The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-19 00:00:00

money as were thought sufficiently attractive. Ves-
sels from the cod fisheries arrived daily at Province-
town, but not a sailor volunteered to serve. The
Commodore remained a fortnight on the station,
with the same unsaccess ; and it is now reported
that the Sabine will have to be laid up for the win-
ter for want of men. No considerations of the un-
popularity of the commander can be brought to
explain the failure, for Commodore Ringgold is not
only a good seaman, but a gentleman in the highest
sense of the word, and beloved alike by
his officersctly
and his crew. The steam frigate Niagara, recently
completed, and described as being one of the very
finest ships in the world, is in the same predicament.re
She lies at Charlestown, near Boston, prepared
Florida,prepare to
start in pursuit of the Alabama a
but
Saratogo, with a heavy
enable to move for wantboafttaercyre,
ww.h iTe
hh ew
so
aui ll di nbge suhs ier:
been ready for sea for three
ful before Charleston, Mobilrae,nonrthNeV, ibl ma
ti ni
tg thoane,beheans
found impossible to man her. e
Federalr.Th war shipseremaybe,
iannda
doubtless are, many other
similar predicament, though as yet no publicity has
been given to the facts. Tlte Naval Department
knows not what to do. One set of advisers, undis-
mayed by the glaring failure of the conscription,
boldly urges the Government to introduce into Con-
gress in the first week of its sitting an Act for the
~ impressment" of seamen, while another class in-
sists that many thousands of volunteers could yet
be procured if the bounty offered were increased,
and, above all, if the ordinance were repealed which
' deprived the sailors of their "grog." It is asserted
' that the increase of pay, to the amount of sc. per
' diem, which has been granted to the sailor as a
solatium for the loss of his usual stimulant, is not
satisfactory, and that as long as this restriction upon
the free will and upon the tastes and habits of the
sea-going people is continued, so long will the Fe-
deral Government suffer for want of seamen. What-
ever remedy may be adopted, it Is so uncertain in
its operation, that the Government may well be ex-
cused if it do not see the expediency of a war either
with Great Britain or France. An Impressment Act
would be odious to the people, which might not
signify much to a Government that seems deter-
mined to establish a despotism ; but it might fail in
its object, which is a contingency that no Govern-
ment can afford to despise. As for the " grog," it
is likely that the severity o' the existing discipline
will be relaxed, and that " Jack" will be allowed his
coveted modicum of rum or whiskey; but whether
in the event of war with Great Britain any consider-
able number of British sailors in the present service
of the Federal Government will consent to be trai-
tors to the land of their birth admits of the gravest
doubts.

