The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-28 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, NOVEMBEE 28, 1863,

LONDON, SA.TUKDAY, NOV. 23, 1863.

- V.---

Nothing, possible can be done without Trying-
The truth is one, of course, that is perfectly obvious,
yet, somehow, our Ministers fail to recognise it.
Equally, also, they fail to recognise another and
a no less obvious truth, that by assenting to the
proposition to discuss the affairs of Europe in a
Congress they would have been in no way pledging
themselves to arrive at any conclusion whatever.
They would simply have gone into the discussion
of those affairs with a view to see whether there
might be e.ny conclusion at all in regard to any one
jet hem that could with advantage to all Chris-
heod's°ol4 ~the arrived at. The correspondence which
chief %,:y recently taken place between the two
Governments of Western Europe in regard to
the teep:rei
I.N.APOLEON'S proposition of a Congress,
at large
has now
beeil
cah examine
in its entirety. The public
It is comprised (the
the whole of it for themselves.
e whole of it) in merely five com-
munications, two
those five only being of
any particular lestilt of
.
EMPEROR'S Letter Beginning with the French
correspondence closesla
with Earl
MAJESTY, the
ab; Earl RUSSELL'S suffi-
ciently courteous, yet, t
same time, almost
peremptory rejection of theh.e
iiiitostPerial proposition.
Between the offer on the 4th
theatid its rejection
will be Been slim
on the 25th, it
diate letters not as yet partienlari,e4_ three interme-
diate
thus very brie fly and verys,,,citietbEY.us, may be
a short letter, dated on the 11th ionanYtla
. from Lons
don, in which Earl HUBBELL aPPrizestuit
of the receipt of his Imperial MAJEsTroh..,ograph
"fLEY
by the British SOVEREIGN--a longer letter from
Lord RUSSELL, dated the very day afterwards, the
12th, asking, through Lord COWLEY, for further
particulars in regard to the proposition, particular,
that (it was suggested), might be learnt by,
DE
our Ambassador from M. DIWUYN L'Huys
as the foreign mouthpiece of NAPOLEON'S
Government a still longer letter (though
not the longest of all), under date the
23d, written at the Palace of Compiegne, signed
by M. DROUYN DE L'Huys, and addressed to the
Marquis DE CADORE. The longest communication,
of all in the correspondence, is—almost, we bad
said, of course—the final letter of the five, the one
penned by Earl RUSSELL, the one bringing the
entire correspondence to: a conclusion. Late last
evening,
enabled Th
in a fourth edition of e Sun, we were
to give insertion to this very decisive
Communication. That it is decisive iu regard
taking any part iu tho Congress is, of
course, altos . 14er unmistakeable. The words of
rejection bringing'(-a
it to a close, are as positive and,
as we have said,
coo
byo
p.peremptory, as any words of re-
jectionhility be—" Her MAJESTY'S
Gorernment, following their own strong convictions,
ezer mature deliberationtion
m4;e-fsTeLl'l,s themseliw unable to
accept his Imperial
iii—so far at least. The restia_t follow. The
.vitation:' C'est
cosei,,ioe arrived at, in effect, in thiso
crisis of vital
import to all Christendom, the conclusion delibe-
rately arrived at by the present Government
England is—to put the truth of the of
matter in the
very plainest possible words—to leave e
rerythieg
purely and sin ply to the Chapter of Accidental There
ea comedy of DOUGLAS .T.ERRoLD's,:called wittily

and alliteratively, "Time Works Wonders." Our
Government seems to have accepted some such
axiomatic device, as at once the symbol and the
guiding principle of their Foreign Policy. In this,
their Home Policy and.; their Foreign Policy are,
no doubt of it, very much alike. They harmonise
so far very wonderfully. Their Home Policy is—
to Do Nothing. Their Foreign Policy is—to
Do Nothing. It is a very easy policy
in its way too—apparently. But only appa-
rently. For it is quite impossible it can last.
Even a great and popular minister like Lord PAL-
MERSTON would find it impracticable to persist in
it; although he continued to be aided and. abetted

