The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-14 00:00:00

SPIRIT Or Tii.t; PUBLIC JOURNALS,

4!
• PosT.—ln the diplomatic intercourse between
nations there exist certain unwritten rules of cour-
tesy which are tacitly conformed to, and the obser-
vance of which is held to be as binding as though
they were regularly incorporated as a part of the
acknowledged law of nations. It is in conformity
with one of these rules that Gevernmento consider
with respectful attention all communications
couched in proper language which may be pre-
sented by the accredited representatives of ether
friendly Powers; and although they are not lite-
rally bound to believe all the representations which
may be made, yet diplomatic courtesy demands that
no doubt should be expressed in regard to the sin-
cerity of those who make them. When, therefore,
the pretended report of Mr. Mallory, the Secretary
of the Confederate States Navy, was brought to the
attention of the British Foreign-office by the
Government of the United States, as furnishing a
complete confirmation of the complicity of the
Confederate Government in the alleged violation of
the Foreign Enlistment Act in the matter of the
steam rams which were in process of construction
by the Messrs. Laird, Earl Russell could not have
done otherwise than give to the subject all the con-
sideration to which it would have been entitled
even if the facts alleged had been in reality true.
If this spurious document, which is now admitted
by Mr. Seward to have been "entirely a forgery,"
had been the result of a premeditated plot, it could
not have been propagated at a time more auspicious
for the consummation of its intended purpose than
the period at which it was first launched before the
British public. The pomp and circumstance which
surrounded its advent were well calculated to im-
pose upon the willingly credulous or the unwary.
The pretended report was first brought to the
attention of Lord Lyons by Mr. Seward, and under
such an aspect that, in forwarding the document to
the Foreign-office, Lord Lyons expressed no doubt
in regard to its authenticity. Mr. Adams trans-
mitted the pretended report to Earl Russell, ac-
companied by the somewhat cautious observation
that, " although the paper had been received only
in the form presented, there was little doubt
that in substance it might be relied upon as
authentic." In the meantime the paper obtained a
wide circulation by means of its distribution in
pamphlet form throughout England, and notwith-
standing the prompt denial of its authenticity by
Confederate naval officials and others in Europe, it
cannot be denied that the general influence upon
the public mind was precisely what its projectors
desired and expected. Although it may be a matter
of regret that our Foreign-office should have lent
too ready an ear to the apparent confirmation of its
own suspicions, and adopted too trustingly testi
mony which appeared to be an entire vindication
of the extreme measures which had been taken in
the matte.. of the seizure of the steam rams, yet the
tardy admission of the United States Government
that a document thus earnestly pressed upon the
attention of Earl Russell as genuine was, in fact, a
fraud and a forgery, must produce upon the British
Government and people a most painful impression.
If our Government is bound in courtesy to credit
the statements made to that by the United States,
the latter ie under a much stronger obligation to
exercise not only good faith, but extreme caution,
in the representations it may make. The circum-
stances which surround the present case are of a
character which, in the aspect under which they
now present themselves, cannot but gravely com-
promise the Government which employed such ille-
gitimate means for the attainment of its ends.
Toere is no doubt that through their official repre-
sentatives they did impose upon the British Go-
vernment and people,by the dissemination of a docu-
ment which not only turns out to have been a
forgery, but which, it now appears, bore upon its
face the most undoubted proof that it could not
hare emanated from the source to which it was
ascribed. If we adopt the charitable conclusion
that the officials of the United States had no
agency in conceiving the fraud, we cannot acquit
them of having zealously propagated the
very worst species of false testimony, not only
without any corroborating evidence of its reliability,
but against all probabilities. In arriving at a con-
elusion concerning the complicity of the United
States Government in this discreditable affair, it
cannot be forgotten that no other interests than
those of the United States could have been promoted
by the success of the fraud, while the period chosen
for its dissemination was at the identical moment
when testimony was most required in support of li
those interests. This, however, is not the only
instance in which this species of false testimony is
alleged to have been resorted to. In the more re-
cent affair of the Chesapeake we have precisely the
same story of an intercepted despatch of a Confede-
rate agent, and precisely the same appeal to British
officials to act promptly upon the testimony thus
providentially, as it were, thrown in their way. In
this case the complicity of the Federal Government
is absolutely certain, and if the despatch is in reality
a forgery, it could not have been the act of any
other than an accredited agent of the United States,
acting under the special authority of the President.
A complete history of this intercepted despatch is
to be found in the Parliamentary papbr recently
published concerning the seizure of the Chesapeake.
