The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-13 00:00:00

cording to the law of nations, and where, according
to Danish determination, resistance to an unjust
and tyrannical attempt to dismember their ancient
monarchy must commence. Any accident—the
fortuitous discharge of a single musket—may pro-
mote hostilities, and plunge Europe into the horrors
of a desolating war. Did the Germans calmly
reflect upon the consequences not only
likely but most certain to ensue from this most
criminal conduct of theirs, in supporting antiquated
and unfounded pretensions, we might still hope for
the preservation of peace. But all respect for pri-
vate rights, as well as for public treaties, seems to
be swept away by their ravening desire to extend
the influence, and to secure, at all hazards, a safe
not boor for the future fleet, of dreamy Fatherland.
So long as Germany counted on having only to
deal with a weak Power like Denmark, we can
understand the impetuosity with which she was
prepared to enter into the unequal conflict, although,
in common with every honest man, we reprobated
the spoliation which she meditated; but now that
it has become evident that she will, should she
persevere in her iniquity, find herself in presence
of a more powerful adversary, we own we cannot
comprehend the rashness with which she rashes
on her own destruction. As to what the
small principalities and fifth-rate kingdoms
could effect, if unsupported by Austria and Prussia,
it would matter little. But the conduct of the two
great Powers, we admit, astonishes and alarms us,
for we cannot suppose that anything short of a
popular pressure, which it is found impossible to
resist, would compel them, in violation of their own
solemn engagements, to sanction and stealthily
encourage the partial and dishonest conduct of the
commissioners charged with carrying out the Federal
execution in Holstein. With Italy panting for the
possession of Venice, and France longing to realise
her cherished hope for the boundary of the Rhine,
it is inconceivable that Austria and Prussia
should lend themselves to raise a storm, which
they may be powerless to allay. The more
particularly as the support of those who now urge
them to pursue a line of conduct imperilling their
own welfare, is but little to be counted upon, should
recourse be had to arms—for history tells how plainly
those petty kings and princes bend before every
storm that assails them ; and how quickly and un-
scrupulously they have on all past occasions changed
sides and politics in order to forward their personal
aggrandisement. That VICTOR EMMANUEL will
assail Austria, should that Power be engaged in an-
other contest, does not admit of a doubt; and that
the Emperor. NAPOLEON will not hesitate, should he
be afforded the opportunity- to annex the Rhenish
Provinces to France, is equally certain. No act of his
Government would give more general satisfaction to
his subjects, or tend more powerfully to consolidate
his Throne, for it would be hailed with delight by the
Red Republicans,while it would secure the warm ap-
probation of the most devoted Legitimists. Sh‘ uld
the French and Prussian armies meet in hostile con •
tlict the result cannot be doubtful; and should the
Prussians entertain the hope that England, after a
second Jena, will interfere to secure the possession
of their existing territories, the sooner they are dis-
abused of such a delusion the better it will be for
themselves. To us it matters little which of the
two Powers possesses the Rhenish provinces. Popu•
lar feeling would undoubtedly be rather in favour
of a faithful ally, who had honestly fulfilled his
obligations, than of a nation which was amongst
the first to repudiate its solemn acts, and to involve
us in a senseless and unnecessary war. Of this the
Prussians should be fully convinced. No matter
which of our political parties may happen to be
in power, the British people will never permit
their own welfare to be endangered by exerting
their influence in favour of a Prince who has violated
his solemn engagements, or in behalf of a nation
which has proved itself unworthy of constitutional
rights.

The interest excited by the long•pending trial
respecting the Alexandra has been so great and so
universal that it is not surprising that the Court of
Exchequer should have been thronged on Monday
by members of the bar, and of the general public.
The subtleties of the law and the doubtful wordings
of the Enlistment Act rendered it somewhat uncer-
tain what coarse the judges would pursue, however
strongly common sense and consistency might plead
that our neutrality permitted the export of arms
and ammunition to one of the belligerents. There
was no great infraction of its obligations in supply-
ing unarmed ships to the other. The decision of
the Lord Chief Baron up:n the point will without
doubt give general satisfaction, and must have been
largely acquiesced in by the hearers, both on the
grounds of law and equity. The careful and deli-
berate manner in which the Chief Baron delivered
his opinion proved that it was no hasty or partial
judgment on which he acted, but that he had fully
weighed over the arguments he had listened to,
from the eminent counsel on either side, as
well as those considerations on the subject
which had presented themselves to his own mind.
