The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-06 00:00:00

DENM

(iron& the Times' Special Correspondent lately at the
Danish Headquarters.)

COPENHAGEN, June 1.

The Austro•Prussians are coming down by dee
grees from the lofty, overbearing attitude they had
assumed in the invaded province of Jutland, and it
is to be hoped that the stable will be shut when the
steed is stolen, and all the conditions of the armis-
tice will be observed on their part just as the sus-
pension of hostilities is about to terminate and its
terms to be annulled on the 10th inst. The seques-
trations which had been laid on private property
after the 12th of last month have all been raised;
not so those that had been effected at an earlier date.
Many of the merchants' stores and warehouses
which had been struck by this arbitrary measure
are still locked up and sealed, to the utter interrup-
tion of trade, and the impending bankruptcy of the
owners. The goods thus seized are chiefly dry
goods and woollen manufactures.
The Inspector of the Castom-house at Aarhuus,
who, as I informed you in one of my foregoing
letters, had been arrested for having, in the dis-
charge of his office, raised the duties on some goods
imported across the frontier by the Prussian army
contractors, was kept in durance for ten days. The
Prussian General Vogel von Falkenstein, chief of
Marshal Wrangel'a staff, had condemned him to
three days' " imprisonment on bread and water."
The Inspector, an old man, past 65 years of aga,
submitted to this punishment rather than refund the
duty without an express order of the higher autho-
rities ; but, upon the matter being referred to the
Danish Royal Commissioner, he, out of considera-
tion for the old man's infirmities, sanctioned the
repayment of the duty. The Inspector was thus
set at liberty, after 20 hours' experience of his
Pythagorean diet and General Falkenstein thus
obtained the most ample satisfaction he fancied
himself entitled to.
Other arrests have been made in the districts of
Aalborg. You are aware that the invaders from
the beginning deemed themselves entitled to take
the telegraphic establishment into their hands; and
in some localities they removed the wires and all
other apparatus. Since they undertook the man-
agement of that branch of administration some of
the wires have been cut, and this seems to have been
the case in a village near Aalborg. It is not said
whether the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, or
the soldiers themselves, were the perpetrators of the
outrage ; but Marshal Wrangel had placed the wires
under the care and responsibility of the respective
municipal authorities, and in the event of the wires
being damaged, he threatened to apply to the lat-
ter all the rigours of martial law. Upon the strength
of that order the Sogneuoged (or parish magistrate)
of the village in question was summoned to Aalborg,
and thrown into gaol, till such time as he could
point out the unknown offender. Two of the towns-
people (a butcher and a tailor) have also been
arrested on no alleged ground; probably as suspected
of complicity in the deed. These may seem com-
paratively trifling matters, but they show, on the
part of the Prussian military authorities, a determi-
nation to overstep the limits of the power assigned
to them by the terms of the armistice, as if in
contempt or the Plenipote.ntieries who drew up that
improvident convention. Be it borne in mind that
the Jutle.nders complain but little, if at all, of the
behaviour of the common soldiers quartered among
them. Both Prussians and Austriaes, but more
especially the latter, show themselves well disci-
plined, highly civilised beings. 11l usage is, in this
case, the deliberate act of the superior officers, who,
probably, only follow up the instructions received
from their Government. The fact is, the Prussians
can hardly realise the stunning fact that their troops
have, after half a century of inglorious leisure, at
last achieved a victory (and what a victory !), and
they take a certain pleasure, and gratify a miserable
pride, in aggravating their yoke and riding rcugh-
shod over the defenceless Jutlanders. The latter
keep up a bold countenance, and, it cannot be
denied, contrive to put the patience of their hated
invaders to the severest test. It is a war between
the gadfly and the lion, a contest in which the
latter loses as much of his dignity as the former
exposes himself to rebuke and chastisement.
The demeanour of the Jutlanders under such
trying circumstances doubt;ess entitles them to take
rank among the most stiff-neckeq, no less than
most loyal, subjects of the Dinish Crown. Vv""ti rend
daily in the papers here addressee from the muni-
cipal corporations, and from popular meetings of
the various towns and communities of the Penin-
sula, urging the King's Government to stand fast
upon the rights of the common Fatherland, and
to run all the risks of a new outbreak of hostilities,
rather than consent to the dismemberment of the
Monarchy, declaring that, for its own part, Jutland
is ready to put up with all the hardships of pro-
longed occupation, and to undergo twenty times
the sacrifices it has already been made to bear.
The Jutlanders are, like eels, getting used to being
skinned, and they flatter themselves that the in.
vadera have seized upon all that was worth taking,
and that they have henceforth but little to fear
from further epaliation. In the meanwhile the
news from London has thrown not a little dismay
and gloom among the people of Copenhagen. It
can hardly be believed here that the proposed aban-
donment of the Treaties of 1852, and the scheme for
a partition of Schleswig, could have been sponta-
neously mooted in the Conference by the pleniootene
tiaries of the neutral Powers, England and France.
The Danes were aware that they had to contend
against irresistible forces, and, if left to themselves,
they knew that they must make up their minds to
a partial or total ruin. But they hardly expected
that the dismemberment of their monarchy should
be made the theme of cool deliberation in a council
of diPlnlatists, most of whom were parties to the
late political arrangements, and all of whom have a
vitrl interest in the
preservation of European
order. The police called upon to the protection
of a peaccfui citizen, when he is fallen upon by
thieves, and in the act of being plundered, do not
carte my attempt to compromise matters by allow-
ing the trespassers to walk away with e
any part of
the spoil. It: is not at the close of a period of
wars and revolutions, the Danes say, that the
downfall of their nation, even from the third rank
it occupied, is resolved upon. There are epochs
of political storms, when the frail bark of the
MUallee of Powers must be got into port on any
terms, when as touch of -t •rigging
s and cargo must
go overboard as the safety of the craft requires.
Hard terms were laid upon Denmark, as on other
minor States, at the time of the hurried Peace of
1814,:and to these this country submitted,"acknow-
lodging the law of necessity. Again there are
changes which are only the ratification of some
former error, wrongs to be repaired, and recent
combinations to be upset. Such was the severance
of Belgium from that kingdom of the Netherlands
to whose destinies it had been unwisely associated.
But in the present instance the thunderbolt falls
unon Denmark from a perfectly clear unclouded
sky. This unhappy State is foundering in the
midst of a thorough European calm. A kingdom is
to :be broken up which has stood its ground for
centuries, provinces are to be taken from it, the
Possession of which was secured by long prescrip-
tion, by the faith of repeated agreements. The
scandal to our age is greater than the injury to
Denmark ; the precedent that it establishes more
fatal than any world-wide disaster. That Austria
and Prussia should
of all right use their might to the con-
fusionNees bail enough; but it is infi-
nitely worse that colossal Powere like France and
wiek at the most flierant
England ahould not Only
abuse of power, but that
6
--eY should, as it' w- ere,
meet the wrong-doers halt-way,
andsuggest the
basis on which they are ready tocompound with
'Thee:is no question here of national
principles or dynastic claims.
The
aggressors
do not even rake a show of standing on Such
prefer their. demands on
flimsy pretences. They
their Own good pleasure, simply because they anew
that the assailed party cannot rcsiLt them, and tha,„.,
the mediators are tco fain to adroit them. Hence.
furth'let no small State base her hope of existence
on any other ground than the forbearance of the
large ones.

From the first moment that the frontiers of the
Elbe and the Eider were violated, Denmark well
knew that she should not come off scot free. She