the commerce of Europe,
and the means of the civilisation of the East to the
accidents and caprices of mere barbarian authority,
they can never understand ; nor are we about
to attempt any answer. We admit—and it is
part of the great case for Administrative Reform,
quietly gaining upon the public mind—that our
former wars have left us with a double burthen of
debt, and not half the advantages due to such
success as we obtained. England wants no sinister
advantages even in commerce, as she showed when
she gave to all nations, to the United States and
to others who have shown no disposition to do
the like, an equal participation in the commerce
which was opened by her arms, and at her ex-
pense, in China. It is her grievance, and it is
really a grievance in which other nations may
well sympathise, that her diplomacy has had, and
for aught that now appears, has not now any
arriere pense, as to the means of insuring that
advance of civilisation which is due to such large
abstractions of the means of improvement at home,
which are made for the sake of this War. Sup-
pose, as we must do, that we suc3eed against
Russia! What then What are our authorities
prepared to require for the improvement of the
condition of the people of the East? The past
justifies the belief that diplomacy has no specific
measures prepared to insure that the barbarian
and wretched occupants of the fairest portions of
the world, the ruined seats of the first civilisag
Lion, shall be left in a better condition than is
Greece itself, after all our expenditure of blood
and money and sympathy. Let the public indeed
.00k to this betimes, and ask for satisfactory