The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIM ES.—We have recently received very interest-
ing information with regard to the important events
which are transpiring in a remote corner of the
American contirent, to which public attention, na-
turally preoccupied by occurrences in that part of
the American continent which lies nearer to Europe
and of which Europe knows most, has been little
directed. The remote province of Louisiana, situated
on the western side of the Mississippi, and cut off by
the capture of New Orleans and by the successes of
General Grant from the rest of the American con-
tinent, has just been the scene of one of the most
decisive victories which have occurred in the course
of a civil war already sanguinary beyond all former
record. It seems that General Banks set forth on a
campaign, the object of which was nothing less than
to seize upon a vast quantity of cotton, and by
means of this article of commerce, now as much in
demand as gold itself, to relieve Mr. Chase from his
present perplexities with regard to the unruly up-
ward tendency of the gold market. The history
of the expedition reads something like a duplicate
of poor Braddock's unfortunate aovance to Fort
Duquesne. Firmly persuaded that there was no
enemy within 60 miles, the General advanced in
loose and straggling array. The cavalry, nearly
6,000 strong, together with the art'llery and a
waggon train, were advancing between two woods
five miles ahead of the infantry, when they were
sharply attacked by the Confederates on each side
of the road, and, although bravely supported by the
infantry, fled, carrying them away in their disorder.
In the next day's battle the Federals claimed a
success which was marred, they say, by an order
from Banks to retreat, and ended in the abandon-
ment of the wounded and one of the most dastardly
flights which have disgraced the Federal records.
The victory seems to have been signal and com-
plete. The Federal army was not only beaten, but
thoroughly demoralised, end a division which was
coming up to General Banks was, as usual in cases
of such un-looked disaster, exposed to the utmost
risk of being cut off. What makes this defeat more
provoking is that in order to make up the army
which has thus signally failed the posts on the
Mississippi were weakened, Fore: Pillow lost, and
Memphis seriously endangered. It. is not wonder-
ful that so important a success should have given
rise to speculations on the possibility of obtaining
peace, end developed certain Southern sympathies
and antipathies which we have long foreseen, but
of which we have hitherto had no very direct evi-
deece. It seems that the South regards the West
with far less aversion than the East, and that
people even go so far as to start the idea that it
might be possible to arrange a reunion from which
the Eastern Staten should alone be excluded. It
may easily be imagined that the present monstrous
proceedings
in Congress, by which it is sought to
double the import duties for two months, is not
favourably received, and that such an event fulls
like fire on fuel en the Southern and Western
people, and tends powerfully to develope an
ap-
proiimation to which other circumstances are
gradually leading. Meanwhile the North seems to
have carried its point with regard to the abolition
of slavery. The planters in Louisinia, at any rate,
are convinced that it is impossible to return to the
state of things which existed before the war, and
are most creditably endeavouring to set negroes to
I work by making them an allowance of food and
clothing, together with a portion of the crop for
compensation. This scheme, however, is grievously
thwarted by the proceedings of that great champion
of the black race, General Banks, who as our readers
know, has got a scheme of his own for emancipating
negroes by holding them to forced labour and depriv-
ing them of that assistance in illness and old age which
they used to derive from the kindness of their mas-
ters. The result of all this is that within the juris-
diction of General Banks cultivation is almost at a
standstill. The planters feel relieved in msraylcases
by the desertion of negroea. in order to support
whom they had reduced themselves to the barest
necessaries of life; and the indiscriminate plunder
of cotton, even when found in the hands of loyal
holders, has occasioned very recently the destruc-
tion of some 80,000 bales, which might, if matters
had been conducted with reasonable fairness and
good sense, have found their way into the possession
of the Northern General for no unreesonable price.
Altogether the administration of Louisiana, civil
and military, presents a pietare of incapacity and
blunders such as one could hardly believe possible,
even where fanaticism is joined to incapacity and
both are united to dishonesty, for this element also
is not wanting. Just as Napoleon, after having
stirred Heaven and earth to keep British goods out
of the Continent of Europe, then turned suddenly
round and sought to turn an honest penny by sell.
ing licenses to violate his own laws; so we find, to
say
the very traffic least of it, a very profitable driven
in the Now Orleans Custom-house in "permits,''
under which goods are conveyed to points 4111 the
river with a view of introducing them into the Cane
federate lines. The cost is great, about a third of
the invoice of goods; but the prices realisen by qui-
nine for instance, which the humanity of the Nor-
thern Government withhold from its fever stricken
adversary, cover all outgoing and and leave a
handsome profit: The Federal gunboats on the
one side and the guerilla bands which are in arms
against the Federals on the other are actively
employed in this traffic, each party being neon..
cited to this deviation from duty by a share of the
plunder. The namee:of persons high in office are
freely mentioned as concerned in this exceptional
commerce, and there seems some foundation for the
assertion of a high official, himself exempt from all
corrupt influences, that all the refined rascality of
the United States has been concentrated upon the
Mississippi River. In the meanwhile the Govern-
ment of General Banks,after having restored slavery
itself in an aggravated form, is setting up, it would
seem, a species of small slave trade of its own.
