The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-09 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, FEB. 9, 1864.

Lord PALMERSTON, we are grieved to remark,
is already at it again. As though, in spite of hia
years, he were the most incorrtgi'ole
of wags, the
Premier is still bent apparently, beyond all things
else, upon tickling his bearers, in the Reuse
of
Commons, into laughter. Whatever the therne, no
matter how grave may be the subject under
Bien, the veteran leader of the House cannot for the
life of him rise to speak, if it be only for a very
Sew minuteS, but what, ten thousand chances to one,
the reporter has to record parenthetically (a laur;il),
or (laughter), or (renewed laughter). It is, for all
he world, seemingly, as though brie might
apply to Viscount PALMERSTON, tOW:ads the close
of his tenure of power as Prime ',Minister of Eng-
land, the,reproach humorously,
applied by that arch
,it, SYDNEY SMITH, to
Viscount MELBOURNE,
towards the close of his tenure of power in the
same supreme capacity, namely, as First Lord of
t he Treasury. The serto-comic reproach, namely, that
he (the Premier) was, to all appearance, disposed to
play at chuck-farting with the destinies of the
nation, and, for that matter, as SYDNEY SMITH ex-
pressed it—as SYDNEY SMITH alone could express
it—to giggle away the Constitution. Adopting this
prine;Ve of Government, vee might just as well, so
far as the door= of debate is in any way con-
cerned, L-4vo the chief paits of the Cabinet nightly

performed, by others among the great contem-
porary comedians of Lord PALMERSTON. Very
full " Houses" might by this arrangement be
always secured by a comic Cabinet represented
upon the Treasury Bench let us say by Messrs.
CHARLES MATHEWS, BUCKSTONE, COMPTON,
TOOLE, SOTHERN, and PAUL BEDFORD. Lord
PALMERSTON even then being still allowed, if
he pleased, to play his own part to the life as
Master of the Revels—the Premier being per-
fectly competent " to hold his own," even if heated
in the midst of such formidable rivals as caterers
for the popular amusement. Last evening was just
an illustration of the pertinacity with which, in
season and out of season, Lord PALMER-
STON is perpetually striving, not altogether
unsuccessfully, to put the house upon the
broad grin by his light-in-hand, touch-and-go,
manner of handling the reins of Government. The
hon. gentleman, the member for West Norfolk asks
very gravely and very reasonably a question
bearing upon Naval and Military matters at this
exceedingly critical juncture when war is actually
being waged against Denmark by the two
chief powers of Germany, the noble lord, the mem-
ber for Stamford, previously, asking another very
grave question, one more directly even than that
of the member for West Norfolk, bearing upon
the momentous position of affairs, yonder, in
Denmark. To neither of these questions could
Lord PALMERSTON vouchsafe a reply—and he
replied to them separately—without provoking
—(a laugh). Where the joke possibly can be
in the war, we can't see : and we certainly don't
feel in the least disposed to yield precedence, or
priority, or anything of that kind, to anyone in the
instantaneous recognition of a joke, when there :s
one in any way recognisable. But no—the fact of
the matter appears to be this : that the Premier
being dragged now deeper aad deeper into the mire
by a cluster of either do-nothing or perversely
bungling colleagues, is heroically striving, as Lord
MELBOURNE did before him, to carry the doubtful
and occasionally perilous position off lightly, joy-
ously, airily—as though it were the best fun in the
world—with a laugh ! An ingenious device, but
one hardly decorous, and one in no way likely to
last very much longer,

