The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-22 00:00:00

NOV. 22, 1861.
LONDON, TUESDAY,

The position of an Ambassador is at all times one
of great delicacy, and great care and caution are
necessary if he would fulfil his duties with credit
to himself and honour to his country, But what
is onerous in times of peace becomes ten times more
(Moult to perform when there is war in the case,
and especially when the spirit and sentiments of the
nation which he represents are not in accordance
with the mode practised by the Cls.verument to
which he is accredited. At the same time that
policy and expediency taught him to make the
best of things, the spirit of independence and the
sense of rectitude urge him on to condemn a system

and censure a practice which the best instincts of
his nature know to be false. It cannot be denied
that Lord NAPIER has not extricated himself with
great skill from the difficulties of his position in
taking leave of the Embassy at St. Petersburg
on his recent departure for Berlin. A deputa-
tion of English residents in the former city
waited upon his Excellency to congratulate him
upon the services he had rendered to the cause
of peace in Poland. Whereupon he made a reply
which, to speak in the mildest terms, we must
call thoroughly un-English and unsuitable in its
tone. It was all very well in such a place to
abstain from those vehement expressions of senti-
ment, and refrain from the utterance of that indig-
nation, which all honest men eve supposed to feel
in looking upon the conduct of Russia to Poland.
Yet what need was there for a Minister represent-
ing the majesty of England, in the presence of a
foreign Court, to mince matters to such an extent
that an ignorant peruser of his speech might well
believe that there was not much cause to find
fault with Russia after all. It is most deplcrable
to meet with such language emanating from one in
so high a quarter. Lord NAPIER seems to lay uns
due stress upon the preservation of peace between
Great Britain and Russia. This is no doubt a de-
sirable result, but there are may other thirgs of far
greater importance than this desideratum, and no
statesman who rightly understands the eternal
interests of justice, and the paramount claims of
hurranity, will rank being on terms of amity with
a tyrant whose conquering power has crushed the
spirit and pressed out the life-blood of a gallant
people, beyond and above the duty of a great
country to express its just feeling of indignation
and contempt. Really, when we reflect upon the
tenour of this farewell address, we may be pardoned
for believing that the deleterious ieflaences of aßuss
Bien capital have exercised an injurious effect upon
the opinions of our ambassador there. We would
advise him to change his tune before he attempts to
address an English audience on the subject of
Polish wrongs and Russian policy. It will not do
to bring in the sedulous flatteries and adroit com-
pliments which sounded so well in the city of the
autocrat, and which do not appear to have sensibly
shocked those who heard them in that place. Lord
NAPIER declares that his object throughout the
difficult transactions in which he was engaged was
to furnish her MAJESTY'S Government with correct
news of the policy pursued by Russia. In doing
this he tried to speak as an " impartial" hut in..
variably " well-meaning" judge, and he did not
allow himself to be blinded by the " passions of the
moment." This last expression, it is to be presumed,
must refer to having any undue sympathy for Poland
and judging from the speech before it may safely
b 3 affirmed that no such charge can be laid to
his Excellency's account. He was supported in
his course, he declares, "by tee kindness shown by
his Majesty the EMPEROR, and by the; confidence
felt in his intentions by his Excellency Prince
GORTSCHA KOFF." Really these last named indivi-
duals must have been made of stern stuff even for
the " hardy, rude Russ" had they refused to be
courteous and considerate to such a stanch ally and
determined well-wisher as the English ambassador
appears to have been. It may also be said with
truth that this is not an appropriate time for Lord
NAPIER to choose to "express oar sympathies un-
reservedly for a great nation governed by a good
monarch, labouring with firmness and calmness at
a remarkable change which is preparing for it—a
more prosperous future." The tone of this passage
is offensive to the recognised principles of our na.
Lionel code of honour. We cannot appreciate the
justice which showers benefits on one side and hurls
destruction on the other. The firmness of Russian
policy is pretty universally acknowledged, but it
may be a genteel name for a course of proc,dure
that keeps to i's end regardless of means, and counts
for nothing all that should withhold a humane or
merciful man from goirg on. So far as we can see
from the accounts furnished of the policy of St.
Petersburg, the laws of God and man are alike vio.
lated, so that the imperial car may ride triumphant
over the foes who dare to oppose his way or impede
his progress. Ii dwelling upon this speech of Lord
NAPIER, it may fairly be asked why an English
Neinister should seek thus to palliate a course of
policy which is repulsive to the country he repre-
sents, and alike adverse to its public and
private sentiments. If such cajoling protes-
testations and such fulsome flattery are necessary
to the maintenance of the peaceful relations he holds
so dear, we protest against their employment for
such a purpose, and declare in the name of that
freedom our forefathers have held so dear, for which
they have perished on field and scaffold, that such
peace may be bought at too high a price. To what
purpose were these inconsistent and unseemly
flatteries addressed to a monarch whose recent con-
duct in Poland has excited the just wrath and in-
dignation of all civilised States ? Surely it is
absurd, when we reflect upen the reproaches cast by
Earl RUSSELL at the Cabinet of St. Petersburg.
Another very unpleasant idea suggests itself to our
consideration when we read this address of Lord
NAPIER. Is he a fitting representative of our Goe
vernment at the Court of Berlin ? Will he carry
on his Muscovite method ? It is intolerable to think
that our diplomatic relations with a grasping Power
like that of Prussia area to be ruled and governed by
the style which characterises the words of this fare-
well address to the English residents at St Peters-
burg. With all due respect to Lord NAPIEIt'S abili-
ties and belief in his good intentions, it may safely
be averred that if such is to be the tone that cha-
racterises his policy he had better take a final fare•
well of diplomacy ; but it will not suit the views of
this country if we are to be forced to play the part
of courtier to the tyrants and despots of Europe.
It is not of the chief importance that we please the
oppressor in his might, but that we sympathise
with the oppressed nationalities who are struggling
for a ray of that freedom which shines upon us so
brightly.