Negroes having no ostensible moans of living are
seized upon, locked up, and supplied to enterprising
Northern squatters who have taken possession of
abandoned estates, at the rate of 10 dollars a head.
Such is the picture of Louisiana under the degene-
ratinginfluence of the Government which would
have us believe that it is carrying on a bloody and
destructive war mainly for the sake of negro race
and the doctrines of a sensitive philanthropy. The

Southern planters may be excutel if they feel
rather indignant when they find themselves ex-
pelled from their estates', and turned adrift upon
tae world, even, eely in the interest of those slaves
for whom the sympathies of the North are so ten-
derly interested. It must he with singular feelings
that they behold the re-estab'ishment on the ruins
of their fernier prosperity, not only of a system of
slavery retaining all the harsher features of that
odious institution, but unredeemed by maintenance
sickness and old age, on which alone the mind of
any man of benevolence could rest with the slightest
satisfaction. Singularly, too, must they be affected
on beholding the revival of the slave trade in the
shape of a traffic carried on by the Government in
their own fugitive negroes. We also cannot feel
wholly unmoved when we turn from the description
which we have given above of the manner in which
the Confederates are supplied with the necessaries of
life iu exchange for cotton, which is furnished to the
exigencies of the Northern Government, and com-
pare this relaxation of their own rules in their own
favour, and the circumstances of pecuniary cur
ruption with which it is attended, with the rigid
exclusion of this same article from the markets
of Western Europe. While the American Govern-
ment is denouncing us as little better than pirates
and outlaws for the attempts of individual mer-
chants to run the blockade, we have the satisfac-
tion of seeing that they have no objection to run
the blockade on their own account, and to turn
an honest penny by selling to their own citizens
exemption from the prohibition which they have
created: They have brought to perfection the art
of tempering justice with mercy. Justice requires
that the Confederates should be absolutely excluded
from intercourse with the rest of the world; but
mercy steps in and qualifies the Draconian severity
of the rule by an exception in favour of those who
are willing to pay handsomely for it. Virtue is
said to be the mainstay of republics. If this be so,
we may easily calculate the probable duration of
republican institutions in the State of Louisiana.
HERILD.—Has Denmark any real claim to the
assistance of England in her present conflict with
Germany ? In espousing one side or another in
such an argument men are led as much by their
wishes as by any abstract sense of right. Of the
latter they may be dimly conscious, or so uncertain
that they willingly commit themselves to the
guidance of a more intelligible motive. Thus
those in whom a sense of self-interest predomi-
nates are for taking one view of this matter; those
whose generosity is stronger are for the other
alternative. As in most political questions, there
is:much to be said on both sides. On the side of
prudence it is argued that we have not committed
ourselves to the Danes by any distinct promise or
guarantee ; that we are not bound to Denmark
by any alliance, offensive or defensive ; that
however painful to our feelings it may be
that we have to witness the spoliation of a
small kingdom with which we are on friendly
terms, it is better to condone the wrong than to
endanger our prestige by entering alone into the
lists with two powerful nations, and excite a gene-
ral war of possibly indefinite duration in vindica-
tion of they title to two insignificant provinces,
which, after all, are German. ,This argument,
weighty as it may seem, is but a selfish argument.
