The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-16 00:00:00

A PROJECT FOR PEACE,

The following is an extract of a private letter
from a gentleman in one of the Northern States to
a friend in London

" Oct. 26,1863.
" . . . In answer to your inquiries whether pacifica-
tion on a basis of separation, permanent or temporary, is
likely to be acceptable or is practicable, I can only answer
for myself. Acceptable it certainly would not be just now
in the North, a community.excited in one way or another
beyond the reach of reason ; but acceptable it soon must be,
when the weariness of sorrow becomes stronger and finan-
cial trouble is more imminent. There is a growing feel-
ing in favour of peace and recognition in preference to
the continuance of such a war, or to intervention from
abroad ; though ratherthan this brotherly bloodshed should
go on, people may become reconciled to that as a means of
peace. My American instincts yet revolt at the forcible in-
tervention of foreign nations in our domestic feuds ; I can-
not, however, as a friend of peace, see any objection to
foreign recognition, to which I think the South entitled,
and which, in my poor judgment, at once would produce
peace. There is a prevalent mistake abroad on this point.
" A reasonable plan of pacification, supposing statesmen
to direct our policy, would be this :
" 1. If the war is to go on for a time, as from more mo-
mentum perhaps it must, let it be turned as soon as possi-
ble from attempted conquest to a war for limits and terms of
settlement.

"2. Let negotiations be opened at once with the Go•
yernment at Richmond for such settlement, making mere
formal recognition one of the matters for discussion. The
Shelburne Ministry sent Mr. Oswald and Mr. Grenville to
Paris, in 1782, to negotiate before they recognised us. The
mission of that negotiation is very impressive now.
"3. Of course the Southern Confederacy, as an existing
concrete thing, is to be recognised de jure. There can be no
peace without it.

" 4. As to limits, I as a Northern man prefer a natural
to an arbitrary boundary ; very much prefer the Potomac
and the Ohio to the line of blazed trees and landmarks that
now separate us, and which has been quite ineffectual to
protect us from two invasions.
"5. But the States of Maryland and Delaware have a
right to determine their relations to the two Confederacies
by a free vote—free, I mean, in fact, and not in form—and
their decision affects boundaries, Pennsylvania is assumed
to go with the North.
"6. In any event of separation, Washington should not
be the capital of either Confederacy. For the North it would
be unsuitable; as a frontier fortress, which it is, it would be
intolerable to the South. For the South it would be equally
unsuitable. Let it be a monument of the glorious. It is
worthless now for any practicable purpose.
"7. The navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi, and, in
hthaenneva and entof Maryland joining the South, of the
Chesapeake,Susque-
"B. A common tariff for the two Confederacies as to
foreign nations, on a revenue basis, to be made by commer-
cial treaties, and no tariff or duties or custom-houses between
the Confederacies. to be free.
"9. Indemnities and compensations and territorial right
to be subjects of negotiation.
"This is I think a fair and reasonable basis of pacifica-
tion, neither intimating nor excluding the possibility of re-
confederation, but providing against future differences.
"This may save the public debts, nothing else will ; for
the alternative for the North will be further disintegration
when the hour of disgust comes, as it surely will ; awl then
the national debt falls in ruin.
"This is an honest answer to your potion.",