It is no light task in these days for members to
present themselves to their comtituents with the
view of expressing their sentiments on the chief
questions that agitate the political world. Accord-
ing to a good old custom they are, many of them,
in the habit of giving, as it were, a periodical ac-
count of their political opinions to their electors, of
enlightening them as to the successive acts of the
Parliamentary drama, and of adding a running
commentary on the words and deeds of statesmen
and diplomatists. A few years back this was no
very arduous task; Europe was tranquil, and the
oratorical politician bad nothing more exciting to
dilate upon than Lord PALMERSTON'S last Chinese
war or Lord JOHN RUSSELL'S nevercending, still
beginning Reform Bill ; but now what a troubled
vortex does he plunge into! The intricate rela-
tions of England and. Germany, the miserable
failure of our ill.directed effJrts on behalf of Den-
mark, the dismemberment of that kingdom, the dis-
putes between tho two highway
robbers over their
booty,
the long struggle and cruel martyrdom of
the Poles, the rumoured alliance of the continental
despots, the terrible and protracted struggle in the
new world, and all the varied interests which it in-
volves in the old, all these vast and exciting topics
rise before the speaker of to-day. 'When to these
the Inerab4 for the Kilmarnock bearghs thought

proper to prefix copious statistics illustrating the
buoyancy of our revenue, and to append a disquisi-
tion on the financial embarrassments of most of the
great nations of Europe, we shall readily admit
that he set himself no easy task. Such as it was,
however, he went through it very creditably, pro-
mulgating some rather singular theories, and in-
geniously evading some of those awkward questions
which modern reformers find it inconvenient to
answer. The good people of Kilmarnock were not,
it is to be presumed, quite so familiar with the
pros and cons of the Danish and American ques-
tions as their metropolitan countrymen, so that the
matters under discussion were a little less hacknied
(hen they would have been in London, The ex-
traordinary prosperity of cue national finances was
a eulject which, whatever the dryness of statistical
dete‘ile,is interesting to all classes of Englishmen, and
Mr BOUVERIE'S constituents could scarcely fail to
hear with satisfaction that notwithstanding the
large and repeated reduations in our taxation the
public revenue was steadily increasing. The less
gratifying fact that £25,000,000 per annum of that
revenue goes to keep up our military and naval
establishments led to some observations by Mr
BOUVERIE on the point of these costly armaments.
He remarked that there was no immediate prospect
of any sensible reduction, and went on to show the
effect that the expensive alterations in modern
modes of warfare were likely to have on European
politics. The result of most mechanicl improve-
ments was, he said, to cheapen the cost of produce
tion, but it was a remarkable thing, and a thing
which the ratepayers have much to lament, that
hitherto all the inventions with reference to our
means of defence grow more and more expensive.
A yard of cloth or a piece. of carpet does not cost as
much now as it did twenty or fifty years ago, but
guns and ships proved in inverse ratio. As Mr
BOUVERIE pointed out to his hearers, one effect of
the great cost of the present means of attack and de-
fence will be that an enormous increase of power
will be thrown into the hands of the great Powers
who alone can afford to pay for them. Of old two
or three smaller States could combine against a
large one, and their support or attack were matters
of importance, but now they are no longer on a
level, however much they may unite their forces,
since their inferiority is no longer only a question
of numbers. Mr BOUVERIE observed that when
speaking to a Swedish gentlemen the other day