It is not likely to prevail in the end, as it makes no
account of feeling which is more potent than reason
in directing the actions of nations and of men. The
honour of the country is not taken into calculation ;
the maintenance of her position in the front rank of
the Powers is postponed to a timid apprehension of
her present safety ; the blundering of our statesmen
is made an excuse for desertion of a kingdom that
for some time past has looked to us for advice and
guidance, and has been regarded by the rest of the
world as under our protection. if it should yet
turn out that this unfortunate dispute can be
settled without an appeal to arms, we should be the
Dist to advocate a resort from which we would fain
escape if it were possible. We are most unwilling
to add, by irritating arguments or appeals to pas-
sion, to the widespread and growing impatience of
the people of England, who are sick of being trifled
with and insulted by the spokesmen of nations which
they have been accustomed to regard as their infe-
riors. The German Powers must be convinced by
certain late demonstrations that Englishmen are
getting by degrees into a dangerous mood, that if
they are wise in dm they will consent to any mo-
derate terms of accommodation that may be pro-
posed by the Congress. If they will not take a hint
they will have themselves to thank for the conse-
quences, and they will find that England is not ex-
actly that toothless o:c1 matron whom Char ivari has
depicted and Frenchmen have laughed at, who has
muzzled her lion and put corks on the points of her
trident. The moderate tone adopted by the Danish
newspaper press shows that the wide constitu-
tional liberty which has been granted to the
Danish people has not been abused by political
writers in their country. The articles in
Dtgbladet, the Daily News of Copenhagen, would
do credit to any journal in Europe, in point of
ability, and are marked by a common sense and
calmness which are rarely found amid the excite-
ment of an absorbing and irritating struggle
such as that in which the Danes are at present
engaged. The arguments by which that paper
urges upon England the obligation of assisting
Denmark against Germany are as nearly as
possible identical with those which we have so
often put forward. In an article published
in the issue of the 11th instant the writer
begins by taking up the broad ground that
all the powers signataries to the Treaty of 1852
were bound to make common cause to resist its
infraction, as that treaty was part of the public law
of Europe. It is known that the other great
Powers do not consider it their duty to maintain
the treaty by arms; but it does not follow because
they have come to this conclusion, that we are quit
of the obligation. The Danish paper endeavours to
convince us that we are committed in a special and
peculiar manner. How does it prove this point ?
It might have been thought that sonic claim would
have been founded on the dynastic union so lately
and happily consummated between the two Royal
houses. But Daybladet magnanimously throws aside
this argument as one of pure sentiment, and having
no further weight. It agrees with Lord Palmerston
that "kingdoms have no cousins," or it sets the alli-
ance of the Princess Royal as a makeweight against
that of the Princess Alexandra, Little as foreign na-
tions may suppose that the English people is apt to be
moved by sentimental considerations, we suspect,
for our part, that the marriage of the Prince of
Wales has excited among all ranks of the subjects
of our Queen an interest in Danmark and her King
which nothing else could have arous«l. If it had
been Prussia that was attacked the people of Eng-
land would have thought of their Princess Royal;
but it is one thing to fly to the rescue of one whom
we love and reverence, another thing to back up
the relatives of such ay. one in a career of ruthless
aggression and triumphant wrong. Dismissing
this matter as becomes a serious po'itician,
the Danish journalist reminds us that English
statesmen have for some years past taken a lead-
ing share in the conduct of the dispute between
Denmark and the German Powers. The letters
that have been written by them on this subject
make together a very bulky blue book.
England might, had she chosen it, have been a
passive spectator—she might have recommended
conciliation in general terms. When it came to an
outbreak sbe might hare loft the two parties to fight
it out with some show of grace. This was not, how-
ever, the line of her policy. In 1857 and 1858 she
assumed, by choice, the foremost place in the nego-
ciations between Denmark and the Diet. She gave
us gent advice to Germany at one time, at another
exerted pressure on Danmark. "The result," says
the Danish writer, " was to weaken our position, to
injure our cause, to arouse among us expectations
which aro now coldly declared to be illusions."
The Danes followed all the counsel given them,
but England shifted her ground as she encoun.
tered German opposition, and Lord Russell went
to the length at last of inditing the famous
despatch of September, 1862, recommending the
submission and capitulation of Denmark. Lord
Palmerston speaks too flatteringly of this re-
markable document when he styles it as " of his-
toriea 1 importance without practical interest." There
is no doubt that this letter was the chief cause of
the bold advance since made by the German Powers,
which has had so disastrous an issue for Denmark,
and has :sent our diplomacy to the right about. By
urging her to yield point after point Lord Russell has
led Denmark into the snare ; by suggesting to her
fresh encroachments he has given heart of grace to
Qertnanyl and furnished her with an argument
against lattnseif and his policy. " The reproaches
which we address to England," says the Dane, " cen-
tre themselves in reality on Lord Russell. His super.
ficial ignorance, his unreliable attitude, his utter
want of neer, reset tipou the
Governw to which
he belongs and the country in
ent
whose name he
speaks." The only politicians who have been able
to be found, he says, in the ranks of tilh
to understand aright the Dano-German
oqucaGrnrsealravrae.
five party. But It was Lnrd Palmerston who said,
H independence
of July 23 of the last year, that
and ependence
of Denmark was attacked she would not be left to
fight alone. Having under take a the chief conduct
of this quarrel we
cannot suffer it to be settled in
defiance of our sense of right;
ad-
vice if they
the Danes to lean abide by our having encouraged
upon us, and
Wished to '
obtain our help in time of
need, we cannot desert them now, or consent to the
partition of their kingdom at the demand of Gel,
many.

AUSTRIAN SQUADRON.—DEAL, Nlay 16.—A line
of battle ship, a frigate, a ram, with two gunboats, passed
from west to east outside the Goodwii ork tho 15th, sup-
posed to be an Austrian septadrou,