The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

HERALD.—" Aide toi, Dieu t'aidera." The manly
and self-reliant motto of the Confederate States
seemed at first a too arrogant challenge to their
enemies and to the world. When four years ago
the new republic drew its sword and threw away
the scabbard, its case appeared desperate to those at
a distance who calmly calculated the chances of its
success or failure. The Northern and Southern
peoples of the late Union, sprung from the same stock
and nurtured in the same traditions, did not seem so
dissimilar that either side could he supposed to have
a moral advantage which would neutralise a dis-
parity in numbers. Subtract from them the
doubtful populations of the Border States, and we
have less than six millions of Southerners to con-
tend with at least twenty millions of Northern
men. It did not seem possible at first that the
small minority should succeed in asserting its
rights without the ectise assistance of powerful
friends. No such friends volunteered to the
rescue, and most of us regarded the cause of in-
dependence as lost, and looked pityingly on the
Southerners as doomed men. The event has most
happily disappointed each melancholy forebodings.
We are now in the middle of the fourth year of the
war, and at every point of the wide battle-field the
Southerners have by this time the best of it. Hope-
less, desperate, in the last stage of exhaustion of
money and men, the North has braced itself up for
one more convulsive onslaught on the Confederate
lines. Fresh as at first, and stimulated with con-
fidence gained by repeated victory, with resources
which are but just developing, and a supply of
material and men who seem to spring from the
ground in their country's need, the South has set
itself defiantly against the mighty hosts of its an-
tagonist, tend hurled them back, bleeding and
wounded from the lines of Richmond. Such a spec-
tacle as this has never been seen in the world. It
is satisfactory to find that now and then the right
can triumph over might—that the just cause,
however weak, can prevail by the mere reason of
the confidence in its justice, which arms the breasts
of ifs champions with triple steel, The Southerners
have acted up to their brave motto and well
earned their reward. They have grandly proved
themselves a nation, and have earned the applause
of Europe, of the world, and of posterity. Tire may
venture already to speak of this campaign of Lee as
the greatest of the many triumphs of a great gene.
rat. If his previous exploits had not earned it, his
successful resistance to the immense army of Grant
would have vindicated for him, alone among Ame-
rican generals of this second revolutionary war, the
title to rank with the great captains of Europe. He
is probably the only man in America who knows
how to handle an army of 100,000 men. The attacks
made upon him have been disjointed attacks, each
by a general of a division of 30,000 or 40,000 men.
There has been no effective combination between
his assailants. Sedg wick does not come up until
Hancock is defeated. Burnside is somewhere in the
rear while Warren is being annihilated. The whole
mass of the Confederate army, kept well in hand,
and played altogether like the pieces on a vast
chessboard, has been set at work to crush these
generals in detail. Vigour is, doubtless, a quality
most essential for a soldier, and this military
attribute may be claimed for General Grant.
But the history of the campaign so far confirms
the opinion which we ventured to express at the out-
set, that In science and strategy, the qualities which
command success in such extended (7nerations,
Grant is a mere infant in the hands of Lee. The
statements of Northern telegrams, and the com-
ments made upon them in Europe, as to the repulse
of Lee and his retreat over a vast extent of country,
are known by this time to be fictitious and illusory.
He has not been defeated. In all the sanginary
struggles from the sth to the 13th he was victorious.
He gained two pitched battles—one at Wilderness,
on the 6th; the other at Spottsylvania, on the 12th.
He has not retreated over a single mile of ground,
but has assumed and successfully defended the posi-
tion which from the very first he intended to
occupy, which is eight miles south-east of the Rapi-
dan lards, and bars the road to Richmond. With
his camp behind and in front of the Po River,
he fights behind earthworks which were labori-
ously constructed under his directions after the
battle of Gettysburg. On hilly vantage ground,
or in thick woods where the Confederate
soldier, invisib'o to the enemy, can shoot
him down at his leisure, the guns and rifles of the
Southern ermy can play with most deadly effect on
bodies of the enemy which may imperil themselves
on the plain in front. In the battle of the 12th the
advantages of this position were well seen. The
losses of the Confederates are supposed to have borne
no comparison -with those of the army of Grant.
