The Sun.
London, England, 1864-12-30 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TEE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—President Lincoln thought it necessary
to remark, in his Message, upon " the insecurity of
life and property in the region adjacent to the
Canadian border by reason of assaults of despera-
does committed by inimical and desperate persona
who were harboured there." To this observation,
however, he candidly added, "I desire to be under..
stood, while making this statement, that the colo.
nial authorities of Canada are not deemed to be in•
ternationally unjust or unfriendly to the United
Slates ; but, on the contrary, there is every reason
to expect that with the approval of the Imperial
Government they will take the necessary measures
to prevent new incursions across the border." It is
fortunate that we can contrast this frank and tem-
perate language with the proclamation of General
Dix and the Resolutions just offered on the sub•
ject in the Federal Senate. In Congress we are
charged with complicity in assassination and pillage,
while a military commander threatens our terri-
tories with invasion ; but the Chief of the Re-
public does justice both to Canada and to England,
and we gladly receive his views as those which time
and reason will commend to the American people,
The subject which has thus acquired so unex-
pected interest is certainly a difficult one. Our
colony of Canada, lying north of the Federal• States,
was commonly regarded by the people of the old
Union as a prize which would some day or other
fall to their share. In their estimation, the privi-
leges of American citizenship were so great that
they believed the Canadians must be anxious to
acquire them at the first opportunity, and if they
talked little about conquest it was because they
then anticipated an equivalent consummation
by a more pacific and natural course of events.
Bat the Civil War destroyed these agreeable
expectations. The sanguinary convulsions of the
American Republic inspired the Canadians with
a due sense of their own blessings, and a decided
preference of their town political lot, so that from
easy friends and presumed admirers they became
critical and unsympathising neighbours. Presently
indeed the course of colonial opinion took a tarn
still More offensive to the Federals, for there arose
a feeling in favour of the South, which was quick-
ened and confirmed by the violent bearing of the
North. On every suggestive occasion the Canadians
heard themselves threatened with invasion end
subjugation, and were told in plain terms that they
should be made to expiate the imaginary crimes of
this Government by undergoing the indignities of
military conquest. These jars, however, might have
passed harmlessly away had it not been for the
proceedings of American refugees on Canadian soil.
The frontier towns of Canada have been made the
resort of characters not unjustly described in the
strong words of the Federal President, "Inimical
and desperate persons," genuine " desperadoes,"
swarm along the frontier, and it is admitted even by
Confederate organs of 3pinion that among them are
men capable of any audacity or violence. Many of
them, it is true, are objects of compassion, being
men who have seen their homesteads ravaged, their
property plundered, and perhaps their kinsfolk slain
by hostile armies; but many also, we are told, are
men who have evaded military service with the
Southern forces, and have betaken themselves to
the British colony for the chances of the asylum.
President Lincol❑ betrays a little asperity when
he speaks of these people as " harboured" in our
territory, but he must know full well that it eon.
slats neither with British nor American policy to
rej -ct such visitors. We can only insist on
their conforming to law and abstaining from
offence during the term of their sojourn, and it is
upon this point that the present difficulty occurred.
