The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-05 00:00:00

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPT. 5, 1863.

Again the American news illustrates simply the
growing ferocity of the combatants. We see this
only too clearly, even through the brief fragmentary
telegrams flashed from Queenstown upon the arrival
of the China. Those telegrams inform us, with
frightful brevity, that Fort Sumter is in ruins—
that Charleston has been shelled—that Chattanooga
has been fiercely bombarded—that Lawrence has
been utterly destroyed. Again, moreover, the fury
of the conflict comes from the side of the Federals
—showing how nearly they had been beaten before
the commencement of their recent successes ! Begin-
ning anew thus, this accession of fury, it excites the
Confederates themselves, as a matter of course, to a
phrenzy of retaliation. How unquestionably it is
thus, namely, that the hot blood flows first of all
southwards, and then by reason of that back again
as fiercely northwards, we may recognise now by
the course pursued but very recently, in reference
to Charleston, by the Federal and Confederate
Commanders respectively. The former, that is,
General GILMORE, on the 26th ult. demands the
surrender of Morris Island and Fort Sumter, under
the ferocious threat that, unless both Island and
Fort are thus surrendered, within four hours from
the time of the requisition, the city of Charleston
will be at once bombarded. To which—what is
the reply of General BEAUREGARD ? It is a response
precisely affording a case in point. General BEAU-
REGARD replies by charging General GILMORE with
inhumanity and a flagrant violation of the laws of
war, adding that, if the threat of the Federal
Commander should be really made good—well,
adding what ? Why that he, General BEAIIRE-
GARD, would " employ stringent measures of
retaliation !" It is in this sanguinary and relent-
less mood that leash after leash of the Dogs of War
is let slip, that again, and that yet again, in
wilder accents, the fratricidal combatants cry
havoc, now in one part, now in another, of
what was once, but what we may rest as-
aurcd will never bo again, under any conceivable
combination of circumstances, the American
" Union." Upon the very next morning after these
ominous communications have been exchanged be-
tween GILMORE and BEAUREGARD, the former
gives notice (that is on the 23d) that he will in-
fallibly on the following day open fire upon the
fated city of Charleston. So that, the non-com-
batants have fresh warning to clear out of the
way, before the actual commencement of the
bombarding. Scarcely crediting this announce-
ment, the non-combatants remain even then in
the city. And, not until the firing has begun
in terrible earnest at midnight, do the peaceful
citizens, women and children included, begin to
stream out of the place in hurried and mournful
processions ! With 15 8-inch Parrot shells dropping
in amongst the roofs of Charleston, as they hasten
from the scene of destruction ! Notwithstanding
the determined onslaught made thus upon Charles.
ton by General GILMORE, the confidence of the
South in regard to the holding out of that city
against its assailants, appears to remain un-
shaken. "If the Federals captured the whole of
Morris Islands," says theßichn2ondExaminer,"they
might close Charleston as a port of entry ; but it
would not enable them to take the city, as General
BEAUREGARD can maintain himself against any
force sent, or likely to be sent, against him:' This,
after 600 shells, on the single date of the 22d, had
been thrown into Fort Sumter alone, upwards of
400 out of the 600 taking effect upon that fortress,
and scattering it (no wonder!) into ruins. While
Such is the fury of the combat at Charleston,
General, LEE appears to have gathered together
under his standard in the immediate vicinity of
Culpepper Conrc House, as many as 60,000 men—
there, with those sixty thousand Southerners
" straining upon the slip," meditating another
and a yet
more daring invasion than the
last upon Maryland. At Chattanooga, mean-
while, Roezefteaca, more
pitiless than GIL-
MORE, appears, . upon the 21st ult. to have shelled
that place, without
vouchsafing any previous inti-
mation of his intention so to bombard it. It is to
the relative situation, however, of the main armies
under LEE and MEADE, that the chief atten-
tion of Enropean observers is, as a matter of course,
still directed. The Fedsral Commander-in-Chief,
yet acting, almost timorously, upon
the defensive,
while his opponent appears every auJ to be more
resolutely bent upon active 'operations of a most
warlike character—the Confederate head-quarters
being still kept by him at Culpepper, LoNomEET
holding Fredeeichsburg, and STUART guarding the
fords of the Rappahannock.

"While the friends of Lancashire are beginning to
warn us, not without reason, to prepare our help
for the coming winter, the news from other quar-
ters is by no means discouraging as to our future
cotton supply. It would, of course, be idle to ex-
pect a sudden return to the full tide of prosperity
which Lancashire was rejoicing in three years ago ;
but we have every reason to hope, under Provi-
dence, for a gradual but certain improvement in the
prospects of the trade. Cotton does not grow in a
day, and in districts where its cultivation has
hitherto been entirely neglected, we must not be
disappointed if the first crop is far inferior to the

American cotton. When cotton was first cultivated
in Alabama and Louisiana, We very much question
whether the products of the first two or three years
equalled the bales since despatched to Liverpool ;
more especially,
and in the case of Indian cotton,