The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-29 00:00:00

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Times' Correspondent.)
NEW YORK, Dec. 17.

The public anxiety for news of General Sherman
has been relieved by the announcement, on Confe-
derate, and, therefore, unimpeachable authority,
that he has reached the seacoast and taken by
assault Fort M'Allister, commanding the entrance
to Ossibaw Sound, and forming one of the main de•
fences of Savannah. The announcement is simula
taneously made that he has captured Savannah
itself and 11,000 prisoners, after a fight which
lasted eight hours. This news, though generally
credited by the Federal press, is not official, and
rests entirely upon statements made by steamboat
passengers from Charleston Bar, who allege that it
was received by flag of truce just prior to their
departure. Mr Lincoln states, as a fact within his
own knowledge that General Sherman has reached
the Atlantic with 40,000 men, black and white,
more than he started with; and, as the Confedea
rates admit, and the Federals assert, that he has
suffered but little loss, and met with but little real
impediment in his hazardous march, it may be as-
sumed as certain, if he have not already taken Sa.
venue!), that he has commenced the siege. Impor-
tant, if not decisive, news may therefore be hourly
expected from that quarter. In Tennessee both the
news and the rumours are equally unavoidable to
the Confederate cause. General Hood, besieging
Nashville with a force not equal to that opposed to
him, has been attacked and defeated with severe
loss, and forced back, according to the testimony of
General Thomas, in a despatch to Mr Stanton, no
less than eight miles. At Petersburg and Rich.
mond all is quiet, General Grant having attempted
no further movements since the repulse of
General Warren on the Weldon Railway. The
expedition of Admiral Porter, the same that was
destined for Wilmington more than six weeks
ago, and that was ordered to " go in and win" at
any cost before the day of the Presidential election,
and that appears to have been detained in conse-
quence of the sudden determination of Gen. Sher-
man to abandon Atlanta and march through Georgia
to the sea, received final instructions on Tuesday
last, and in the forenoon of that day the Admiral
with his whole fleet sailed under sealed orders to
the southward. Whether the point at which he
aims is Charleston, Savannah, or Wilmington is not
known to the public; but the popular theory fixes
upon Charleston as the most likely place, and pre-
supposes, moreover, that the attack upon that pec-
cant city—" the cradle of the rebellion"—is to be
simultaneous with Sherman's assault upon Savan-
nah. Expectation is intensely excited, though few
persons who have studied the history of tho war, and
understand either the resources or the temper of
the South, are of opinion that the capture of either
or both of those cities will conduce in any percep-
tible degree to the conquest of the Confederacy.
But the Americans are not entirely engrossed
with the war. The sensation created by the Plaos•
phorns Plot for burning down New York having
wholly enbsided—a new sensation has been disco-
vered of a much more piquant nature. The sense.
tion of a grievance against Great Britain is new, yet
old—and ever fresh and agreeable. The newspaper
organs of Mr Seward have found an opportunity
to threaten their favourite foe, and to talk loudly
of annexing Canads and the West India Islands,
and if Great Britain be not particularly humble
and discreet, of detaching Ireland from the British
Crown by the aid of the Fenian brotherhood and of
at least a quarter of a million of sympathising
Yankees. The discharge of the sa- discint Confede-
rate soldiers who, under Lieut. Bennett Young,
robbed the banks, stole the horses, and murdered
the unoffending citizens of the little town of
St. Albans, in Vermont, is the occasion of a hubbub
which for the time being has almost rendered in.
audible the din of war at Savlnnah and Nashville,
and directed the thcughts of an impulsive public to
the always exciting and rarely unpleasant possibi.
lay of a war with England. Though Mr Justice
Coursal. of Montreal, discharged the prisoners on
the technical ground that in a case of extradition
the warrant for the arrest of the criminals ought to
bear the signature of the Governor. General of Ca-
nada, which in this instance had not been affixed, it
suits the purpose of the Administration, if its opi-
nions can be judged by those of the journals and of
the officials who arc generally supposed to write and
,sp39.k tinacr ito ioopirotion, to t. t tho dicm;cc*l as
a denial of justice. Judge Coursal, who is a French
Canadian, and not an Englishman, as most of the
New York papers suppose, is attacked with every
variety of unseemly epithet. No one seams to con.
eider it possible that his law can be correct, or that
his judgment can be honest, and the Tratine goes
so far as to assert as beyond doubt that he set the
raiders at liberty " because they w,re American
rebels, and that political sympathy with them moved
him to resort to a course which can be sustained
neither by law nor reason." And this impudent
charge is made against
.a judge merely because he
would not stretch or misinterpret the law he is called
upon to administer in deference to the inflamed pas-
sions of the Northern Federalists, and because he
has thrown the responsibility of further action upon
what he believes to be an imperial question upon an
imperial officer, who may, moreover, at the very
moment that the discharge of the self-styled Confe-
rate soldiers was made known to him, have issued a
warrant for their recapture. lia less the course of jus-
tice be illegally expedited in one sense, or perverted
in another, to suit the exigencies of the American