Nobody can deny that a most unjustifiable outrage
was organised and perpetrated upon Americans
from our soil. A party of raiders, as they are
mildly termed, crossed the Canadian frontier and
committed acts of the mast flagrant atrocity in the

town of St. Albans, It would be hard to allow that
any political pretext could divest such acts of their
criminal character. To aesert that a commission
from the Canfederate Government gave a license
for such deeds is to confess a most scandalous offence
against international law. Either these "raiders"
were mere brigands, or, being duly commissioned
by their own authorities, they organised from our
neutral territory a hostile expedition against a
friendly State. All this may be said, bat to say,
as the Americans say now, that the Canadian Judge
who doubted his own jurisdiction in the case either
strained or peryerted the law out of sympathy with
the " rebels" and hatred to the North, is the mere
extravagance of passion. None keow better than
the Federals themselves what difficulties are exile,
rienced in questions like these, and how frequensly
the action of cours of law disappoints the eager
ness of popular expectation. They may depend
upon it that neither in Canada nor here is there
any desire to encourage or protect such persons es
the St. Albans raiders; but the course of law is the
best path to follow. Nothing has been mere re-
markable throughout the whole of this contest them
the inconsistency of the Kderals in the attitudes
they assume towards this country. At one moment
they arc irrationally alarmed at the idea of our
intervention ; at , another, with equal unreason,
they provoke this very intervention by gratuitous
defiance. The Chief Magistrate of the Republic
has publicly recorded the thankfulness of the people
for their escape from foreign war, when no such
war, except by their own causing, was in the least
degree probable. Yet upon the slightest pretext,
however unsubstantial, the Americans are ready to
challenge this war, to proclaim it themselves, and
to declare the extremities to which they will carry
it. What war with England would really mean
they know better than we could tell them. They
know that it formed the chief hope of the South in
resolving on secession. Their own Minister has

just told us that even such a contraband intercourse
with the South as a rigorous observance of neu-
trality on our part cannot prevent has been suffi-
cient to "promote and protract the war." The very
Senator who brought his inflammatory resolutionk
before Congress asserted that but for this intercourse
the contest could net have beeu maintained for six
months. We gre not quoting these opinions for
their truth, but for their bearing upon the great
question of war or peace. If the mere specula.
tive sympathies of political observers or the
smuggling of cargoes through the blockade can
exercise such an influence o❑ the fortunes of the
war, what would be the result if the whole power
of England were thrown really into the balance ?
War between America and England would be',
simply the most formidable intervention in behalf
of the South which Mr Jefferson Davis could desire,
and we especially recommend this point to the
consideration of Americans, as perhaps not uncon-
nected with the very question before us. It has
been long surmised that the Confederate agents in
their various operations have been rather allured
than deterred by the prospects of international em-
broilment arising from their schemes. If, besides
escaping with a cruiser or plundering a bank, they
could bring a powerful enemy on the back of their
foe, it would be an enormous gain. Perhaps some
of them are now looking at the St. Albans raid
with hopes of this kind, and, if so, it would be much
wiser to disappoint them than to play their game.
The Federals may assure themselves that not even
the capture of Nashville, nor the defeat of Sherman,
would gratify the South half as much as that
rupture with this country which certain Northern
politicians are incessantly advising.
POST.—Whether the rumour of the fall of Savan•
nah is founded on fact or not, Sherman has already
done enough to establish his fame as a skilful, ori-
ginal, and, above all, a successful general. How-
ever the war may terminate, and however singular
may be the episodes which it will yet furnish to
history, the grand march of the Federal army through
the heart of Georgia in the winter of 1864 must
ever possess an almost paramount claim to remem-
brance. Viewed strategically, General Sherman's
tactics may be said to be unprecedented in the
annals of warfare, because in the only instance of
a parallel nature which can be discovered the
motives dictating so hazardous a movement were
different. If Sherman's communications had been
cut off when he was in occupation of Atlanta, and
if any serious obstacles had opposed themselves
to his retracing his steps through Tennessee,
then in self-defence ho might, as a sole chance of
saving his army, have pushed his way southwards
towards the sea. But this was not so. Hood, it
is true, was enabled at times with the forces under
his command in Tennessee to threaten the Federal
line of communications; but for all practical pur-
poses the Northern general was always able to
obtain everything of which he stood in need, and
was free to move his army in any direction he
p:eased. His advance through Georgia was there-
fore purely voluntary, and was, so far as we are in
a position to judge, dictated by the hopes of captur.
ing the principal towns on his line of march, of de..
