The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-08 00:00:00

THE IRISH RIOTS AT NEW YORK,

The cool impudence with which the atrocities
committed by the New York Irish against the
negroes continue to be made a charge against the
Government and people of the North has induced
us to accumulate at unusual length the testimony of
impartial witnesses to their real character. To those
already published we now add an extract from the
American correspondent of the Guardian :
There can be little doubt that the infamous out-
break in New York was a concerted rising, and that

the peace men, so-called—the sympathisers with the
South—saw in the advance of Leo their opportunity.
Their intention was to take possession of the city,
declare a provisional government, and then insist on
the demands of the South being yielded. The in-
stigators of the mob—their real leaders—kept in
retirement, waiting for the call which they thought
would come for them when law and authority were
overthrown. Unfortunately for these conspirators,
the fiendish acts of the men whom they had
prompted to violence—who were their especial fol•
lowers, and f,,r whose deeds they were wholly
unanswerable—filled the better class of people with
horror. Theft, and arson, and cowardly and brutal
murder, constituted the chief employment of those
lovers of peace—the men who were indignant at
the conscription—unwilling to bear their share in
the defence of the country when its national life was
threatened by rebellion. They too, it was seen,
were the especial haters of the negro, for their mur-
der of black men, under every circumstance of
cowardly and diabolic cruelty, are deeds without
parallel in wickedness since the days of the French
Revolution. The world now sees to what class in
America the sic of cruel prejudice against the black
man is chiefly chargeable. It sees, too, of what
elements the peace party in this country is consti-
tuted—the party whose cause the New York cor-
respondent of the limes has so long advocated.
I need hardly attempt any particular recital of

the deeds to which I have above alluded. For four
days, the 12th, 14th, 15th, and 16th, the mob pur-
sued with more or less of impunity its course.
The mayor of the city has no control of the police
force, and he early transferred what authority
he had to preserve order to the governor of
the state—Seymour. This official—an eminent

member of the peace and pro-slavery party—made
a show of the exercise of power, and issued a pro-
clamation which was not particularly objectionable.
But the mob assembled at his headquarters, and he
came out and addressed them—red-handed as they
were from the murder of unoffending black men,
and fresh from the burning of the Asylum for
Coloured Orphans—as his " friends." He hastened
to tell them that he bad despatched his adjutant-
general to Washington to insist upon a suspension
of the draft in New York. Not a word of rebuke did
he utter to them for their wickedness, nor of terrible
warning should their foul deeds be renewed. So
the riot went on as before, and either from the utter
powerlessness of the governor or his unwillingness
to act, the work of suppression drifted into the
hands of the military officers of the United States.
They were prompt and bold, with the exception of
the commander of the department, Gen. Wool, who
is incapacitated by age for the duties required by
the emergency. Soon a force was gathered sufficient

to hold the mob in check, and at length, in a sort of
pitched battle, the soldiers were victorious and the
riot was quelled. It is proper to say that the police,
which numbers about a thousand men, displayed
the utmost courage and determination, charging
the mob with such dash and energy that it could
seldom make head against them.
I may mention one instance of outrage in New
York during the reign of the mob, of which I have
personal knowledge. The house:of a friend of my
own was supposed erroneously to be the residence
of Mr. Greely; the mob entered it in broad day-
light, and everything of value was stolen or de-
stroyed. A library of several thousand volumes
was ruined in the most wanton manner ; books not
stolen were mutilated and rendered worthless, and
bookcases, mirrors, piano, furniture of every sort,
were destroyed. This was done, my friend writes,
by a class of people for whom his wife had been la-
bouring for the last 20 years. The lady alluded to
has beer. active in charities from which the Irish
poor have chiefly benefited. She is now absent on
a mission of mercy at an army hospital at Fortress
Monroe.

The mob has utterly failed of its professed pur-
pose—the preventing of the enforcement of the
draft. An announcement has been made by the
Government, that although in certain places pro-
ceedings have been interrupted, they will be at
once resumed. Very generally the law has been
carried out, and there has been no disorder; in this
city quiet has not for a moment been disturbed. In
New York it was that the enemy expected to make
their stand ; they have done so, and have been de-
feated. I understand the President says he feels

like a man who, standing up in a duel. has received
his adversary's fire, having reserved his own. Cer-
tainly the Govetnment now knows the worst that
its adversaries in the loyal states can do.