The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-29 00:00:00

MARKETS—This Day.

SMITHFIELD......IRAY MARKETS.
£4 Os to £5 108 Od ; ow ay, £3 Os
£1 lOs per load.
Trade slow. and straw, £1 68 to
''lead h to £4 10a Od ; clover,
£4 Os to 45
CuMBERLAND.---Meaio ha V N't° X 4 10s 01 ; clover,
A slow demand,
10s Od ; a d straw,
'XI 5s to L 1 10s per load.
WHITECRAFE bay, £3oa to £4 10a Od; clover,
0
£4
-s to L.—Meadow
45 108 Od ; and straw, £1 as to £1 lOs per load.
Trade inactive.

Business,wilt be resumed on Tuesday next, the
COLONIAL.
The Market remains closed for:the Christmas holidays.

THE BIRKENHEAD RAMS.—We are informed on
undoubted authority that the Messrs. Laird have
received several bona fide offers for their celebrated iron.
clad rams from friendly powers who are at peace with
themselves and all the rest of the world. Messrs. Laird
positively declared that the vessels tee not for sale;
Rohavedit would thus seem that they have no desire to shirk
the responsibility of proving that they took the order for
the construction of the ships in the first instance from pat.
ties whose connection with either one or the other of the
American belligerents it will be difficult, if not impossible,
to show. The last offer for the purchase of the "rams "
was refused only in the early part of this week.•-,lf riny
and Navy Gazette.

GENERAL MEAGHER.—According to the follow.
ing extract from the Boston Pilot, the reported Cap.
ture of General Meagher by the Confederates was without
foundation :—" We are pleased to learn that the statement
published on the 7th instant, that General Thomas Francis
Meagher was captured by the rebels, during the recent
movement of the Army of the Potomac, is entirely false.
He was on a visit to the remnant of his old Irish Brigade
when the advance upon the enemy was ordered, and, as
might be expected from his previous cart er,
which has
been remarkable for undaunted courage and pluck, he
went with them into the front of danger--but
he was not taken prisoner. Ile returned with them
across the Rapidan, and is now thP-Wiest of General
Corcoran, at Fairfax Court-house. His reception by his
~..,
old comrades and brother generals, throughout the entire
army, is said to have been most cordial and enthusiastic.
Constantinople letters and journals to the 17th
have been received, but their contents
are not of
much interest. The l',linister of Marine has issued
an order that henceforward a system of messes, on
the English plan, is to be organised for the officers
of the Turkish
navy, both afloat and ashore.
toarrddyyedes goods ,
A PATENT FOR THE USE OF AEsENIOUS ACID
iiaesena traa koernd ao
ulatt blyorlll rh. °Pic'ow
jea pr r ?no taeld-
are fixed by steaming, and washed in the usual manner to
separate the execs©. It is remarkable that the cumpudAm
in of arsenic showed some such important ends, boththe
production and fixation of these colours, has

SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN.

(From the Times Correspondent.)
HAMBURG, DEC. 25.

The intelligence has just reached ns that Lord
Wodehouse's mission has been successful, that the
Ministry at Copenhagen has resigned in a body,
and that the Rigsraad has been summoned to reas-
semble for the purpose of cancelling the recent Act
for the incorporation of Schleswig. It is further
stated that the King has lett his capital in order to
join the army in Schleswig. This requires confirma-
tion ; but should the news cited above prove to be
correct, there can be no doubt that a very serious
crisis is impending, and that very much still remains
to be done in order to avert all danger of war.
Let me endeavour to place the general bearings
of this very difficult Schleswig-Holstein question
before your readers, in order that they may judge
for themselves.