Baron BRAMWELL having concurred with the
Lord Chief Baron in refusing the rule for a new
trial, and Barons CHANNELL and PIGOTT being of
a contrary opinion, the junior judge, according to
custom, withdrew his opinion, and Baron CIIAN-
NELL being thus left in the minority, the original
decision was allowed to stand, which determined
that the building of the Alexandra did not come
within the terms of the Foreign Enlistment Act,
and that, consequently, her detention was illegal.
The Lord Chief Baron, in his very able address, in
pronouncing his judgment—which was, in fact, a
summary of the pros and cans of the whole case—
narrowed the question as far as possible to the ob-
ject and intention of the Act of Parliament. With
the dignity and independence befitting an English
judge, he put aside all hints of political disturb-
ance, all threats of American anger, and calmly and
clearly unfolded to the jury the terms of the law,
and the construction which, in his opinion, they
must put upon it. The Attorney-General had used
as a conclusive argument the threat that, if this
case were decided in favour of the defendants,
it would not fail to excite the greatest
indignation among the Federals. The manner in
which the Lord Chief Baron put aside such repre-
sentations was worthy of an occasion of national
importance. The Attorney-General had illustrated
his meaning by supposing that Great Britain and
France were at war, and that Sweden fitted out
vessels of war and supplied them to the enemy.
Should we not regard such proceedings as a casus
belli ? Could we doubt, ho went on to say, that a
great Power like the United States would follow
the same course, and, setting aside VATTEL,
GROTIUS, and PUFFENDORF—say, " We will not
endure it." Such considerations, however, were not
suffered by the Lord Chief Baron to influence a
tribunal which should be raised above all argu-
ments save those of law and justice. Questions of
national interest or possible advantage should not
be suffered to intrude into the arena where "Fiat
justitia ruat, cceluie is the fitting motto. The
Chief Baron, after saying that he doubted whether
such views ought to have been presented
to the Court, and that he was certain
they should not be suffered ,o influence
its decisions, observed with great force that inter-
national law would be of very little use if it were
I not to govern and control the conduct of strong

and powerful nations, as well as weak ones,
and that he trusted this country would never
sully its high reputation by yielding to the strong
what it denied to the weak. Such a reproof, to
the timorous and dishonourable spirit which Earl
RUSSELL has infused into our officials, high and
low, was well-timed, and only too richly deserved.
Again, the Chief Baron refused to allow the ques-
tion of the maritime interest of this country to be
mixed with the affair. Such a coarse, he said, would
degrade the discusion, while the conclusions acted
upon might very possibly prove fallacious. The
point at issue, as he clearly demonstrated, was
whether or no the building of a ship of war for a
foreign power was an infringement of the Foreign
Enlistment Act, and from this plain and
concise statement of the case, he refused
to vary. " They were not to be guided by what
eminent statesmen had said, nor by what jurists
had writted upon international law; they wanted
not the decision of foreign courts to see whether
the case was within the statute. No decisions of
foreign courts ought to induce them to declare if
the act committed was not within the words of the
statute, that the scope, object, and spirit of the act
included the case before them, although it might
not be clearly expressed by the Legislature." But
if foreign precedents were to be admitted, his Lord-
ship showed, on the authority of Mr. JEFFERSON,
that America herself would furnish arguments in
defence of such ships. That eminent American, in
arguing on the right of the citizens to ex-
port arms, said that such trades were the
occupation and livelihood of some, and that to
suppress their callivga on account of a distant
war with America would be unreasonable and
uncalled for. "It would be hard in prin-
ciple and impossible in practice." But although
these observations referred to arms, yet the same
speaker raised no objections to the supply of ships
of war, although he disapproved of the practice of
equipping and manning such vessels in their ports
to cruise as belligerents. To such lengths as this
our English shipbuilders have never gone, and
probably never desire to go; but it is scarcely neces-
sary that they should be so much more tender over
the interests of the Americans than they are of
Europeans. Such, then, were the principal points
on which the Lord Chief Baron based his very able
and sensible conclusions. The clause, he admitted,
was by no means free from doubt and difficulty ;
but so long as it does not specify a particular act as
illegal, our authorities are bound to give the accused
the benefit of the exemption, and let the vessel go
free. That this decision will give general satisfac-
tion, we cannot doubt, even although the Attor-
ney-General's intimation of a farther appeal prevents
the defendants from reaping the full benefit. It
is satisfactory, after all the vacillation, the submis-
sion, the weak and hesitating policy which has
dictated our actions of late years—after the ingeni-
ous sophistries which have been put forward to
reason us out of old firm independence and high
principle—to find an English judge of character
and position disdaining to suffer such unworthy
motives to influence his decisions, and acting in the
spirit of those sturdy old barons who were made of
sterner stuff than the terrorists of the present day,
when they issued their irrevocable fiat, "Nolumus
leges Anglia mutari." Even so our English judge
stands up for his country's laws, refusing, however
much they may need amendment or elision, to con-
form them to the insolent demands of quondam
allies, to accept the interpretation put upon them
by unwarrantable assumption on the one hand and
unworthy submission on the other.