vastating the country,and finally of being able,with
the sea as a base of operations, to employ his army
to better advantage than he could have dote by re-
maining in Northern Georgia, The risks which he
incurred were considerable, and indeed such as would
have deterred most men from undertaking such an
enterprise. Abandoning his base of operations he
was obliged to provide his army with supplies suffi-
cient for a march of probably sib weeks, and was

compelled to guard as he best could against any of
those thousand contingencies which might compel
him to abandon his undertaking and once more turn
Ilia face toward the North. Ignorant of the country
he was to traverse and of the force which his oppo-
nents might be enabled to employ against him, he
had to trust principally to the supposed superiority
of his army and to the good fortune which prover-
bially attends the enterprising. His anticipations
and his a-pirationa have both been redlined ; tied
now, after a march occupying just four weepy, and
as it would eeeio withet“ having encountered and'
serious opposition, he has established the much de-
sired communication between his army and the
Federal fleet. The details of Sherman's late opera'
tions are now before us, and dismissing as unrelt'
able the report of the fall of Savannah, it is este*
blishea beyond doubt that on the 14th of the present
month the Federal army had taken up a strong
position on the south west of the town and had
captured an important fort on the Ogeechee River,
six miles from the point where it falls into the Bea.
Advancing along the left bank of the river Sher-
man was enable,!, apparently without opposition,
to extend the left wing of his army until it must
have closely approached to the Savannah River,
and by teis means secured the command of all
the communications with the town from the
north and west. Three lines of railway leave
Savannah, one passing in a westerly direction to
Albany, and crossing the Ogeechee River at Fort
M'Allister. The second is the Central Georgian
Railway, which follows the left bank of the Ogeechee
till it reaches Milien,and the third is that which leads
to Charleston. The first two of these lines are ie
the hands of Sherman ; and as the third pursues a
northerly course for a few miles on the Georgian
bank of the Savannah before crossing that river, it
is not improbable that the left wing of his army
may have taken possession of it. The aproaches to
Savannah from the Georgian side are therefore in
the command of the Federal general. The efforts
made by Foster to intercept the communications
between Savannah and Charleston have, however,
failed, and, so far as we can wither from the intellie
brought by the last mail, the Confederates will not
be precluded from sending reinforcements to Savan-
nah, if they are fortunate enough to have them at
their disposal. The fate of that town, if not already
decided, will depend chi( fly on the force which the
Confederates will be enabled to employ in its des
fence. Although Sherman's march through Georgia
was unexpected, it would be a great mistake to sup'
pose that the Confederate Government have taken
no precautions against an attack from the land side.
Strong fortifications have been raised since the bee
gnning of the war, and it only remains to be seen
whether those fortifications can be manned with
troops sufficiently numerous to withstand the as-
saults of the army before whose prowess Atlanta
tell. The junction effected between Sherman and
the Federal squadron is not the only piece of intelli'
gence unfavourable to the Confederates which
reaches us by the present mail. An engagement
has taken place between the Federal army under
the command of Thomas occupying Nashville, and
the Confederate forces which, under Hood, have
recently laid siege to that town. The Federal
general reports that on the 14th of the present
month he attacked the left wing of the Confederate
army, driving it from its entrenchments, and cape
wring one thousand prisoners and sixteen guns,
besides several trains, The Confederates did not
succeed in regaining their lost ground, and on the
following day the attack was renewed by the
Federal general. The engagement is stated by
General Thomas to have lasted the entire day, and
to have terminated in the complete route of the
Confederate army. Hood is said to have been
driven from his entrenched position outside Nesh•
%elle, and between 3,000 and 5,000 prisoners, and
30 or 40 pieces of cAnnon, are alleged to have fat"
len into the Federal hands. When we call to
mind that on the recent occasion when Thomas
was defeated in a pitched battle by Hood, and
compelled to retreat to Nashville, his official re'
port to the Government at Washington described
the result of the engagement as a victory for the
Federal arms, we may be excused for hesitating to
attach implicit credence to the account now before
us. Making every allowance for the known men'
dacity of Federal generals, it is, however, scarcely
possible that a report such as that made by Gen:
Thomas should be forwarded to his Government if
some serious reverse had not been sustained by the
besieging army. The next mail will probably bring
us the details of these operations, and meanwhile
we must suspend our judgment on their possible
result. If Hood has in truth suffered so seriously,
the siege of Nashville must be raised, and the
Confederate general may esteem himself fortunate
if he is enabled to withdraw in safety the remains
of his discomfited army. The Confederate version
will, however, not improbably place a different
colouring upon the entire affair.