It will be remembered that the subject already
attracted some attention in political circles previous
to the decease of the late King of Denmark in
November last. Rumours reached England that
the Ministryat Copenhagen had throughout a course
of years violated the engagements contracted by
Denmark in the much talked-of London Protocol
in 1852; that she was systematically encroaching
upon the rights and privileges of the German
Duchies united under the Danish sceptre—so much
so, indeed, that Holstein had represented her
grievances to the German Confederation, of which
that Duchy is a member, and that the Frankfort
Diet contemplated exercising the legal right of in-
tervention belonging to it. This measure, long de-
bated upon, was still only under consideration when
Frederick VII. suddenly died. With him the male
decendants of the elder branch of the house of
Oldenburg, which has occupied the throne of Den-
mark for four centuries, died ont, so that the provi-
sions of the Treaty of 1852, which had been framed
in anticipation of this event, were called into force.
But the right of succession in Denmark proper differs
from that in the Duchies precisely in the same
manner as that which prevails in the House of
Brunswick with regard to England and Hanover—
that is to say, whereas in Denmark proper in de.
fault of mule issue the female representative is
called to the throne, the German Duchies recognise
the male line only. This fact, so opportune at the
present moment, has been seized with great avidity
by the mass of the German people, who are endea-
vouring by the external pressure they are able to
exercise to force their respective Governments to
support—first, the claims of Duke Frederick of
Augustenburg, the present pretender to the duke-
dom of SchlEswig-Holstein ; secondly, to claim the
inseparable ution of the Duchies (Schleswig and
Holstein) between themselves under his sceptre
i.e., ~ to sever them entirely from Denmark. Thus,
you see, the question has two distinct bearings, both
resting more or less on the London Protocol of 1853.
That Treaty re-established the rights and privileges
of both parties—Denmark, on the one hand, and
the German Duchies on the other, as existing ante
bellum (1848.9); but Denmark has notoriously dis-
regarded this point, and recently consummated a
series of acts of encroachment by the formal incor-
poration of Schleswig. Hence the interference of
the German Confederation (whose duty it is to up-
hold the rights of each and all of its members),
which has led to the military occupation now in
course of execution.

The same Treaty (1852), with a view to preserve
the integrity of Denmark, also entered upon the
subject of succession. The difficulty which has
just arisen was first mooted by Christian VIII.,
in 1846, in his Letter Patent addressed to
his subjects. The intention expressed in that
letter with regard to succession in Schleswig only
—a step calculated eventually to separate that
Duchy from Holstein—formed one of the causes of
the outbreak in 1848. Christian died in January,
1848, and was succeeded by Frederick VII., the
late King. On the assembly of the representatives
of the five great Powers and of Sweden after the
War of Independence, which had been raging in
different phases for three years, had been put a stop
to by the armed intervention of Austria and Prussia
in 1351, the question of succession, as before stated,
was brought prominently before them. The last
male representative was now upon the throne, and
the difficulty stared them in the face. In the pro-
bable eventuality of the decease of King Frederick
without issue, the Crown of Denmark, according
to the existing law of succession, would devolve on
hie sister, married to the Laroersve of Hosee-Cas-
Bel, and still living. But the Duchies recognize
no female Sovereign, and might by their law pro-
claim the Duke of Augustenburg the legal represen-
tative of the junior line after the extinction of the
elder. Holstein, in virtue of oldhistorical connexion
and of a nationality exclusively German, is, with
Lauenburg, a member of the German Band, She
claims the rights, too (which the Danes up to the
present time have certainly recognised), of insepar-
able connexion with the sister Duchy of Schleswig;
but Schleswig has never been represented in the
German Band ; on the contrary, at en earlier
period of her history, she was for nearly two centu-
ties incorporated with Denmark ; bat on the Rues-
Sion of the House of Oldenburg to the throne by
election in 1460, the old existing state of things was
"'tared, and since that time the intimate connexion
between the Duchies has hitherto been successfully
asserted and maintained. So that it is evident that
the
81leession of the Augustenburg line would not
only 1„,344. to the entire independence of
fSocrhmleeerwil)and Holstein, but would place the
11 under the Confederation. Con-
sider that:
of the inhabitantsireet:) third, in round numbers,
f Schleswig are Danes, consider
too that such
tat is equivalent to the redaction
of the Danish Eno
14"ehY which is considered to be
of such vital importance'
to the present political
system of Europe, to litter insignificance, and you
_
will easily understand
'hp is that Denmark has
so perseveringly en
de"°xlred to incorporate or
Dani:e Schleswig on the
one hand, and why Hol-
stein has so steadily maintained
order to her connection with
the sister Duchy in
ieserve their joint
nationality and historical traditions
on the other.
Such, then, was the difficulty '4lth which the
Great Powers had to deal in 18 2
5 the result of
the labours of their repretentatives..
that the
present occupier of the Danish throne, tsaottin
LI•
married to Louise, only daughter of th,..e edttaavine
of Hessen-Cassel, and named by king Pre‘rick
VII. as his successor, should, on the renunciation
of
their rights by that lady and her only son (the rotate
Landgrave of Hessen-Cassel), be recognised by:thea,
on the decease of Frederick, as King Of Denmark
and Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, to the exclu•
sion of the Augustenburg claims.
could hardly have been so readily disposed
These claims
that Duke not taken so prominent a part in the
recent insurrectionary war; his large estates had
been confiscated, and he was consequently outlawed
arid reduced to poverty. As future trouble might,
however, be anticipated from that quarter, the
Duke was called upon in return for a large sum
of money—three millions of rix-thalers—to execute
a document in which he declared that neither he
nor his family would offer opposition to the arrange-
ment effected. This he did, and received the
money accordingly; but his brother, Prince Angus-
t.enhaeg-Noer, protested immediately, and his son,
the present Pretender, protested in 1859.
In how far it was lawful, as an act of political
e_
Deoroexpediz y, in the interests of the integrity of
and of the preservation of peace on the
part of the aye
great European Powers, and Swe-
den, to Alter the
law
of succession in the Duchies,
I must leave
othe in Denmark Proper to determine; this much is cer-
tain,oper the validity of the ar-
raersaoat is .P a
bl
e inasmuch as an Act
em
bodying the alterationand
threweas formally laid before
the Denish Diet,
ratified, but the Duchies
were net there represented, and the Germans assert
that it was never laid before the Estates of either
Schlecw
Anxious to nec!rtain swig or stetHoti.
the eUet state of feeling in
•Holetein for thc
row dfiy,t i
s,T gave been
that
It eent
ling through that Duchy. evident in the
towns the German party, ideas of union
with of the Ano
Ger-
many, and of the elevation eustenbur
Schleswig-neat,i g
Emily to the dukedom of n pre-
dominate, but the landholthr.3.and county.popnia.s
haVil little sympathy e'r'e B:lPlunitra of
9,0,111.1
th'clauseof Dulp) Fcerlesic.k; relal,mtk

