The Sun.
London, England, 1863-02-03 00:00:00

upon one at least of the race of 80/4APA.RTE,
when (it is in Chapter Fourteen) he intimates
that PRINCE NAPOLEON (and his father also, by
the way) held aloof from the doings of the Con-

spirators ! All very well and very fine, no doubt,
on the part of the late Prince JEROME and his son
Prince NAPOLEON—OnIy, they did not, as it ap-
pears, afterwards hesitate for one instant to avail
themselves of all the good things that, upon
the successful accomplishment of the coup d'etat
(without their help or co-operation; remember !
in any way—nay, we are told, with their distinct
repudiation at the time) poured in, more or less
abundantly, upon all having a legitimate right to the
name of BONAPARTE. Prince JEROME, for example,
became in due course (as became him !) Governor of
the Invalides, and guardian of the tomb of the Great
NAPOLEON. Prince NAPOLEON became, in his
turn, not merely (like the rest of them) an Imperial
Highness—that is when the Elysee was forsaken
for the Tuileries ! But—more than that, as already
intimated in the course of these remarks—he be-
came, in a manner, the Imperial Highness : having
been adopted by his Cousin as the Heir Presump-
tive to the newly restored Imperial Throne. The
red flag was dropped for the glorious tricolour as-
sociated, as LAMARTINE had reminded even Repub-
lican France, in the February of '4B, with the Im-
perial glories of the First Empire. From the flag-
staff of the tricolour—accepted tardily in lieu of the
" red" by H.l.H.—had, in a manner, bour-
geoned the Napoleonic eagle. The fre-
quenter of the National Assembly, the
haunter of the Benches of the Mountain in those
earlier halcyon days of the Republic became (not so
very long.afterwards) the frequenter of the salons of
the Tuileries, the haunter of the steps of the throne.
Afterwards, at little remoter intervals than marked
the division of time between those preliminary
changes, H.I.H. the Prince NAPOLEON took part
as a General of Division in the Crimean war—
attempted to take part (very slowly and
hesitatingly as it happened) in the Italian
war, conducted in reality in person by his
cousin the EMPEROR —was married to the
Princess CLOTILDE, the eldest daughter of
King VICTOR EMMANUEL—and, as the latest inci-
dent in this eventful history, conducted, as President
of the French Commissioners, the organisation of
the Gallic department in the Great International
Exhibition at South Kensirgton. All this while,
the Republican BONAPARTE, the Democratic NA-
POLEON of 1848, has once, and once only, spoken
right out from the parliamentary pulpit of the
Tribune in the Imperial Smite. It was a somewhat
memorable occasion: memorable among other rea-
sons, perhaps, because of the very circumstance of
its having about it this distinguishing and excep-
tional character. The speech was clever enough in
its way, no doubt : but it was a purely isolated
display of oratory. If never followed up by another,
it will leave the Prince with the rhetorical reputa-
tion of being the Single Speech HAMILTON of
France. It sounded a very chivalric and magnani-
mous argument at the time of its delivery. But,
when it comes to be locked back to, its magnanimity
seems rather questionable of its kind. For its para-
mount aim and object was, when put into plain
words, the aggrandisement of his Imperial
Highness's father-in-law, the King VICTOR
EMMANUEL! Having, possibly, besides, an arriere
pensee in regard to the discovery somewhere (who
shall say where ?—at Naples ? at Florence ? or
where else ?) of a snug little throne, to be manntac-
tured out of the debris of the revolutionised Italian
I States, for that wholly unselfish and perfectly dis-
interested champion of Italian liberty, the Prince
NAPOLEON himself !

No—we acknowledge it : we have no faith
whatever in this hypothetical magnanimity, any
more than in this supposititious " powerful in-
fluence," of H.I.H. the Prince NAPOLEON. As
for the amount of the influence exercised
by him in France well, he is still there
spoken of (not so very reverentially) as chou-
chou by the vast majority of educated French-
men. While as to his magnanimity and disinte-
restedness and all that—why. it is perfectly noto-
rious and manifest to everybody that his Impe-
rial Highness, during these last ten or twelve
years, has had his share of the pickings! Alto-
gether, we fancy, that bust of BRUTUS could be
very well dispensed with, in the recent procession of
the Senate to the presence of the EMPEROR at the
Turneries. In other words, viewing the matter
quite calmly and dispassionately, we cannot for
the life of us, attach any importance whatever to
the fact that his Imperial Highness took no part
at all in the presentation of the Address.

The continued successes of the Alabama have
called forth from the people of the Northern States,
if possible, a more acrimonious feeling towards
England than they have hitherto displayed. They
seem to have overlooked (if they ever were ac-
quainted with it) the text—" As you sow, so shall
you reap." They do not choose to remember that
during the late Russian war, American merchants
did a good stroke of trade with the Russians ;
and that England declined to interfere with Ame-
rican ships entering Memel, although it was very
well known that revolvers, rifles, and other con-
traband of war were smuggled in bales of cotton.
Moreover, in the year 1856 a frigate,
named the America, was built in the United
States for the Russian Government, and loaded with
arms and munitions of war, she sailed to the
port of Petropauloveki, on the Pacific, under the
command of an officer of the United States navy.
But England did not make Europe ring with
tirades against the breach of neutrality by a friendly
'power. She knew better. She gave the United States
Government the benefit of the doubt as to compli-
city in the affair, and relying on her own strength,
let the matter pass.

The Alabama was built at Liverpool, and
so secret was her destination kept, that when
the builders, Messrs. LAIRD and Co., asked
the party on whose authority she was built,
what was to be her name, he would not give it, and
they, therefore, christened her, for the nonce,
being the two hundred and
yard.nmAattiolenngwtahs
(when, however, it was too
late)'n'irnrehteiet2h9voes"seslheeonstructedin
their
iti an
sent to the Government of her probable destina-
tion, and an order for her detention was immedi-
ately dispatched to Liverpool ; but she had already
gone out on a TRIAL TRIP, which proved so satis-
factory that she never returned.
Was our Government responsible for this?
Do the United States expect that a secret
espionage is to be kept up at all our building
yards ? and, even if yuah a practice were
to prevail, there are a hundred ways by which
the scrutiny could be evaded. It is impossible for
any Government to restrain its subjects from aiding
foreign belligerents. The QUEEN'S proclamation
warned all, that if they in any way infringed the
laws of neutrality laid down in that proclamation,

they would do so at their own risk, and could not

look to the English Government for protection in
case of failure or capture by an enemy. It is with
this knowledge that the Alabama was built. It is
with this knowledge that she is in all probability
supplied with coals and ammunition from this
country. J is with this knowledge that the make-