Once again has the Bench of England vindicated
its well-earned title to respect for its fearless up-
holding of the laws of the country. Yesterday the
all-important case of the Alexandra was again de-
cided against the Crown. In the Exchequer
Chamber the appeal from the Court of Exchequer
for a new trial was discharged upon technical
grounds—Sir HUGH CAIRNS having raised the
objection on Saturday that the Court had no juris-
diction. Yesterday morning judgment was given
discharging the rule for a new trial. Their lord-
ships were, however, divided in opinion. Lord
Chief Justice COCKBURN, and Justices CROMPTON,
BLACKBURN, and MELLOR were opposed to grant-
ing a new trial, or rather held that they had no
jurisdiction ; while Lord Chief Justice ERLE, and
and Justices WILLIAMSand WILLES were in favour
of granting a new trial. It is not our object to
enter upon the legal merits of the case, because
whatever had been the decision of the Court, the
case must ultimately have gone to the House of
Lords. But it is satisfactory to hear the exponents
of our laws speaking out so boldly and earnestly as
they have done throughout this protracted trial.
Mr. Justice BLACKBURN, in stating his opinion,
observed that "he had to consider the objection
raised in a legal point of view, and deliver his
judgment as he thought the law warranted, with-
out consideration of what would be its effect and
consequent result." Lord Chief Justice COCKBURN
and others spoke to the same purport, all express-
ing their conviction that, as the case would be car-
ried to the Lords, the interests of neither side
would be affected. We now, therefore, must wait
patiently until their lordships adjudicate upon the
matter. In the meanwhile, Mr. SEWARD is as
practically triumphant as if the Alexandra and the
other vessels whose fate is to be decided by that of
the Alexandra, had been condemned and confiscated
at the period of his first modest request. Who
shall hereafter be bold enough to assert that bluster
and insolence have now power with a British
Ministry ? The Alabama is said to have escaped
from Liverpool—at least so Mr. ADAMS was ins
formed ; but Lord PALMERSTON stated in the
House that he believed that if he had
stopped the Alabama the Government would
have been liable for damages. Earl RUSSELL alto
considered that it was necessary to show that the
owners intended to employ in a hostile way the
ships before they can be legally seized. Why then,
but a short time afterwards, does his Lordship so
completely change his plan of action. Lord DERBY
furnished an answer in his speech in the House
of Lords last Thursday evening. He drew atten-
tion to the feet that Mr. SEWARD had forwarded A
despatch to the Ambassador of the United Slates in
London, in which it was stated that unless a stop
was put to the sale of vessels of the Alabama class
in this country, 'the result must be that the Federal
Goverssslent must take the law into their own
:ands, that their cruisers would follow such vessels
into British ports, and in British waters, to main-
tain their own interests. His lordship went on to
remark that he hoped Earl RussEili had answered
this dispatch in a manner which would put a stop
to such monstrous demands for the fature. How-
ever the dispatch was received in this country in
the latter part of August last, and early in Septem
ber, the noble earl adopted the strong measure of
seizing the so-called Confederate rams in the
Mersey. The inference to be drawn from this
fact, is obvious enough. Last year it was the
opinion of the legal advisers of the Crown that the
Government were not warranted in interfering, but
so soon as Mr. SEWARD writes a bullying letter, Earl
RUSSELL eats humble pie, and does the very same
, thing which, but a short time ago, he pronounced
to be illegal. The Americans have no right to com•
plain, for our Government have gone further than
is sanctioned by the Supreme Court of Washington.
We have before us a small volume on the Foreign
Enlistment Acts of England and America,* in which
the various acts are clearly defined,•and we find
that on orders to the collectors of customs at the
United States ports "they shall detain no vessels,
though manffestly intended for warlike purposes,
where the owners give security, that they the
owners, do not intend using them in a manner
hostile to those at peace with the United States."
Well might Mr. SEWARD threaten to send Federal
cruisers into British waters to make reprisals
when the act had already been committed with
impunity. When a Federal cruiser may unques-
tioned sink an enemy's vessel within a few hun-
dred yards of British territory, as in the case of
the Margaret and Jessey among the Bahama
islands, and more recently the treatment of the
Anglo Saxon off the Cape of Good Hope—to
say nothing of the outrages daily committed upon
Britishships on the high seas, which are too often
unjustly seized by the United States men-of-war,
condemned by the prize courts
of njustly
niiliteeglydalstatss—we trust that the case of
t o
rho b e a
us
the Alexandra may be soon decided by the House
of Lords; for until this vexed question is defini-
tively settled the principle of English law is vir-
tually reversed, and instead of a man being deemed

* The Foreign Enlistment Acts of Englaud and
America. By Vigilans. Saunders and ot!ey.