contentedly under the rule of King Christian, The
Holsteiners have little to complain of at the hands
of the Danish Government. Under the very eyes
of the Danish military the book shops teem with
brochures published in the Augustenburg cause,
portraits of the Duke himself are pa cly exposed
for sale, and political opinions are as freely broached
as if no Danish policy had power, and no Danish
muskets were piled in the guardhouses of the dis-
trict:

The Federal execution has hitherto taken place
with the greatest order and without any resistance.
An hour before the Federal troops arrive at the
various towns the Danes march out. Except for
the differences of the uniforms, one would imagine
that regiments were being relieved in the ordi-
nary course of military duty. On the de-
parture of the Danish troops the Duke Frederick
of Augustenburg has been proclaimed in most
of the towns as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, the
arms of Denmark have been quietly taken down
from the post-offices and custom-houses, and the tri-
colour flag hoisted in their place. Properly consti-
tuted committees have undertaken the management
of the duties of the local police and revenge depart-
ments, and have resolved to suppress any disposi-
tions towards riot or disorder. The general adminis,
tration of the Duchy is provided for by the
Cpmmissioners of the Germanic Confederation, who
have taken up their quarters at Altona.
It is stated on reliable authority that the Duke of
Coburg has given permission for the organisation on
his territory of the volunteerarmy Which is destined
to assert the claims of the Pretender. This fact,
together with the resolve of the Frankfort Parlia-
ment to report on those claims, is some proof of the
height to which German feeling has been raised on
this subject.

From the appearance of freshly-erected batteries
at Newmunster, an important strategical point where
the communications of the Duchy centre, it may be
inferred that the Danes have only within the last
fortnight definitely decided to evacuate Holstein on
the approach of the Federal troops. No doubt, how-
ever, now exists that the Danish troops will fall
back to the line of the Eider, which is the frontier
between the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. It
is just on the cards that here a collision may take
place, for on the south bank of the Eider, on Hol-
stein territory, the Danes have thrown up a tete
du vont to cover the bridge leading into Frederic-
stedt. As this fortress is the key of the military
position, which, extending from the town of Schles-
wig to the mouth of the Eider, protects the south
frontier of the northern Duchy, the Danes will be
exceedingly El7erS9 to evacuate the work, and it is
loudly asserted that the Confederation are deter-
mined to insist on the occupation of every yard of
Holstein ground, and are fully prepared to support
this demand by force. This, for what it is worth.