It will be remembered that this vessel had been
taken by the Confederates, and afterwards recap-
tured by a United States cruiser in British waters,
whence she was turned over to the Colonial autho-
rities of Nova Scotia, to await the judicial investi-
gation of the questions involved in tier various cap-
tures. Mr. Seward was evidently eager to get im-
mediate possession of the vessel, and it was with a
view to the attainment of this and other important
ends that the intercepted despatch in this, as in the
former case, was first brought to the attention of
her Majesty's representative at Washington. In
a despatch (No. 4) to Earl Russell, Lord Lyons
says :—" Mr. Seward then gave me a paper, a copy
of which forms enclosure No. 3in ;his despatch.
It was, he said, the decipher of a letter from a Con-
federate agent at New York to Mr. Benjamin, the
Secretary of State at Richmond. Some of the
proper names were, he observed, undecipherable,
but most of the letter had been made out, and it
showed that there were plots to seize two other
steamers besides the Chesapeake, and to make use
of the neighbouring British territory to further the
nefarious designs of the enemy. Mr. Seward went
on to say that the statement in the letter that a
large number of rifled muskets had been sent to
Halifax, and other facts which had come to his
knowledge, had made him apprehensive that the
Chesapeake might not be safe. He begged me to
warn the authorities, and to ask whether the vessel
would be made over at once to her former owners,
if they applied for her with the sanction of the
Uoied States Government." In consequence of
these opportune discoveries and disclosures, and of
the request with which Mr. Seward closed his com-
munication to Lord Lyons, the latter forthwith
despatched a telegram to Major-General Doyle.
The authorities of Halifax being forewarned of the
" nefarious designs" of the Confederates, took
prompt precautions against the apprehended seizure
of the Chesapeake, but declined to give her up for
safe keeping to the Federal Government. Alto-
gether it would require a wonderful degree of
credulity to credit the story of this intercepted
despatch, even if we had never before been de-
ceived by the pretended discovery of similar Con-
federate secrets. How is it that the Federal
officials have such a wonderful facility in trens-
lating intercepted letters written in cipher ?
`ghat bunglers the Confederate agents must be to
write in cipher that which, with the exception of
the proper names, may be readily deciphered by
the first United States postmaster into whose hands
it may chance to fall. However, the name of
ono individual, Mr. Slidell, the Confederate Com-
missioner at Paris, who, it would appear, played the
important part of " receipting bills," was made out,
and through him the public may possibly be en-
lightened in regard to this mysterious affair. In the
meantime it is understood that the reputed inter-
cepted despatch has been pronounced upon the
highest possible authority to be, like the pretended
report of Mr. Mallory, " entirely a forgery." For
the second time this species of fraud has been suc-
cessfully practised upon English officials, the effect
of which, both upon the Government and people of
Great Britain, must be to cast a grave shadow of
doubt over communications of a similar character
which may be hereafter made by the United States
Government. International courtesy may require
that statements made with so much gravity should
be respectfully considered, but the too frequent use
of such means as were employed in the two cases
referred to, to stimulate the British Government to
act upon evidence furnished by forged papers, is
well calculated to create a distrust and a reserve
which cannot fail in the end to produce unpleasant,
if not more serious, consequences.

DAILY NEWS.—Really our Tory friends must be
hard to please if the Premier's neat little speech on
Mr. Locke King's little Bill, yesterday, does not
reassure and rally them to the standard of the safest
of leaders. There is only one thing more surprising,
perhaps, than the continued existence of a Conser-
vative opposition to Lord Palmerston, and that
is the appearance of a Tory candidate on the
Lustings as a rival to the " Liberal," or the ap-
pearance of a Liberal candidate of the Palmerston
persuasion as a rival of the Tory. Yes; there
something even more surprising; and that 19, When
a Liberal constituency deems it worth time or
trouble to set up a Liberal candidate, who believes
in Lord Palmerston, against a Conservative can-
didate, who is content with Lord Palmerston.
W
What on earth, we humbly ask, Can it signify to
that large portion of the Liberal party which does
not include expectant placemen, whether the sue- ceseful candidate be A COAM I
TAtIYO Nupporter of

--
form, bat opposed to the spirit of innovation end
Lord Derby, in favour of all well-ce-siie.reirr;
to organic
Paheerston, who deems that " there does not eo.A"
changes, or a L,heral supporter of LON,
exist the same anxiety for organic change
wes observable some time ego," and that
such changes as were desirable have long since been
_
effected." Let any dispassionate Liberal, who 0a
no personal predilections in favour of this or that
Minister, ask himself whether Lord Palmerston!
remarks on a Bill for extending i
the County F raae
chise would not be admirably well placed n_tht.
mouth of a leaier of the Conservative party. r°':
our own part, we think it would be difficult for
.oar
Conservative of any shade to express the rects?n!