temper, never very amiable towards the land whose
language they speak, and whose laws, but not whose
manners or principles, they have inherited, war is
forthwith to be declared, and Canada formally, and
in spite of the Canadians, annexed to the unhappy
family of the Union. Gen. Dix, in his capacity of
Military Governor of New York and New England,
no sooner learnt through the agency of the telegraph
that the raiders had been let loose, than he rushed
into print with a "general order." lie would not
allow the sun to go down upon his wrath, nor wait
to be officially informed of the circumstances, but,
taking the facts as certain, and the discharge of the
prisoners to be an act of hostility to his Government,
he directed his military subordinates on the border,
in ease of any further depredations on American soil
committed by marauders or persons acting on Con-
federate authority, to shoot the perpetrators on the
spot if possible, to follow them into Canada in case
of need, and under, no circumstances to deliver up
their prisoners, but send them to headquarters for
trial by courtemartial. The animus of the order is
apparent, and cannot fail to be offensive to the

Canadian people, who object quite as strongly as
General Dix to the invasion of the Federal States

either by " robbers" or by Confederate soldiers,
who make Canada the basis of their operations.
Lord Monck, the Canadien Governor, and the
Canadian people of all classes and nationalities,

bane alike shown so earnest a desire to do justice to
the Americans, and to act not only as became good
neighbours but good friends, and to avoid all poi•
sible occasion either of dispute or misunderstand.

ing, that an American cfficial of the high rank of
Major-General Dix might well have afforded to
wait the movements of the Canadian Ministry in
tho new case supervening on the judgment of the
interior Court before issuing a proclamation so
likely to provoke ill.feeling, if not hostility. But
it always is or seems to be necessary in America for
politicians, whether in or out of office, to be elm,
ployed in creating political capital, and no capital
of the kind is to be made so easily as by digging in
the deep and apparently inexhaustible mine of hos-
tility to Great Britain. It is admitted that the
order of General Dix, if acted upon by indiscreet or
over-zealous agents on the border, may embroil the
two Governments. " .So may; 'says the New York
Times of this morning ; " but if War with England
must come, le it come, Not ours be the guilt. It
will belong only to E )gtisti malignity and lawless-
ness. We were never ill:1 bettcrcendivien for war
with England than we are now." The New York
1 imes is edited by no obscure rowdy or unprin-
cipled adventurer, bat by a scholar and a profes-
sional politician, a member of Congress, and candi-
date either for the Speakership of the House of
Representatives or for the Embassy to Paris, which-
ever my be the most easily attainable. Yet, unre-
strained by his position, he indulges in rodomonA
trade like this through a whole column ; speaks of
scattering the "red squad" of British soldiers in