in so doing by colleagues as able as the pir.:k of those
occupying the foremost place in his Administration,
statesmen, it will be sufficient to add, such as Earl
RUSSELL himself, or such, again, as Mr.
GLADSTONE. As to Earl RUSSELL—Who iB,
as a matter of course, at the heart of all
these recent proceedings—it is amusing, it is
really and truly nothing less than amusing
to find that in the very thick of the late difficulty
as to whether England should or should not take
part in the European Congress proposed by the
French EMPEROR, that Completest Letter Writer
(in his own estimation) in all Christendom grasps as
at a wholly new and utterly unheard-of idea—an
idea that, if acted upon, might, he thinks, be a very
clever and admirable evasion of the whole difficulty
—grasps eagerly and almost breathlessly at the
following notion, a notion it will be acknowledged
quite his own. Reluctant to take part
in the Congress proposed by the Emperor NAPO-
LEON—what is it that Earl RUSSELL gladly and
graciously
suggests in lieu of it ? " Her MAJESTY'S
Government," he writes on the 12th inst. to Earl
COWLEY, "would be ready to discuss with France
and other Powers, by diplomatic correspondence,
any specified questions upon which a solution might
be attained, and European peace thereby more
securely established." Truly, a wonderful pro-
position ! Among all the Governments of Europe
—A Diplomatic Correspondence ! And this, in re-
gard to " any specified questions upon which a
solution might be attained." Altogether—so very
lucidly expressed and clearly defined a pro-
position ! In the great diplomatic loom of
Europe —so vast, so complicated imagine
all those " shuttles set a-flying !'' It gives
one vertigo to thick of it. Conceive the inter-
minable and voluminous outpouring from all the
official presses—at London, at Paris, at Vienna,
at St. Petersburg, et cetera—of J3lue Book,
Litres Jaunes, and so forth ; stores of
diplomatic literature purchasable by the pound
weight, by the hundred weight, by the ton—
by any one who might care to purchase it.
Truly, again, we say a wonderful proposition.
Another passage in this recent correspondence we
cannot but regard as especially worthy of 801113
passing consideration. Again, it is a passage
in one of the Complete Letter Writer's
letters—the last in this little cluster of
five. It is expressed—the particular passage we
are here alluding to—in a single sentence: not this
time as a proposition, simply as an inquiry. Earl
RUSSELL, on the part of England, that is, on the
part of the British Government, asks—" Is a Gene-
ral Congress of European States likely to furnish a
peaceful solution of the various matters in dispute ?"
M. DROUYN DE L'Huvs' answer, the EMPEROR'S
answer, the answer of France, might have been
expressed thus, monosyllabically—Try !

We are glad to see that the attention of our

Admiralty officials is at last being turned to a sub-
ject of great practical importance, and that they
are now taking steps to remedy a very serious
deficiency in our Royal Navy. We allude to the
want of lifeboats, a want which we have often

dwelt upon as urgent and imperative. Tho argu-

ments in favour of the addition of these useful

companions to our men-of-war are so obvious as to
be almost truisms, but trite as they are they have
hitherto produced but little effect on the official
mind. It is a perfect marvel how vessels bearing
about such a precious freight of human life as we
despatch to every part of the globe should have
been aDowed to sail from oue port to another with-
out the means of security in case of disaster. How
often have our feelings been harrowed by reading
the details of the wreck of some large vessel, the

rush to the boats, and the miserable discovery that
they were too small, too few, or too unseaworthy,
to give a chance of life to half the requisite num-

bar ? How many a tale of heroic daring or Equally
heroic endurance have told us that courage and
patience have both gone down in the deep waters
for lack of the most ordinary provision for the time
of sudden danger. Our advertising columns still
tell us of the efforts being made to assist the
widows and orphans of the crew of her MAJESTY'S
ship Orpheus—widows and orphans who might
now have been looking to loving husbands
and fathers for their support, had that
doomed vessel possessed so simple a means of
rescue. Had the Royal Navy been earlier supplied
with these boats, the Manukan Bar would not be
the only spot that lost its tragic associations, and

the firmness, the discipline, and presence of mind,
which usually distinguish shipwrecks of this class,
would serve for something more than to point a
moral or add poignancy to the regret of the sur-
vivors. It has been justly said that "the duties
which men-of-war crews have suddenly 4o fulfil—
to pick up men overboard in stormy weather, to
land important despatches through any surf, and at
almost any risk to render hazardous service to our
wrecked merchantmen in the wildest and least
civilisel parts of the world; any and all of these
duties may come upon them in a single day, and day
after day, and have to be rendered in boats, which
are not only not fit, but are the worst fitted for such
Purposes." The great services rendered by lifeboats
°ll our coasts, under the management of the National
l'iteboUt Institution, have of late years brought
these useful boats more prominently before the
Public, and h
of tile
4.44. ave forced their merits upon the notice
as has Le"altY. The terrible loss of life which,
Orpheus fo::lid, occurred at the wreck of the
some share ieat of a lifeboat, has probably had
I
by no means rapidog
_iti
the movements of a body
There is no question
itstii adoption of improvements.
tiateevery large vessel ought
to h 3 provided With
lives of her crew nod
_means of saving the
l' asengers in case of
accident, ,oti
.‘
is seldom or never
h credit on our hum cage. does not
the'" fct that this
mow
ItY. The rea-
son,„4BTof-war so
raeflesctitdden
r Ixt3
I3ng uhprovi
advance.dded.fourd,iiteilhecau‘t'lhitni:go,reoirly
;:et
'ITT equip-,
ment is that it is - hitherto im-
possible,t suited in
iiieboa all r
to find a • "Pecte
- , simple
in service on board ship, light and handy, .
in its fittings, strong
enough to bear ronah
handling, and capable of easy stowage. The
Admiralty, however, having folly determined upon
remedying the existing dtficieney,
have with more
sagacity than often attends their enterprises, asked
the officers of the National Lifeboat
adapted for
Institution to
superintend the building of a lifeboat
service in a man-of-war, the boat not weighing
more than a ton. From the result of the trials
made on Thursday, however, it appears that they
would do wisely to extend this margin a little
further, and raise the limit scwt. The difficulty
I

