The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-31 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This morning
This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-30.25.
Wind—East ; light, with fine weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
CHIs DAY.—'Morning, 2h. Ilm.—Afternoon, 2h. 43m.
To-nconßow.-Morning, 3h. 10m.—Afternoon, 3h. 30m,

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tiMip dwv-•

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1863.

Should a war really arise out of these Polish
complications, it will be no partial war, we may
be quite certain of that—like the last one, let us
say, the battlefields of which were restricted first
of all to the borderland where the Russian and
Turkish Empires meet, and eventually even to the
soil of the Crimean peninsula. Another European
war, a war originating, not like the last, in the

cupidity of the CZAR, as to the manner in which the
Sick Man might be expected after death " to cut

up," as the phrase is, but in the fact, each day
becoming more recognisable, of the resurrection of
the Polish nationality from the grave in which its
murdered remains have been now for the chief part
of a century buried away ! An European war, the
tocsin of which should prove to have been it length
rung by that Russian-Polish Nationality, would not
be a partial war, but a general war ; would not be
a war of Parties, but a war of Principles. At inter-
vals, during the last few months, this probable war
Principles, this threatening at least of a general war
among the great nations of Europe, has appeared
for a brief moment at a time—even in the esti-
mation of diplomatists —to be most immi-
nent. Even now the hazard of it, is very
far from having passed away altogether. A
contest of this supreme importance and extraordi-
nary magnitude, is still within the limits of possi-
bility. Any day the signal for it may become visible
to all Europe, as suddenly as the sign al which was
given for the war which broke out in Italy
Meaning in the telegraphic announcement
Of the severe words of reproof addressed
upon a memorable Jour de l'An, by the
French EMPEROR, to the Austrian Ambassador.
And we are thus seriously disposed to regard as
at this moment within the limits of possibility, if
not of probability, the announcement given as
Suddenly and startlingly of this general war in
Europe, this war, not of parties, or of nations, but
of Principles for several reasons that may at once
be very readily particularised.
About the most apparent of these reasons being
the fact that is reference to Poland itself the
alternative of war or no war seems to depend now
at any instant upon
purely by the the choice decided upon
whim of one man in supreme power,
acting upon the spur of the moment, and under
a great irritation
the goad of.
It will be remem-
bered by the readers of Mr,
indiscreet,but here and INGLAKE'S shamefully
there wonderfully eloquent,
the
historical romance aboutlast European war,
the war partially fought
Out
betweenEuro Russia and
the Western Powers of
great Autocracy, that in
one of
against that
of the most
picturesque passages in one
of the
chapters of the work, the opening
writer ref
cart, seated in his Cabinet at St. Petersburg,refers
tothe
cart,
as to an angry man who had but to ring
a bell, at
the momentary dictate of his passion, and within
the throb of a few seconds upon the pendulum, to
light up, through the agency of the electric fire, the
flame of war at opposite extremities of his vast de-
uainious. The autocrat thus referred to, it is
true, was the Czar NICIIOLAS, and not the Czar
ALEXANDER. But though the men were very dif-
ferent, indeed, both in capacity and in temperature,
the power remains identically theinher same. If
the
fierce reeolve has no more beeninherited by
reigning Emperor of All the Missies, than has
apparently, of his imme-
the lawless ambition, in an earthly
diate progenitor, the supreme and,
point of view, the irresponsible authority of that
predecessor has passed intact into theam hcaands
ity
of
ALEXANDER 11. The latter has the se ac
for doing good or for inflicting evil upon millions of
his fellow-creatnres—meaning, here, not the
sixty million Russians in Europe, Asia, and
America owning allegiance to his swsn but,
indirectly, the millions beyond his dominions,
the subjects of contemporary sovereigns. True it
is, no doubt, that the Emperor ALEXANDER 11. bee