The slaughter of the Federals was such as has no
parallel in history. Whole regiments have disap-
peared from the muster-roll, whole divisions have
been annihilated. There is no room for the wounded
in the town of Fredericksburg, where the open
streets have been turned into hospital wards, and
the foot of man and horse stumbles as it treads on
the gaunt prostrate forms of dead and dying. The
wisdom of Lee's strategy has been terribly vindi•
cited in a judgment which recalls to the minds of
remorseful Northerners the destruction of the host
of Sennacherib by the breath of God. It will
take 100,000 men to repair the gaps that have
been made in the Federal army, and with what
sort of confidence can this hetacemb of fresh
victims be expected to march to the death
for a broken Union, whose knell has now been
sounded on these bloodstained Virginian fields?
General Grant has paid the penalty of his over-
weening presumption. M'Clellan long ago pro-
nounced the direot advance to Richmond to be
utterly impracticable. Hooker attempted it and
was ruined. Meade reconnoitered it, and coin-
cided in the opinion of APClellan. Grant, nothing
daunted, rushed for ward and gave battle on the
presumption that in the long run two men must
conquer one, this being the simple secret of his
vaunted strategy. It is possible, that when he

crossed the Rapidan at Germania Ford, Grant 'al
tended a flank march upon Richmond, by way ?-
Gordonsville, where he would have appro.aehed
on the west side, comparatively undefended. Lee'
rendered this movement impossible by moving Iv'
ward at once and attacking Grant at Wilderness..
He turned his right wing, and cut him off from
Germania Mills and the Rapidan River, driving
him eastward upon Fredericksburg as a base of
operations, and leaving him no choice but to take
the direct road to Richmond or retreat, Having
accomplished his purpose in the battle of the 6thr
Lee again took up his impregnable position at ,Spott-
sylvania, against which Grant has hurled hi&
legions in vain. When the Federals are sufficient):l
exhausted it will ba Gomel Lee's turn to assume
the offensive.
POST.—The debate on our flinese policy, which
about a month since was abruptly brought to a cone
elusion by a "count out," was resumed last evening
by Mr. Cobden. Mr. Cobden suggesi:,ed that our
existing difficulties might be overcome, and eo
escape Effected from an embarrassing sitelation, hY,
the establishment of free ports and the confinement of
our trading operations to places thus subjec:ed IS'ct°
our own immediate jurisdiction. But, as r:
Lay and observed, Shanghae and Hong Kong are ea'
the present moment free ports, and the rstablishineng
of others could only be effected by the cession to
us of Formosa and some other islands in the Chi? w'
Seas. This cession would, however, be refused by.
the Chinese Government, for the very sufficieee";
reason that the establishment of a number of free'
ports would enable us to absorb the entire of the
external trade of the empire. But whether this
were so or not, we should find ourselves obliged to
adopt the same measures for their protection and
for the maintenance of our commercial relations
with the interior which we are now compelled
to employ, nor could we ever hope to isolate
ourselves completely from the country which would
constitute the base of our operations. It has beet:
more than once asserted that we are assisting thei
Chinese Government to suppress a rebellion, and
thEnby departing from that broad line of policy
which we have for at least half a century
scribed to ourselves in respect to the internal dis-
sensions of foreign States. This is, however,
grave error. To us it is a matter of indifference
what dynasty rules at Pekin. Bat we are obliged
to recognise a de facto Government, and me °'
especially so because it. manifests a desire of keep'
ing faith with us. The Taepings are in arms
ostensibly for the purpose of subverting the exist,.
tug Government, but in reality for the sake of
plundering every town into which they can effect att
entrance. No one affects to doubt what would be'
the consequences if Shanghae fell into the hands of
the Taepings. It would be given over to indis'
criminate pillage, and such of the inhabitants
as remained in it probably put to the sword'
If the rebels were actuated by the motives which
in other countries not unfrequently lead a section
of the population to resist the established Govern'
ment, it might be an open question whether we
wore justified in aiding the Emperor of China to
resist his revolted subjects, but under present cir-
cumstances no alternative is left us but to co-operate
with the authorities in resisting a common enen39'
But we content ourselves with acting on the de-
fensive. We have not sent an army to China to
assist the Emperor in subduing the Taepings; Nrs
are satisfied with taking measures to prevent their
encroaching on territory which, though not abso-
lutely ours, we are justified in considering under
our protection. Our position in China may be
anomalous, and our relations with the Imperial Go-
vernment may be peculiar, but the former could 00t
be abandoned, nor the latter seriously modified
without jeopardising the lives and property of large
numbers of individuals who have taken up their
residence and invested their capital in China in the
belief that they were entitled to claim the protec'
tion of the British Government.