about the Swedish navy, he was answered that it
was useless for Sweden to attempt maintaining a
navy, for she could not keep pace with Powers that
could afford to spend two and three hundred thou-
sand pounds on one ship. Therefore Mr BOUVERIE
concludes that the smaller States of Europe will
henceforth be at the mercy of their more wealthy
and powerful neighbours, and according to the
principles now in vogue of non-intervention on the
one band, and reckless usurpation on the other, the
prospect is not a cheering one. There is, however,
one thing to be said, it is not yet so absolutely cer-
tain that the new vessels will carry all before them,
and that the old navies will be hopelessly useless.
The great weight and unwieldy size of our modern
ships may bring about difficulties in an engagement
which the old wooden walls escaped. Among the
many nautical lessons taught by the action at Tra-
falgar, the fate of the largest and most costly, but,
at the same time, most cumbrous of the Spanish
vessels is not without its moral. Coming
to the aspect of foreign affairs, Mr. BOUVERIE
supports, of curse, the policy of the Government,
and calls the virtual censure of the II nisi of Com-
mons a party move to displace the Ministry. How
the hon. member contrives to reconcile his own
theory that it is the duty of great States to protect
weaker ones from oppression with the actuel bete
of the case it is not easy to see. He denies that
England should always be ready to support her
voice with her sword, but maintains that " there
are great interests of truth,
,juseice, and right, in
which everything is attained by a strong voice
bsing raised to proclaim what is true, just, and
right at the time," although its remonstrances may
not at the moment be heeded. But he seems to
forget that England's voice is no longer strong,
for she has lost that moral force which goes with
the sense of power in reserve, Whet' once she has
openly proclaimed that no act of oppression, how-
ever violent, no breach of faith, however outrageous,
shall induce her to draw her sword, and that, cone
what will, she will consult nothing but her own
interests, her words, although lofty, are powerless,
her threats, although boisterous, are contemptible.
Englishmen have felt too painfully the light in
which their diplomacy is held both in Continental
Europe and in America for any smooth assertions
of the wisdom and justice of the course pursued by
their Ministers to pass current at this date. The
American war, Mr. BOUVERIE, like most men,
regards as a hopeless struggle, after an impossibility
on the part of the North, and after proclaiming it as
an idle dream to suppose that the broken fragments
of the vast Republic could ever be reunited, he
quoted a passage from a work written fifty years
ago, which prophecied with singular exactness the
downfall of the United States. " I should say,"
writes Professor SMYTH, in his " Lectures on
Modern History," " that the great event to be ex-
pected is that this empire should break up into two
or more independent States or It2publics, and that
at some distant period America may be destined to
exhibit all the melancholy scenes of devastation
and which have so long disgraced the continent of
Europe." The same melancholy prescience has been
shown by some of the more eminent of American
statesmen, and yet the people themselves, or rather
their temporary leaders, seem unable or unwilling
to recognise the fact, so patent years before to clear-
sighted men. Mr. BOUVERIE, while deploring the
character of the struggle, paid tribute to the courage
determination of both combatants, and con-
cluded a long and able address by deploring the ex-
cessive military establishments of the age. His
views found favour with his constituents, who
warmly applauded many of his sentiments, but the
general public will, we apprehend, be inclined to
temper its approval with a little mental reserve.