,0
the faith that is in him—the faith in existing
arrangements, the "balance which we must all u,
most anxious to preserve"—in a more comprehens.l hve
and compendious form of words than that nh
drew cheers and approving laughter from the OpP°',
sition when Lord Palmerston was speaking yester
day. We cannot but recommend it as a formula of
the purest and simplest Conservatism drawn bY!.
master hand. Young Tory candidates are sone.
times a little embarrassed in the presence Of .`l_
crowd of non electors, and liable to blunder I.olclo
dangerous advances. Lord Palmerston, insPlrets,
by more than half a century's experience of par
warfare and of cffice, offers them the simplest auto
easiest of arguments for standing still. He Puto
the noble sentiment " Rest and be thankful" 113h't
prose. He assures them that the object we
all to have in view with regard to the electoral frant
chise is to make it fairly represent "all the Kea
interests" of the country. There is no such thing
as political rights of citizenship, except, perhaPh6;
the right of restricting such rights to a sixth of
t e
adult, unconvicted, and sane male population of
th
United Kingdom. Our Whig Premier speaks
Parliament as a " legislative machine" for rePre,
senting " all the great interests" of the count)
while he carefully limits " all the great interest 11
to two—the commercial and the agricultural. .A
the rest is—a blank. The one thing needful lent);
to disturb the balance, as he calls it, by infusing tea
much of the commercial element into the agria's
tural constituencies. Can the purest Tory preyP
sounder doctrine than this? Opposition cheers sal
as plainly as inarticulate language can, " We than
thee for that word." There is not, it seems, t,11„,
same desire for " organic changes," that is, Pat,
mentary reform, that existed some time ago,
has
cause the present House of Commons—which aB
not abolished Church rates, but has enacted a stoa,
t,.
gent game law—has effected all " desirable
turns changes ;;"and because 44 there are also considerao
connected with external affairs tending
abate our anxiety for organic changes." "0
what external affairs this mysterious sentene;
alludes the Premier doth not vouchsafe to tell;
we dare say our readers have occasionally met vitt.o
these views—we believe " views" is the word-salt
leading journals more or less verbally inspired.
would be interesting and instructive to ascertain:
from Lord Palmers, on, on some appropriate ocolle
sion, whether it is the civil war between the sla.ch
states and the free of the American Union schle,o
should abate the desire of English working men,f
be admitted within the pale of the constitution v,
the country, or whether it is the working of a afa
mocr.atic suffrage under a military Government "ci
aneighbouring country—of a suffrage organise i
directed, and controlled by half-a-million ie6
functionaries,. without a free press, without Ptlb'„lf
meetings, without any elementary guarantee ve
independence. Lord Palmerston will some etii
or other explain the analogy which exists in R'a
own mind between the British Constitution an,
the Second Empire in France, and between patl.l,il
9
mentary reform in these islands and a 01'
war for the n't extension and perpetuation '1.6
abolition of negro slavery in North America. Itila
not to be supposed that a veteran statesman shoo;„
treat the House of Commons, on so plain and Prtt,;
tical a subject as the reform of the representatt°":
to empty generalities, which may be the pap of Tort
babes, but not, we would fain hope, the strong nieed
of Whig old women. Let us, however, be just an,fair. There is one considerable difference still 19,e8
tweenonr Liberal Premier and the leaders of tijr
Opposition whose encouraging applause he ne,Te
deserved better than yesterday. We are not rete'„
t
ring—it may be inconvenient to do so—to aWO
hint from the Chancellor of the Exchequer tie
deputation of working men, that he might 131,
something to say shortly on the subject of the es
t
tension of the franchise ; nor do we dwell upon past
pledges and promises of any Liberal Minister;
do we pretend to treat Mr. Locke King's little
annual bill as a subject fcr enthusiasm or invectll,,,, es
But, in fairness to a statesman who has done ,70
much for his party, we would observe that the
reason why Lord Palmerston cannot vote agog)!
Mr. Locke King's bill is not because he supportsl ro
but because ho is unwilling to affirm that he el
not. It cannot but be satisfactory to the 'Aber%
party to confide their destinies to a Minister wh°l;
unwilling to oppose the second reading of a cony',)
franchise extension bill—a Premier so considerate
as to give his vote for the second reading of a bit 0(
a reform bill, which he will he prepared to consider'
but not to support, in committee, and which ie
thrown out within ten minutes after he sits &O.