The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-27 00:00:00

natives were meditating war—a war which they
have foreseen, prepared, and provoked, leaving to
us nothing but the honour of carrying it on and
the glory of paying for it. Lord Malmesbury was
of opinion that the colonies ought to defend them-
selves, and ought not to rely on the mother country
to assist them. The colonists of New Zealand, he
thinks, ought to take care of themselves, and not to
call on this country for ten or twelve thousand men,
thus draining our small army, and staving off the
retribution for their mismanagement at our ex-
pense. If they had themselves to pay and bleed
for their own defence, we should have heard very
little of the present difficulties. We cannot too
soon, Lord Malmesbury thinks, persuade the people
of Canada that it is impossible for them to obtain
Imperial assistance in the way of English troops.
This is tolerably plain speaking for a Conservative
leader, and shows upon what congenial ground the
seed of truth has fallen. Lord Lyveden thinks
there is a pretty general concurrence in the prin-
ciples laid down by Lord Malmesbury, the only
difficulty being as to their application. Guaran-
teeing the loan is guaranteeing everything that has
been done by the settlers to the natives, and, while
the saving is small, the loss in point of principle
will be great. Such is the tenour of the remarks
elicited by the discussion on the New Zealand Bill.
Many considerations combine to counsel patience
under the present infliction. In the first place, it
is quite clear that nothing would be more unfair
than to charge these events, however calami-
tous, upon the present Secretary of State for
the Colonies. He has succeeded to an evil
inheritance, and cannot be expected, by any efforts
he may make, all at once to put matters to
rights. Five-and twenty years of gross mis-
management are not to be corrected in a week, a
month, or a year. All we have a right to expect is
that measures may be taken to put an end to the
present war and to prevent the recurrence of a new
one. This will not be effected by merely warning
the colonial public against iniquitous dealing with
the natives, either in the way of purchases of land
or sales of arms or ammunition. There is no dura-
ble chance for peace until we can contrive to im-
press upon the colonies that all future wars will be
carried on at their, and no more at our, expense.
We must disabuse them once for all of the notion
that we have any peculiar interest in their quarrels
with the natives, or that we shall be ready hence-
forth, as heretofore, to bribe them into war by the
wealth which our expenditure produces, and the
security which the presence of our troops affords.
As we cannot take from these Democratic Assem-
blies the power of virtually making war or peace at
their pleasure, we must at least endeavour to make
their interest in keeping the peace as strong es our
own. This can only be done, as Lord Malmesbury
says, by calling on them to contribute their own
blood and their own money, not as accessories and
auxiliaries, but as principals in the conflict. If the
Colonial Parliament would not be overwhelmed by
the responsibility which it undertakes, it must find
some means of putting an end to the present
struggle, by which one country creates a war which
another carries on, and reaps the reward in a large
increase of territory for battles which it has never
fought, and expenses which others have defrayed.
HERALD.—The invasion of Maryland by a pore
tion of Gen. Lee's army, at the very moment that
he was supposed to be so hardly pressed by the
Federal forces in his front that the capture of
Petersburg and the imminent fall of Richmond
were matters of daily rumour among the gobc•
mouches of New York, is one of the most mar-
vellous exploits of the American civil war. The
history of this wonderful raid reads to us like a
fairy tale—like one of those picturesque exploits of
knights or paladins of the elder Teutonic times,
who, aided by giants and fairies, had the power
of transporting themselves at will from place to
place, and confounded their foes by the blast of a
magic trumpet or the sight of a talisman fraught
with supernatural potency. At first laughed at in
New York as a foolish raid, which would so weaken
Lee that he was inevitably at the mercy of Grant
when he chose to advance, the expedition, as it de-
veloped into unknown and fearful proportions,
caused a panic in the North, which laid bare in a
moment the weakness of the war faction. As it
became known that, in spite of alt opposition, a
large army corps of Confederates was working its
will in the midst of an unwarlike and sympathising
border population, that it had utterly routed the
two Federal armies that, on the Potomac and Mon-
cacy, had attempted to check its career, a revulsion
of feeling took place throughout the cities of the
North, the price of their currency went up, and
their spirits went down. The object of the incur-
sion into Maryland we conceive to have been three-
fold. It was intended to obtain supplies for the
Confederate army ; to create a diversion which
would have the affect of withdrawing a portion of
Grant's army from the front of Petersburg ; to re-
connoitre the defences of Baltimore and Washing-
ton, and interrupt, as far as possible, their commu-
nications with the rest of the North. All these
objects have been triumphantly attained. The Con-
federates are reported to have retired across the
Potomac " loaded with plunder." The bread, the
sheep, and the oxen, required to feed their army,
crossed the Potomac with them. The horses re-
quired for their cavalry were obtained in 'Abun-
dance. The ammunition, for which a dozen
Northern arsenals had been ransacked, the confis-
cated wealth of thousands of Federal sympathisers,
was transferred to Virginia to aid in the patriotic
cause. In the terror caused by this invasion the
authorities at Washington and the governors of the
border states appealed vainly to the people for ital..
