The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-15 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This morning
This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-30.26.
Wind—S. to S.-W. ; , cloudy.

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LONDON, TUESDAY, SEPT. 15, 1863.

The clouds that are now looming up from all
quarters beyond the Atlantic, threatening to over-
shadow the Northern States of America with a
darkness ominous of all kinds of disaster, will be
found elsewhere most minutely enumerated and
picturesquely described by MANHATTAN. That
brilliant, but as some cynical readers are disposed
to consider him also, flashy, correspondent of the
Herald and Standard, proves himself, in this last
effective communication of his, to be not only still,
as cne may call him, a genuine Yankee JUNIUS,
but, in his power of word painting, a sort of Federal
BUSKIN into the bargain. After his grotesque
fashion, he sketches in, rapidly, in a sort of MINAst
pen-and-ink drawings, a series of rolling volumes
of clouds, comparable only (in their odd way) to the
cloud-pictures pencilled in glowing colours upon so
many pages of that first wonderful book on "Modern
Painters"—the famous volume originally presented
to the scrutiny of the public, by the then unknown
Joliet IlusKIN, under the titre rather than the none
de plume of "An Oxford Graduate." The worst of
it is, for his co-Federalists, that the clouds painted
here by MAN RATTAN, are essentially different from
all other clouds, according to the old proverb, for
inasmuch as they manifestly have no silver lining
whatever ! Lurid, they are, sombre, conflicting,
charged with lightning, stored with thunderbolts,
and lowering up from all directions. The " News"
transmitted now by MANHATTAN from the seat of
war, in the midst of which he—ever vigilantly
watching, and quite frankly reporting upon the
instant, from mail to mail—is compounded from
the same diverse regions, from the initials of
which the very name of NEWS is made,
according to the felicitous explanation of that
problematical word, according to the old rhyming
epigrammatist :

".North, East, West, South, and the solution's made,
Each Quarter brings account of, War and Trade."
Only, the accounts of War predominate now disas-
trously, as they have long done, over those of Trade
in the half serious, half sarcastic, wholly sinister
record of events compiled out yonder in North
America by that " cheil" jotting down his
not es with a stick of lunar canstic—MAN-
HA7.7a/si ! One, whose even most hurried
scr,bblings are luminous, page after page,
as he writes, with a phophorence of irony almost
glittering at times into wit. Hitherto, with all his
blunt out-speaking, whatever the nature or bear-
ing of the truth he has to tell, MANHATTAN has
hardly ever assumed to himself the character of
an Alarmist. Reading him now, however, in this
his latest communication, he seems at last fairly
and honestly to come within the category. Not
applying the phrase to him, however, with any
sneering significance latent in it, but simply and
purely as the statement of a fact. MANHATTAN,
in truth, here does quite unmistakeably sound the
alarm. He tells his brother Federals, that the
future looks black enough befcre them, in whatever
direction they may look for comfort. Whether to
the Army of the Potomac, or to the assault upon
Charleston! Whether to the calling out of the
white recruits in the North, by order of Mr. LIN-
COLN,
or to the summons of the black recruits (to the
number of 500,000) in the South, by order of Mr.
DAVlS!Looking, as it were, before him and be-
hind him, to the right hand and to the left, MAN •
RATTAN cant see only the dark clouds gathering, and
mustering, and lowering up; more and more threat-
eningly. Clouds, once—as with, so many a tempest
while in preparation--no bigger than a man's hand!
In this instance—the hand of that great Yankee
Marplot, Mr. ABRAHAM LINCOLN—in old times
a splitter of rails, now a
sputter of

States asunder! Not a mere ordinary politica.
haia;-splitter, mind ! but a render in twain of
e wonder is that tWith such a dis-
Re publics. Th
ruption as has taken place
in the sometime United
States of America, ever since the evil hour when
Mr.. LINCOLN was raised to the Presidential chair,
and was located for the customary term of four
years in that 117 kite House, from which he has yet
to " hail" for rather more than one year out
of those four still remaining to him ! Within
which interval he has, alas! to play out his
little game, his wretched little losing game
of misgovernment. The wonder is to us that
with such a disruption, caused mainly by the
flagrant incapacity of Mr. LINCOLN, the rods
of the American fasces were not separated and
scattered widely apart, directly the bond of Union,
binding them for a time together, had once been
snapped ! Instead of which—they are clubbed
together, all this while, in two distinct clusters—
there the States of the Federalists, there those of the
Confederates. Only with this discernable, through-
out, upon a comparison of those belligerent powers_
that while the North, in wealth, in extent of popu-
lation, in value of commerce, in intelligence (so far
as the educated proportion of each community is
concerned), in resources of all kinds, in maritime
armaments, and so forth, enormously surpasses the
South, the South in the long run has held its own
throughout the war the more securely of the two !

The South has numbered up the most various and the

most signal victories, and has given rise upon the
battle-fields to the most illustrious reputations !
The Northern armies, and not those of the South,
have familiarized observers in Europe with the
ignominious fact expressed by the ludicrous word
—Skedaddling! One Federal Commander-in-
Chief after another has been worsted, while General
LEE has held the same post of honour and respon-
sibility over the Confederate forces, un-
interruptedly to this hour, with this only
change, in himself, as the Southern Commander-in-
Chief, that he has been increasing his high repute
all this while as a Great Captain, by the variety and
importance of his warlike achievements. Grouped
about that one central figure of LEE as the Foremost
soldier of the South, Generals like " STONEWALL,'
JACKSON, and like BEauREGARD, and JOHNSTONE ,
and a throng of other brilliant chieftains, have ap-
peared during the progress of the conflict—leaders
with whom the Federals themselves have none, no not
one in any Ni, ay fitted to compete. As MANHATTAN
has it, the Panther of rebellion in the Confederate
States, has been hunted "up a tree" by the Federal
Government—it is true : but, lo! and behold the
hunter finds his piece, the weapon upon which he
has been relying, not loaded ! He cannot run—or
the Panther will be after him ! He lies down—
and waits ! The Panther waiting, too, probably—
for a spring !