Canada like yellow leaves before the whirlwind ;
asserts that the British navy is a "pasteboard
sham" which does not contain a single vessel that
one prime American ironclad could not seed to the
bottom in 15 minutes; affirms that nothing in
Canada could offer serious resistance to the Federal
arms; that the British West India Islands might be
made valuable appendages to the great Republic ;
that Ireland might be detached from or made worth-
less to England ; that half a million of Irishmen in
America only await the glorious opportunity, and
would spring to arms and crowd every transport to
avenge the wrongs of Ireland, on Irish soil, and bet.
ter or worse than all, that the South itself would be
rejoiced to lend a hand in taking revenge against
Great Britain for its selfishness and meanness. The
Americans, however, and Mr Raymond as their
oracle, make a great mistake if they think the bully.
ing policy will be effectual either with Great Bri-
tain or Canada, or if they entertain the idea that
Great Britain is afraid, or that Canada will fall into
their hands whenever they are ready to clutch the
prize they covet. Perhaps they will learn from the
future history of the particular case which has so
stirred their bile that they have excited themselves
unnecessarily, and that the course of British and
Canadian justice will flow in its usual channel, un•
impeded by their bad manners and unhastened by
their violence. Bat though General Dix was pre-
mature, his " order" waffnot without a certain de.
gree of dignity. Not so some proceedings and utter-
ances in the Senate and House of Representatives
with reference to the present and future relations of
the United States and Canada, especially those of a
Mr Zechariah Chandler, now senator for Michigan,
and formerly a dry goods merchant in Detroit. In
other countries a person in the pcaition of a senator,
a member of the Upper House, generally, if not in-
variably, endeavours to present to his countrymen
and the world an example of forbearance and cool
judgment. He remembers that he is a father as well
as a pillar of the State, and is conscious that he
ought to be removed, by age, education, and expes
rience, far beyond the heats and impulses of
younger, less responsible, and less honoured politi.
clans. Bat it is not always so in the United States,
or Mr Chandler—the same person who declared,
more Americana when the South first threatened
secession, "that the Union would not be worth a
cuss without some bloodletting" would never
have been chosen to so high a position. Not con-
tented with the too copious blood-letting which
has reddened the battle-fields of Virginia, Georgia,
Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and
Pennsylvania, Mr. Chandler appears to desire
bloodletting in another direction. In hot haste, and
almost before the telegraphic wires from Montreal
had ceased to click the message which so disteebed
him, he introduced a series of resolutions into the
Senate, in the highest degree irritating to the Cana.
diens and calumniatory both of the Colonial and
the Imperial Government, in which he declared in
face of known facts that the Canadians were disposed
not only as individuals to protect "thieves, robbers,
incendiaries, pirates, and murderers" who invaded
the Federal States, but to shelter them by "quibbles.
of the law." This form of putting the case being
strongly objected to, he forthwith introduced a new
resolution, still more offensively worded, in which,
forgetting for a while his Canadian grievance, be
not only accused the British Government of " pre-
cipitately" recognising the Southern insurgents as
belligerents, but of permitting British subjects and
members of Parliament, " with the full knowledge
of the authorities," to build and equip piratical ves-
sels to prey upon American commerce and to despatch
blockade-runners to provide the rebels with the
means of organising and continuing a rebellion which
without such means could not have maintained itself
for six months. In order that such proceedings should
be stopped for the future and atoned for in the past,
he moved that Mr. Seward should be instructed to
make out a list of all the ships destroyed by the Con-
federates, or, as he preferred to call them, British
pirates, together with a fair and separate valuation
of their cargoes, and to demand payment from the
British Government of the value of the same, with
interest at the rate of 6 per cent. since the day of
capture or destruction, on the penalty of war if such
payment were refused. The Senate had more sense
than its fire-eating member, and the resolutions
were ordered to lie on the table. Nevertheless the
Senate was sufficiently:valiant to recommend the
immediate purchase or construction of half-a.dozen
gunboats to ulv upon Likes Ontario. Erie.Michi,,an.
and Superior, and the house of Representatives
sympathised so fully in the purpose as to coi.firm the
Senate's decision without the shadow of a debate,
and to vote a million of dollars for that purpose,
Having previously given the requisite notice of its
intention to increase its armament• on the Likes—
a notice which it appears will date from the middle
of October—the Federal Government will be able,
long before opening of navigation son the St. Law-
rence, to have as many war ships on the Lakes as it
can buy, construct, or transport in the interval, and
the British Government, unless it have the materials
for ship-building, arming, and Equipping, on the
Canadian shores of the Lakes, will find itself about
the 15th of April with only one vessel upon each
lake to oppose them. Thus the sharp Yankees have
stolen a march upon John Bull, and John Bull, as
far as the Lakes are concerned, will have to submit
to the disadvantage till the St. Lawrence is free of
ice. It is useless to deny or conceal the fact that
there is danger ahead in this direction, and that
although the over-cunning and impulsive fanatics
who for the present control the destinies of the Fe..
deral Republic may not mean actual war with Great
Britain, but only to threaten for their own purposes
without resorting to the ultima ratio of Kings and
democracies, there is so much peril in playing with
such edged tools as to make it the duty of the
British Government to be prepared for all eventu-
alities. Those who live opposite to powder maga-
zineo must have an eye to their fire engines and
water-tanks—and those who would live at peace
with the Americans must be strong enough to be
feared, even if they be disliked and vilified. It is
quite true that the Federal Government has more
than enough on its hands in its war against
the South, and that every true American
statesman will so admit. But American statesmen
are scarce, and worse still, they are not in power.
The men in power,like the people they govern, take
their wishes for facts and their passions for argue
mente, and no foreign statesman can calculate or
predict what they will do in any given set of cir-
cumstances. Possibly, however, the anti-British
war mania may subside as suddenly as it broke out;
but the British Government and people ought not
to forget, either now or hereafter, that the Ameri-
cans hate them ; that they would like to possess
British America, as an off-set for the probable loss
of the South ; that the ignorance of the people with
regard to the strength of Great Britain especially,
and of Europe generally, is only equalled by their
arrogance and presumption ; and that consequently
the only safe methodof keeping on good terms with
them is neither to offer insult nor to brook it, and to
show under all circumstances that, though they
wish to avoid quarrel, they will, if quarrel be forced
upon them, so comport themselves that the aggres-
sor shall receive a lesson which to all future time
shall teach ordinary caution, if it do not teach
common honesty.