which presents itself is the combination of light-
ness with strength. It would be easy enough to
provide a fair weather lifeboat, and the vessels of
the Institution prove what can be done when
strength is the first consideration, but the union
of the two is not easy, The addition of another
quarter of a hundredweight will enable the expe-
rimentalists to provide a thoroughly handy and
efficient boat, ready for all weathers .and all
catastrophes. The trial was made in the
Regent's Canal Docks, and several of the
Lords of the Admiralty, besides many other gentle-
men interested in the question, were present to
witness the experiments. One of the boats tried
was capable of accommodating no less than 70 per-
sons on an emergency, and proved itself a good
serviceable boat, for when turned over by means of
the hydraulic crane, it nearly righted itself in the
still water of the docks, and would probably have
completely accomplished the summersault had it
been situated in buoyant sea water. The draw-
back to this craft was its weight, for it near:y
doubled the required maximum, weighing 37 cwt.,
or nearly two tons. Another lifeboat was tried,
which only exceeded the standard by 2 cwt., and
would accommodate 50 persons at a crush. We
should mention that the first vessel, when righted,
emptied itself of water in half a minute by means
of its relief pipes. A strong instance of the per-
fection which has been reached in the construction
of these boats was afforded by the exhibition of one
belonging to the Institution, which, when turned
over by the hydraulic crane, righted itself, and freed
itself of water in 20 seconds. With such an example
before us we cannot doubt that skill and science
will accomplish the desired end in the case of life-
boats for the navy, and we hope the day is not far
distant when no large and heavily manned vessel
shall leave our shores without so useful an equiva-
lent.

It is somewhat curious to notice the confident
tone adopted by the Americans at their grand ban-
quet on Thursday. Certainly, if overweening self-
satisfaction and extraordinary expectations could
combine to assist .the triumph of an attempt and
further the success of a cause, then the goal to
which the hopes of the Federals aspire would be
soon reached ; as it is, however, all disinterested
observers must be amazed at the assurance dis-
played at the assembly, and wonder if such people
can ever own themselves vanquished. Thursday
was especially set apart as " the day devoted to
thanking GOD for their victories in the cause of
Liberty and Union.' Mr. ADAMS'S speech was,
of course, the chief feature of the evening, and was
characterised by ingenuity of argument and energy
of expression, but for any convincing statements or
emphatic explanation it cannot be said to be very
remarkable in any way. His Excellency com-
menced by stating his reasons for opposing the ob-
jection that in some quarters had been urged against
having a Thanksgiving Day just at this period,
which was marked by calamity and uliction. The
chief reason which he deduced was that the PRESD.
DENT had succeeded in eliminating treason from all
departments of the body. Now it was done effec-

tually, and all the ramifications of the Government
were free from treachery. It seems a strange thing
to realise so much ado about this, and it does not
appear either that all this common consent to the
war, this concord and sympathy, has produced
any very great results, or been fruitful in fortuitous
occurrences. Through the length and breadth of

the States which represent the cause of
Union there is nothing but rivalry, con-
tention, and jealousy. The ♦ery unwilling-
ness to join the ranks of the recruits for the
army attests that there is a lamentable absence of
that esprit de corps without which no very compli-
cated war can be brought to anything like a satis-
fastory conclusion. Ms. ADAMS saw another cause
of thankfulness in the state of the national credit
There is not much to be said on this count, because
it is evident that the Government of Washington
are preparing a great monetary deficit for their
successors, and the losses in the business of the
country have been enormous. Another source of
gratitude was the condition of the army, and for
this Mr. ADAMS claimed especial credit for the PRE-
SIDENT. "Never," he said, "in the history of the
world, was a greater undertaking assumed." The
army may be greatly improved from the commence-
ment, bat still there is not much to boast of, and
probably never in the records of any war has there
been exhibited such want of cohesion, bad discip-
line, and inconsequent campaigns as those of the
Federal army. The very frequent change of Gene-
rals in itself attests the scanty confidence that exists
at head-quarters, and the tameness with which the
alterations are made, exhibits the lack of sympathy
between the commanders and their troops. Still
more strange is the vaunted supremacy of the navy.
In nothing have the emissaries of the PRESIDENT
been more unsuccessful than in the arrangements in
this quarter. We have all heard of the intentions
of the United States to sweep English commerce
from the seas, but have meanwhile watched their
futile efforts to overcome our vessels that sailed