New Zea-
land is-
i The Maories are still
The intelligence which reachesucshfarro
land is anything but pacific n
its
not altogether satisfactory. character, tNe re, and
in a state of great excitement throughout the whole
of the Northern Island, and, from their numbers
and resources, their proceedings cannot be regarded
with indifference. We heard a short time since that
General CAMERON'S energetic measures had struck
terror to their minds ; that the English soldiers had
occupied the disputed block of ground ; and that
the colonists were sanguine as to the results. Now,
however, all seems to be changed for the worse.
We learn from the Australian papers of last month
that the troops, for some unexplained reason, have
been withdrawn from Tataraimaka, leaving only a
garrison, a circumstance which has given great
encouragement to the natives, who have mustered
in considerable force-5,000 Waikatos having taken
the field. It is rumoured that they have threatened
Auckland, and, what is still more surprising, that
they have captured an English schooner, hoisted
the colours of Wiezew KINGI, and sailed up and
down before Government House by way of bravado.
Unless these accounts are very greatly exaggerated,
it seems strange that our authorities should not act
with more promptitude and vigour. According to
the latest intelligence no fighting had then occurred;
but the Waikatos were busily engaged in entrench-
ing themselves ; while volunteers were on duty at
Auckland, and the Governor had issued a requisi-
tion to the Maories to lay down their arms and
swear allegiance. This may be a necessary form,
but it is certainly not very likely that the Waikatos
will heed it, and it seems singular that they should
be allowed to entrench themselves unmolested.
Their fortifications are not to be despised, for they
have obtained a good idea of throwing up earth-
works, so as to make a formidable resistance. Why
they should be suffered to turn this knowledge to
account if there ere men enough in the island to
prevent them is hard to guess, as it is manifest that
the outbreak must be put down with a strong hand,
and that nothing can be hoped from forbearance
and conciliation. The natives misconstrue every
sign of toleration and mercy into an evidence of
fear of provoking them, and this mistake has been
very often committed o 7 late years by our autho-
rities. The savage and relentless cruelty of
PIZARRO has found no imitators in modern times,
but the aborigines have often doubtless been the
victims of harshness and oppression in European
colonies up to a very recent date. The very pre-
sence of the white man, with his knowledge, his
energy, his skill, and his power is prejudicial to the
original race. However few in numbers or scantily
equipped, the settlers are generally regarded with
not unfounded suspicion by the natives, and in their
sense of the justice of this feeling, and our contrition
for the cruelty and greed of other days, many ex-
cellent persons have rushed into the opposite ex-
treme. Conscious of the horrors of a war in which,
however secure our ultimate success, stray travellers
and outlying settlers are at the mercy of the
natives; conscious, too, of the loss and inconvenience
occasioned to the colony and colonists generally, by
long-pending strife and internecine warfare, they
been so eager to avoid giving provocation that they
have let the -Maori perceive that they dreaded war.
Thenceforward the natives, ignorant of the vast
power lying in the shadow of their pretentious but
inactive Government, have been ready to avail
themselves of any trifling excuse to endeavour to
regain their pre-eminence in the islands. Some
months since we remember seeing a letter which a
resident in New Zealand had addressed to an Aus-
tralian paper, in
which he expressed the indigna-
tion felt by the colonists at the manner which the
natives were allowed to assume, and the petty
tyranny which they exercised over European
settlers. The writer expressed his conviction that
before long the authorities would see reason to re-
pent of the line of action they were pursuing, since
the insolence of the Maeries was
growing un-
bounded. Such anticipations have been but too
soon verified. However energetically defensive
measures are now being carried on, it is too late to
undo the mischief done by allowing the natives to
usurp the power and privileges which they have
hitherto assumed ; but it is all important to

succeed, if possible, in overawing them at
the commencement of hostilities. It was hoped
that the movements of General CAMERON, Which
we recorded last month, would have had that effect,

but the unfortunate removal of the great body of
troops from Tataraituaka seems to have given them

fresh encouragement.

The Taranaki Herald of

July 11th, a New Zealand paper, asserts that the
withdrawal of the troops from Tataraimaka has

excited the natives wonderfully, and they boast that

they will drive the Jakehas into the sea. Some of

their own race who are interested in the matter

stir them up with false reports, and the priests and
prophets with their incantations and predictions

help on the mischief. Six of these ill-timed soot&

sayers have arisen within six weeks ; all agreeing
in foretelling a great reverse and subsequent suc-
cesses, including the capture of New Plymouth,
and the driving of all the English soldiers into the
sea, a e.. 1;
ratiz which seems to be the great object of
their ambition. As the Nlaorics put much faith in
these prophets we -
mist not therefore hope that one
defeat will discomfit them, seeing it is thus foretold
as the forerunner of such signal triumphs. Native
spies, too, help the enemy by carrying them intel-
ligeneeolproposed attacks. On a recent occasion, an
old woman, under pretence of hawking firewood,
contrived to elude the pickets at New Plymouth,
and carried the news to a neighbouring pah of a
proposed attack upon it the next morning. In-
stantly messengers were despatched for assistance,
and 800 picked men were ready to meet the assault.

Our Government has thus many and serious

difficulties to contend against and Governor

and General have alike need of all their

prudence, sagacity, and resolution. The colonists,

it is said, piece fell confidence in Ci,n. cumov,