mediate help to save the Government of Mr Lincoln
and protect the capital. This help was not forth-
coming. No hand was stretched out to help the Pre-
sident of the North and his Cabinet. Had the Con-
federates only been sufficiently numerous to invest
places of such size the cities of Baltimore and Wash-
ington would have been at their mercy. Pennsylva-
nia and New Jersey made no response to the appeal
of their governors for troops. The people of
Pennsylvania are accused by their governor,
Mr. Curtin, of culpable stupidity and apathy in
presence of the enemy. The mayor of New York
conceived that he required the militia for the defence
of the city in the case of an apprehended riot. The
German and Irish immigrants refused to be enrolled,
their ardour in the war having been somewhat
damped since they have observed that their com-
rades who have enlisted but seldom return to their
homes. The attitude of the North is now far more
peaceful than it was; the people are beginning to
perceive that a war of pretended subjugation, so
uniformly unsuccessful, cannot be prosecuted with
credit or advantage to the nation. The peace party
is becoming more than ever a power in the state.
It looks upon separation as inevitable, and desires
only that the best terms should be obtained. Mean-
while, Sigel having been defeated and Wallace
routed, the President had no force available for the
defence of the North but the army of Grant on the
Appomattox River. We do not yet know whether
this army has not been recalled to the neighbourhood
of the capital. It is stated, at all events, that a
whole army corps has been shipped to Baltimore.
The last great attack made by the army of Grant
was on June 22, when he fell upon the line of the
Weldon Railroad, and was repulsed with loss, Since
that the cavalry, under Wilson, has been engaged
in a disastrous expedition towards the Lynchburg
line of rail, from which it returned to camp with a
loss now stated at 3,000 men, and minus all its
baggage, ammunition, and artillery. The confidence
of General Lee in the strength of his position, and
his belief in the utter impotence of the disabled
enemy, who was perishing in the swamp at his feet,
is proved by the fact that before this raid of Wilson's
he detached a strong force under Generals Early
and Ireboden for one of those incursions into
Maryland for which Lee is famous. One hundred
miles to the Potomac this force rode on, and
fifty miles more to the suburbs of Baltimore.
Hunter was far away in Western Virginia, and
the Confederates took their course unchallenged
up the Shenandoah Valley. At Martinsburg they
met with Sigel, whom they put to the rout, and
expelled from Harper's Ferry. They then crossed
leisurely into Maryland, went north to Hagerstown
and threatened Chambersburg, went east to Fredee
rick City on the Monocacy River. Here Wallace,
with 10,-000 men, attempted to withstand them,but
was engaged and driven in disorder to the shelter
of Baltimore. The invaders now destroyed the rail-
way between Frederick and Baltimore. Proceeding
to that place, they tore up the lino and burned the
bridge on the road to Washington. They also suc-
ceeded in inflicting great damage on the line from
Baltimore to Philadelphia, and captured on this
railway a train of cars with their passengers, among
whom was the Federal General Franklin and his
staff. The force which approached Washington came
as near as six miles to that city on the north side,
and amused itself with bombarding Fort Stephens.
The sound of their guns must have recalled Presi-
dent Lincoln and his Cabinet to the grim reality of
that war of independence, which they have foolishly
characterise(' as a petty rebellion, which is certain
to be soon suppressed. Mr. Lincoln in Washington
ie exposed to far more peril than Mr. Davies in
Richmond. For the moment he has escaped, and
he will act wisely in not exposing himself to so
great a risk for the future. Mr. Fessenden, his
new Finance Minister, wants a loan of fifty millions
to carry on the war for a fortnight. Mr. Fessenden
will then want three hundred millions to keep it up
till the autumn. And what next, and next?

PENSION TO MIL. DIST:ABEL—Prom a Parliamen-
tary blue book justpublished, it appears that in the year
ended the 3lst March last Mr Disraeli received his pension
of £2,000, under the act 4th and sth Will, IV., c, 24. Thero
is one vacancy under the act.