from our ports, or even to parry its attacks
at all successfully. While the Alabama
rides triumphantly on every sea, it appears rather
premature and a little inconsistent with the condi-
tion of the navy as one of the chief causes for re-
joicing and special calls for thanksgiving. However,
some people would never get on in the world if
they did not assume a virtue if they had it not, and
the Americans all indeed excel in this style of action,
and the Federals have outdone all previous efforts
of their nation in this capacity. The mission of the
PRESIDENT, we are told, has been to " reorganise, re-
build, and restore," and that with such signal suc-
cess in every department that he merits the thanks
of his people, and desires that his efforts should
receive the seal of triumph in this grand national
day of gratitude. The crowning act of President
LINCOLN has yet, however, to be enumerated,
namely, the emancipation of the slaves. That is to
say, that he has introduced two measures which
prepare the way for practical results. The procla-
mation is a dead letter, as every one knows, and it
is well that so it should be, for if at all productive
of events it would have been those of the most
startling and sanguinary description. With respect
to the plan of negro enlistment, that has not effected
much, for it is well known that nowhere in the
South does so much rancorous feeling and extensive
prejudice prevail towards the blacks as in those
States where the principles of liberty and equality
are professed, and the blessings of a benign Govern-
ment are so especially vaunted. Doubtless there is
great reason for the tribute paid to the PRESIDENT'S
ability and capacity, but n hen Mr.A DAMS goes on to
claim as the secret of his success that he has exhi-
bited his honesty and fidelity for oue great purpose,
it may be asked what does this great purpose consist
? To spread abroad misery and devastation
through vast continent—to prosecute, with vigour,
one of
thequell most cruel wars that the world has ever
seen
lid to continue the fatal course of a struggle
Which cause,
sorrow, and creates suffering une-
scour Previous one of the many fearful
es of hutna_u..
yceaLl ds
tchi vaitl
theywar.
commenced
:ea
be forgotten, When ,r
• ADAMS claims sympathy
for the navy of the
their course in th© Near by
a
agrunt an outrage,
and as deliberate an insult to this country, as ever

was offered in times past or present. They then
had the mortification of surrendering their ill-gotten
prizes, but, with the usual inconsistency exhibited
by the smartest nation, did not dismiss from their
service the man who had committed the offence.
This apparent conviction, and yet determined reti-
cence, proved that they Were influenced by fear
and policy to do what they did not really consider
the true and right thing, and either inducement is
totally unworthy and utterly unsuitable to a great
country. Also, the praise awarded to the success-
ful organisation of the army is shorn of its lustre,
when it is remembered that in the annals of history
there never has been a body of men under arms
who have so signalised themselves by acts which
disgrace and degenerate Christian and civilised
troops. On the other side of the Atlantic, the
words uttered by Mr. ADAMS may be wafted by
the wings of fame, and call forth approval and
acclamations of the most unbounded character, but
here they will fail to do so, excepting among Mr.
COBDEN'S and Mr. BRIGHT'S friends and followers.
England is the only country where civil war was
carried on with toleration, and it is not likely that
acts and deeds_so very different from all that are
associated with the spirit of moderation, should
receive support, or be met with encouragement even
of a tacit nature.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

(REUTER'S TELEGRAMS.)

THE PAPAL STATES.

The Pope's Reply to the Emperor Napoleon,
ROME, Nov. 26 (Evening).

On Sunday last the Pope addressed a letter re-
plying to Emperor Napoleon's invitation by accept-
ing the Congress. His Holiness at the same time
expressed his conviction that the Congress will be
regulated by justice, and tvill respect his rights to
the Pontifical provinces occupied by Piedmont.

AMERICA.
(Per the Adriatic.)

NEW YORK, Nov. 16 (Evening).

General Banks' expedition landed on the 2d inst.
at Bragos de Santiagen, on the Texas coast, nine
miles from the Texan coast, nine miles from the
mouth of the Rio Grande.

Advices from Brazos to the 4th inst. state that
Banks was marching on Brownsville.

It is reported that on the arrival of the expedition
the Confederate authorities burnt Fort Brown and
the greater portion of Brownsville, notwithstanding
strong resistance on the part of the inhabitants.