Great steps have been made during the last half
century in many orders of science. By the unwearied
perseverance of our astronomer navigation has been
rendered comparatively safe and certain. The study
of the theory of cyclones enables the masters of ships
cn the wide ocean to avoid their vortex, and so pass
them harmless. Admiral FITZROY'S barometer
gives warning of approaching danger. Medical
science has likewise made great progress, valuable
remedies for dangerous diseases have been discovered,
and by the aid of chemistry, in post mortem exami-
nations, the old superstition, that the dead can con-
vict their murderers, has been practically attested.
While many other discoveries or inventions for the
common benefit have come to light, the most extra-
ordinary, and, at the same time perplexing and
dangerous, is the theory regarding lunacy lately
propounded by many medical men, including some
of the leading members of the profession. Accord-
ing to this theory, where motive is wanting for the
perpetration of a crime, insanity is substituted, or,
more exactly speaking, monomania. While this
doctrine was applied to shoplifting by females re-
spectably connected, nobody cared much about it,
and the practice of procuring goods in this economi-
cal fashion might have become general, but that an
obtuse magistracy took it into their heads to admi-
nister a prescription of their own, rather than
that of the doctors, and it was soon found that a
few months' incarceration did more to check the
disease than ever Dr. FORBES WINSLOW'S accom-
plishments. The late cold-blooded murder com-
mitted in Derbyshire, by GEORGE VICTOR
TOWNLEY, upon a young girl, called forth the just
indignation of the community at large. The crime
was aggravated by the fact that the perpetrator of
the dastardly deed was a man of education, and had
up to the period of the murder mixed in the best
society. The facts of the case are too notorious to
need any further comment. In due course he was
arraigned, found guilty, and doomed to die. A
considerable time elapsed between the commission
of the crime, and the trial of the criminal, and
during this period it was discovered that his grand-
mother's sister had been of unsound mind, and OR
the strength of this the plea of insanity was set up
in his defence. The jury were not, however, to be
convinced that a meditated and calmly devised
murder was to be excused on such an inference,
and the judge concurred in the verdict. After the
conviction, however, Dr. FORBES WINSLOW made
himself conspicuous in supporting the plea of in-
sanity, and by dint of examination, by lunacy
commissions, and justices of the peace, the possible
remorse for his crime, and the certain dread of' an
ignominious death, seemed for a time at least to
have shaken the intellect of a young man whose
mental qualifications appear to have been
very bright. On the strength of this, Sir
GEORGE GREY, acting per force, according to a
legal statute, advised her MAJESTY to avail herself
of het Royal prerogative and grant a reprieve to
the criminal. Before the true state of the case
became known, considerable dissatisfaction was
expressed by the public at what was thought to be
an unwarranted extension of mercy to the perpe-
trator of a cruel, deliberate, and most cowardly
murder on a confiding, helpless girl. While yet
public indignation was rife, and the true facts of
the case but partly known, the Home Secretary
fanned the smouldering embers of discontent into
flame, by again running counter to public opinion,
which imperatively demanded justice. In the case
of TOWNLEY, we believe that Sir G. GREY acted
with justice. In the case of SAMUEL WRIGHT, he
was accessory to what almost amounts to a judicial
murder. Whereas in the case of the Derbyshire
miscreant, months elapsed between the perpetration
of the crime and the day fixed for the executiou)
while he had the advantage of able counsel to ?le•