The Journal de Nice states that tho Mayor of
that town and three members of the Bureau de Bienfaisance
went last week to the Villa Vigier and presented to its mis-
tress a gold medal as a testimonial of the gratitude of the
poor and of the respect of the municipal administration. On
the obverse of the medal, in relief, are the words—" To
Sophia Cruvelli, Baroness Vigier, the town of Nice and the
Bureau de Bienfa'eancP, 1564;" on the reverse, also in re-
lief, are the arms of Nice. The journal abovernentioned
highly approves of the homage thus rendered to the bene-
factress of the poor, and expresses the hope that her great
talents will again this year be exercised in their benefit.
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Railway and other Companies.

WATFORD AND RICKMANSWORTH.

The adjourned half..yearly meeting of this com-
pany was held yesterday at the office, Bedford•
street, Strand; Lord Ebury in the chair.
Mr A. FORBES, the secretary, read the report,
which stated that the adjournment of the meeting
from August last to the present date had enabled
the directors to make such preliminary arrange.
ments as would, they hoped, release the Watford
and Rickmansworth Railway from the financial
and other difficulties in which it had been placed
since the opening of the line. These arrangements,
the directors trusted, would bo fully carried out by
March next, when they proposed to hold the next
half-yearly meeting, and submit a full statement of
the company's affairs. They now proposed to ask
the sanction of the proprietors to raising additional
share capital of £30,000 on 5 per cent. preference
shares, chiefly to meet liabilities of the company
and costs of construction.

Mr BARNES said it was the first meeting of the
company he had attended, and expressed the disape
pointment he felt at the state of the company's
anirs.

The CHAIRMIN explained the difficulties with
which the directors had had to contend in so far
carrying out the undertaking, but he trusted that
the future would be more satisfactory. The direr•
tors had advanced large sums to carry on the works,
eo that the London and North Western might work
and maintain the line for 50 per cent. of the re-
ceipts. He concluded by moving the adoption of
the report, which was seconded by Mr. Carey and
carried ; the directors were authorised to issue the
new capital in 5 per cent. preference shares to the
amount of £30,000 ; and the retiring directors, Mr.
Carey and the Hon. Mr. Capel, were re-elected.
On the motion of Mr. Barnes, a vote of thanks to
the chairman concluded the proceedings.