The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-28 00:00:00

deed, only a few weeks since—hit it, as
one may say, just exactly between wind and
water—where he depicted the ideal Goddess of
France in her atelier painting Mr. JOHN BULL'S
portrait in the character of an AT &as Conspirator—
a scowl on the stout old gentleman's brow,
revolvers and bowie knives thrust in his girdle, a
guerilla•like sombrero on his pate, the smear_of a
brigand-like moustache upon his upper lip. And
all the while—confronting Gallia—there was Mr.
JOHN BULL himself, in the flesh, very substantially
in the flesh, giving her goddesship a sitting with an
ineffable smirk upon his lips, looking, in fact, as
sheepish as any old bell-wether on his downs, as
harmless, in truth, as any unweaned calf in his
farm yard. That—as plainly as pincil could put it
01 boxwood—was literally the English of it! Yet,
while we ourselves know the fact of the matter to
be just as we are here putting it into words from
a remembrance of the good humoured satire drawn
by the most gifted of all our political caracaturists
—we know perfectly well also that such is our
national reputation on the continent, that hardly
any people in Europe will give it credence, even
partial credence. And certainly it must be con-
fessed we have here in England been blundering,
time after time, of late, or at any rate we have
been allowing our statesmen eo to blunder re-
peatedly into false positions—yielding thereby a
sort of an excuse to the more cynical of our tradu-
cers on the continent. Things, in fact, have so
fallen out here, not once or twice, but repeatedly—
that afforded a kind of a colourable reason to the
base insinuations of sinister motives and dark
underhand designs on the part of our Government.
Immediately before GARIBALDI'S coming to
England, for example, there was a certain member
of our Administration, a subordinate one, no doubt,
(though he did vaunt himself a Minister of the
Crown)—but, however subordinate his position, still
a Member of the Administration -- who was
detected not merely as being an intimate friend for
many years past of MAzzlacl's, not merely as being
a sympathiser with, and an eulogiser of, MAZZINI,
but as one directly mixed up with MAZZINI in his
Secret Correspondence, the Secret Correspondence
of a man notorious all over Europe as an
Arch- Conspirator. That came to light—that was
dragged to light—with difficulty at first, but fully
and clearly in the end—not in any obscure corner
of London, bat within the House of Commons itself
—immediately before the recent arrival in this
country of General GARIBALDI. And, then—after
all this extraordinary manifestation of en-
thusiasm in favour of GARlBALDl—another
Minister of the Crown, one who, by his posi•
tion, no less than by his own personal
importance is entitled to be so defined, is detected
(that ie really the word for it), is at first with some
difficulty, but afterwards quite clearly, found out
to have been, on the sly, "hinting" a reason,
"hesitating" a cause for GARIBALDI'S hasty depar-
ture from Landon, on the spur of the moment, from
England immediately afterwards—just upon the
eve of the opening of the sittings of the Confe-
rence! Proceedings of this kind, whether on the
part of an ex-Junior Lord of the Admiralty or
on the part of a Chancellor of the Exchequer, are,
certainly (there can bo no denying this at least) not
above board— and, therefore, it need hardly be
added, are not worthy of any member (great or
little) of her Britannic MAJESTY'S Government.
Conscious of these kind of unlucky facts, our more
cynical observers on the Continent will not un. '
naturally, under the circumstances, ba putting
their own construction upon the wording of this
Address of Farewell to England, this Address
penned at the moment of his departure from
o ur shores by General GARIBALDI.

Lord CHELMSFORD'S observations on the subject
of the law of Prizes were very much to the purpose,
andjust at the present time seem very appropriate•
It is very important that all who are well qualified
to give an opinion upon such topics should come
forward at triis juncture and lend their aid to the
disentanglement of a subject which concerns so
many persons, and relates to such varied interests,
It is only when men of mark come forward that the
authorities will condescend to pay any attention to
the eager and expectant individuals who want to
know what is going forward, and are very anxious
to see some changes wrought in the system. The
correspondence concerning the Tuscaloosa was the
groundwork of Lord CHELMSFORD'S discourse, and
he very ably demonstrated the fallacies of the ex-
pressions made use of by our Government in the
course of the discussion. Certainly our Minis:,e„
do not meet with much encouragement s:a their
public9.tion of despatches and bestowr1
of corress
pondeace. There is always some o-de to get up and
declaim against the want of s';irit that they have
displayed in dealing with t.'ois potentate, or to des-
cant upon the illegality of their claims and the false
nature of their polecy. Be these strictures true or
not in a genreal sense, it is certain that Lord
CHELatsFOF.D made good his case against the powers
that be. He asked whether the Government had
rece;ied their instructions, which was about as
strong a hint as he could give that they were of a
class suicidal in policy and ruinous in character to
those who had sent them forth. No one could have
put a case more strongly than did Lord CHELMS-
FORD in showing the illegality practised by our
Government in their actions with the Tuscaloosa
from the outset. It is a very good thing to let this
subject engross the thoughts and occupy the atten-
tion of the House and public for a brief period again
before the whole question is cast into the limbo of
things forgotten. Unwise and incomprehensible as
has been the conduct of our Government through-
out the whole course of the American war, the
Tuscaloosa case stands prominently forward
as an example of inconsistency, harshness,
and injudiciousness. From first to last
there have been a doubt and hesitation
and an utter want of proper feeling exhibited
that must prejudice our country in the eyes of
foreign nations, and militate against the appearance
of corsisteucy which we ought to maintain in our
relationships to belligerent Powers. Why the
Tuscaloosa should have been interfered with at all
ie a question that may very naturally be asked by
the ignorant, and the well-informed may re-echo
with double earnestness and energy, The injudi-
cious interference, and the most unwarrantable
intrusion created an awkward situation, and
formed a dilemma ready made, as it were, into
which our infatuated authorities plunged them-
selves double deep, and for all the subsequent cone
fusions that environed them, and for all the attens
dant annoyances and mortifying retractationa they
had but themselves to thank. So far as anyone
can make a sequence to the story or draw a moral
from the tale, it was a case of unjust seizure, and
shameful spoliation of the rights of others, fol-
lowed
,by timid retractation, and undignified re-
scinding of orders. As Lord CHELMSFORD forcibly
put the case, the previous instructions must have
been either right or wrong. "If they were wrong,
her MAJESTY'S Government need have felt no
humiliation in admitting their error, and making
an apology, and it would further have been an act
of generosity to which the C infederates were en.
tirely unaccustomed." Lord CHELMSFORD went on
to show the mistake made in the line of pk-ocedure
adopted by the Government, if their instructions