The Sun.
London, England, 1864-10-11 00:00:00

formation of the spirit, not only of the border
people in Kentucky, Missouri, nd Tennessee, but

of the cotton States, is current in Canzda, which, if
percolated through the New York, PhiladelpLio,
Washington, and Boston pass, might ce.uso the

Northern people to be leEB sanguine than they are,
at this moment of apparent victory, of the ultimate

success of their cause, and more dubious of the final
triumph, which neither men who deserve, or men

who do not deserve it, are certain of obtaining.
The success of General Sherman at Atlanta, fol-
lowed so rapidly by that of General Sheridan in the
valley of the Shenandoah, has again inclined the
thoughts of the Americans towards peace. A month

ago, when the Chicago Convention was in session,
the peace party was in the ascendant. The people
were depressed and discouraged. They dreaded
that the war would be interminable. They
were alarmed at the rapid depreciation of Mr
Chase's paper currency. They had placed all their
hopes in Gen. Grant, and Gen. Grant was as egreo
gious a failure as any other drill-sergeant or at-
torney cs ho had ever been called upon to command
the brave but unfortunate Army of the Potomac.
He was squandering human lives as if they were of
no value, and moved to his work with the remorse.
lessness of a machine or the calculating murderous.
ness of a Cincinnati pig butcher. They saw no end
to his sacrifices of life, but they saw a too speedy
end to the supply of his human material. 'They
were weary of Mr Lincoln, of Mr Seward, of Mr
Stanton, and of Mr Gideon Welles ; and the New
York and other journals, catching the temper of a
multitude whom they sometimes represent, but never
lead, were all as ardent for an armistice as if they
had been members of the Peace Society, or the
" League of Universal Brotherhood." But General
Sherman took Atlanta, and with the celerity of
harlequin in a Christmas pantomime, who with one
stroke of his wand oan convert a Quaker into a
grenadier, he filled the American heart with a hope.
fulness as great as its previous despondency, opened
before the delighted eyes of Mr Lincoln a bright
prospect of re-election, and reinvigorated that love
for conquest and the Union which had slumbered
but had not died in the previous month of Federal
ill.fortuna. The consequence has been a belief in
the minds of the easily excited crowd of American
politicians that the end of the war approaches ;
but in their estimation peace comes from a dif.
ferent direction than that in which it seemed
to be coming, when General Grant was vainly
hammering at the gates of Petersburg, and ap-
pealing to General Lee, who would not answer,
to come out and be defeated before Richmond. The
cry is now that the South is exhausted—that
it cannot maintain itself until next spring ;
that it is only necessary for Grant or Sherman to
strike another blow to make an end of the Confede-
ration; and that the Southern leaders, aware of their
doom, are anxious to propose terms to their proxi-
mate conquerors,and to save life and honour, if not
property, on the inevitable day of reckoning on the
best terms they can extort. It is asserted from
Washington that General Sherman has made the
first step towards peace by inviting a conference with
any plenipotentiary who Mr. Jefferson Davis may
appoint, and that the Hon. Clement C. Clay and
the Hon. Jacob Thompson, the Confederate Com-
missioners in Canada—the one residing at St. Ca..

therine's, and the other at Toronto—have, on their
part, received instructions from Richmond to pro-
pose peace to the Washington Government, on the
basis of the restoration of the Union, the re-affirm•
ation of the doctrine of State rights--ageneral
amnesty—and the guarantee of slavery in all the
States where it legally and constitutionally existed
before the rebellion. lam not in a position either
to confirm or deny the statements made with re-
gard to General Sherman, though I have reason to
believe that his function as a peacemaker is limited

to such peace as he can make with the sword—but
lam able to state, on the highest authority, that
Messrs. Clay and Thompson hays no such mission,
and have made and will make no such offer as that

imputed to them. Their " platform" is Southern in-
dependence, and that alone. All other questions
are subsidiary to this, the corner-stone of their edi-
fice. Short of independence the South will listen
to and propose no terms whatever. Come weal,
;ome woe, it will fight to the last man on this basis,
it it take fifty years. Recent reverses have grieved

but not discouraged it. The Southern exiles in
Canada—men who have sacrificed home and pro-
perty for the cause—assert that the spirit, not alone
of the South, but of the Border States was never so
high and determined as at this time of defeat. They
laugh at the idea that Southern resources are ex-
hausted, and maintain that the struggle, so for from
being at its c:ose, is only at its beginning. They
boast at the same time that they will yet show the
world that what Washington and his slaveholding
compeers did against all the might and majesty of
England less than 90 years ago will be done against
all the might, without the majesty, of the North by
the slave holding gentlemen and slave-approving
middle-classes of the South.

There is, however, a class among the Southern
exiles in Canada, the highest in the confidence of
the Confederate Government, who admit that the
day may come—though they hope it never will—
when the South, despairing of European intervene
tion, and weary of barren sympathy, may be driven
Into a corner, unable to find help abroad or rein-
forcements at home, In such an emergency they
insist that the Southern leaders might be induced
to propose terms to Mr. Lincoln, if be be re-elected,
or to General M'Clellan if he should take Mr. Lin-
coln's place, to which either of those gentlemen and
the Northern people would be likely to accede.
They would represent to the Federal Government
that they would never lay down their arms until
they had secured their political independence and
separate nationality ; that the North would not dare
to attempt their extermination, and would not suc-
ceed in the attempt if it were wicked enough to set
the opinion of the world and the doctrines of
Christianity at defiance in pursuance of any such
project; and that, such being the case, it would be
for the interest of the North as well as of the
South to sec if a compromise could not be effected.
The South, upon consideration of Federal recog-
nition of its independence, would be prepared to
enter into a commercial treaty with the North
upon the basis of free trade, and to place an ex-
port duty of 10c. per pound upon cotton, 60
to give the manufacturers cf New England and
other Federal States an advantage to that extent
over the manufacturers of Great Britain and France
and every other part of the world. Aloreover, they
would agree to an alliance offensive and defensive
with the North in support of the Monroe doctrine
leaving it to the North to decide whether the doc-
trine should first be vindicated in the expulsion of
the Emperor Maximilian and the French from
Mexico, or in the attempted annexation of Canada
to the Federal dominions. These ideas may seem
wild in Europe, but, wild or not, they are seriously
entertained by many Southern men of high in-
fluence and position. They are not cnlydisap.
pointed with the action of Great Britain and
France, but they are indignant at what they call the
stupidity or the heartlessness of those nations—
stupidity that did not see the interest of Europe to
aid in the disintegration of the American Republic,
which when united threatened to overshadow the
world with its greatness, and oppress it with its
power; or heartlessness that would allow a gallant
people, fighting for their independence, to be over-
whelmed by the mercenary Irish and Germans whom
the North has bribed to fight the battles which it
has not cared to fight with its own arms. These sen-
timents may be deprecated in Europe, but they
exist, and are not to be reasoned away ; and should
any great ill-fortune befal the South will probably
take larger dimensions than they have yet assumed,
and form the basis of a peace between North and
South which will augur anything but peace for the
rest of the world.
The Southern exiles and sympathisers with the
North in Canada take but little interest in the Pre-
sidential contest. If they have a choice between
Lincoln and M'Clellan it inclines to the side of Mr.
Lincoln. They know that he has mismanaged the
war; that he is not a man of principle; that he
shifts with the wind of popular opinion ; that he
would maintain slavery if he could thereby preserve
the Union; that he would abolish it if he had
the power, for the very same reason ; that he is a
cunning rather than a skilful politician ; that he has