The fact seems to be that the United States, or
what may remain of them, on the conclusion of
peace, may be a great military, but never can be-
come a great naval nation. Their territory by its
very vastness is inland, and must breed an inland,
not a maritime population. It requires the sea to
beget a love of the sea. The boy that is to be a
sailor when he is a man must sport upon the shore
when he is a child ; and this can be the destiny of
but few Americans. If the coast line of the Federal
States, leaving California out of the calculation, be
measured from Norfolk in Virginia (somewhat more,
perhaps, than will be allowed after a settlement
between North and South) to the boundary line in
the Bay of Fandy, between the State of Maine and
the British colony of New Brunswick—the one in
lat. 32 deg., and the other in lat. 45 deg. 25 sec. N.,
—it will be found that the maritime population of
the Federal States only exists upon a length of
about 900 miles of coast. Compare this with the
coast line of the British isles, and it may be esti-
mated that the sailor-producing power of England
and Scotland, to say nothing of Ireland, is at least
twice as great as that of the Northern Union. Had
it not been for British sailors, the American navy,
national or mercantile, could not have been what it
is, and the "Buncome" orators of vast inland re-
gions, 1,000 miles from the sea, would have had
much less reason to boast of their ability to cope
with the greatest maritime Power that the world
has even seen or is likely to see.
A short letter addressed to the President by the
Hon. Josiah Quincy, of Boston, Massachusetts, the
only living American of any note who was born
before the Declaration of Independence, and who
was once in consequence a British subject, has ex-
cited considerable attention. The private and public
character of this venerable gentleman stand deser-
vedly high. He is in his 92d year, in full possession
of his faculties, was long a member of Congress and
of the Legislature of his native State, and has been
president of Harvard College and Mayor of Boston,
was on terms of intimacy with Washington,
Lafayette, and most of the earlier as well as later
Presidents, and is author of several works, of which
the life of his relative John Quincy Adams is the
best as well as most recent. It might be thought
that if the voice of any man in America would be
raised in favour of blessed peace it would be that of
a man so sage, so calm, so experienced, and so pat-
riotic. But it is not so. The abolition of negro
slavery, though the land should be deluged with
blood for 50 years in the attempt to enforce it, has
such entire possession of his mind that he has no
advice to give to the President or the people but to
fight on. He insists that compromise is impossible,
and believes that the final victory of the Federal
Government is inea itable. He, too, so far beyond
the ordinary age of passion, shares the passion of his
countrymen for extent of territory. The " Union"
is the God of his idolatry. And yet this Josiah
Quincy was the earliest die-Unionist known. He
declared so far back as 1802 that the purchase of
Louisiana was unconstitutionai•--that it was fatal to
the stability of the Union, and sufficient to justify
the secession of Massachnssetts, and every other
State, if in pursuance of the Act of Congress, of the
undoubted rights of the South under the constitution
and of the solemn decision of the Supreme Court, the
officers of the Federal Executive, charged with a
legal warrant, should presume to lay hands upon a
fugitive slave on the soil of that commonwealth.
This only shows how great was the original incom-
patibility between North and South. When Aboli-

tionism was in the minority, it threatened disruption
of the Union, rather than obey a law which it did
not approve. Its maxim then, as now, was " rule or
rain ;" and Mr. Quincy, its oldest, if not its ablest
apostle, is powerless to emancipate himself from its
thraldom. He declares the South to be " mad;"
but, if so, he might well ask himself whether
wh Washington were not mad also, and all the men
thatexiu existence
oB British i sh
thisp
3 acted with him, including Josiah Quincy.
It was in this correspondence, some months ago,
society called the
euoopulnetwr were first informed of the
establishmentw hose objects 0 f yof a mysterious political
Finnian, Fenian, or Phinean
Brotherhood,whose
Nveart
athned
; that the Irish
invasion of Ireland and
aeourganization is
hinheitilisrisbhers were all Irishmen,
that the true name of Republic. It appears
Brotherhood
veloped their proceedings the Fenian'
is
which formerly en-
,,
}Ludo
()longer to be insisted
Colonel
upon, and that the
John
oe,nNtre," or Grand
iyahoney, of New
Master, is one
York, now a loyal citizen of the
united States, but
against the autho-
rity of Dublin, and a rebel
O'Brienrequisition
in
rity of Great Britain, under Mr.
the cabbage-garden. In obedienceintiotollra
numberof 60
numerously signed by the " centres" local chiefs
of the Brotherhood at Philadelphia, Chicago, Louie_
vine, and other large cities to the
or
70, thisfunctionary has convened a general meeting
1 of the body to assemble at the Fenian Hall in Ch"
cage!, on the 3d of November next, to debate oin
tegrave and pressing matters." It is stated that
Mr. Seward, Archbishop Hughes, and all the poli-
ticians in the Union, who are accustomed to court
tho Irish
vote
on
occasions of emergency, are well
objects of the society, and what is
aware of
the
important
can obtain a comm sion in the Federal army
unless he can prove
hisis affiliation to the Fenians
and his sympathy
with their designs. It
is hinted that immediately on the rec ,opnition of the
Southern Confederacy by Great Britain, or on a de-
claration of war on the grievance of the Confederate
rams, the Fenians will he let loose upon Ireland, to
stir up insurrection; that the Federal Government
(if it do tot in the interval tumble to pieces) will im-
mediately recognise the Irish as belligerents, and
that the shipbuilders of Boston, Brooklyn, and
PhilldclPhil will cl,rtrilet ram, =loiters, and