The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-06 00:00:00

VENTING, JAN VARY 6, 1863.

starvation, is bringing contempt upon the Govern-
ment, and that is high treason for a journal. It is
warned immediately, and at a second warning sup-
pressed. The reproach of the Rouennais against
the Paris press, that it is muoh more concerned in
the exclusion of an English Prince from the throne
of Greece than attentive to relieve 100,000 of its
fellow-countrymen from starvation, is scarcely just.
The French journalist has been given foreign poli-
tics:as a field in which he may play and lucubrate
at pleasure; but domestic politics are like the beau-
tiful green sward of the public parks and pleasure
grounds in and near Paris, which you are permitted
to look at but forbidden to tread. It is to M. Fould,
therefore, and the Emperor, we fear, that the ope-
ratives of the Lower Seine must look. The mill-
owners of the region are not in the best odour with
the Imperial Government. With the exception of
the Dollfus family and a few others, the majority
have clamoured loudly against the Emperor for his
Free-trade policy and Anglo-French treaty. Now
that the proportion of work performed by hand has
come to be stated, one is not astonished that the
lowering of duties has thrown many out of work.
Much of the distress attributed to the want of
cotton must have taken place at all events. It
offers, however, a fair opportunity and pretext for
the Imperial Government to step in and show itself
under its favourite aspect of pater patrice.
TIMES.—The political divisions of the North are
likely to neutralize, for war purposes, its superior
command of resources. And the difference between
the two rival sections as to supplies appears from
the evidence of the Southern journals to be decreas-
ing. The Confederacy obtains military stores and
provisions to an extent that perplexes Northern
observers. The Southern army has no superfluity
of rations or luxury of clothing; but it has stores
enough for existence, and the troops are armed to
efficiency as soldiers. It is evident that the blockade
is not complete. Cargoes are run upon the coast,
and find their way to Richmond and Charleston so
frequently as to make the sales by auction a regular
item of the newspaper advertisements. The an-
nouncements are generally "of such goods as we now
get through the blockade." There is no secrecy
observed, except as to the places of landing. Prices
are high, for a pound of candles costs 48., and a
sixpenny tooth-brush commands a dollar. But
the community is not wholly cut off from the
outer world. There is more mystery as to exports,
hut some amount of business is quietly done. We
hear of agents in Richmond buying tobacco on
European account. Foreign speculators also invest
in cotton, and against these cargoes it is believed
the Southern Government draws for funds. There
are also reported purchases of Confederate Bonds,
which render the possession of the sinews of war by
the South not so inexplicable as it has appeared.
Of the scarcity of provisions in the Southern towns
the descriptions given in the North are both true
and not true. There have been short supplies, but
the inconvenience is not caused by actual dearth.
It is a result of interrupted communications, and
the derangement of the machinery of distribution.
Artificial scarcity has thus been produced in loca-
lities surrounded by abundance. The same thing
would happen in any European city if the railroads
were broken up, or used exclusively for the service
of an army. There is at this moment a scarcity of
provisions in St. Petersburg, because Nature has
not laid down the usual winter road of snow. The
railway lines of the South have been under the
control of the Government during the war, and
while the trains were carrying supplies for the troops
the citizens of the towns have undergone many pri-
vations. But there is no other evidence that the Con-
federacy will be crippled in its means of continuing
the war for another year. The greatest deficiency
under which its armies suffer appears to be the
want of shoes and good clothing. The contrast be-
tween the 11,000 Federal prisoners taken at Harper's
Ferry and their captors is described as having been
most striking in all externals. The well fed and per-
fectly booted Northerners could scarcely believe that
men could march and fight in such ragged array.
But if the contest becomes one of determination and
power of endurance, the united spirit of the Sauth
will give it the superiority of morale. The ac-
knowledgments of this superiority made by the
Northern journals must be a compensation in the
south for much suffering. The New York ?Imes
actually holds up the Confederates as displaying
virtues worthy of imitation. " The rebels, notwith-
standing all their trials and disappointments, have
been patient. They have submitted with hardly a
murmur to the management of their leaders, have
not clamoured for intelligence, nor dictated plans,
nor mourned over mishaps. They have exhibited
remarkable trust and constancy." How are the
exactly opposite qualities to conquer the community
thus described in the next few months P "Expe-
diency" would answer the question better than
" fanaticism."

HERALD.—Most of us must remember in our
school-time experience the thoroughly sympathetic
satisfaction with which the interference of a cham-
pion on behalf of some urchin about to be soundly
thrashed, and perhaps cleaned out or filched from
by one of the customary bullies of Dr. S wish's esta-
blishment, has been regarded and repaid with
hearty applause. One of the significant occasions
in which Mr. Thackeray takes care to let us under-
stand the character of Dobbin in " Vanity Fair," is
when he protects young Osborne from the cock of
the school, who is about to perpetrate some act of
cruelty to the infliction of which he considers him-
self irresponsibly entitled. The story told by Mr.
Underhill, a passenger on board the British mer-
chant steamer the Thistle, which was stopped and
searched by the Tuscarora, and at the exactly pro-
per and most critical moment rescued from the jaws
of the devourer by her Majesty's paddle steamer,
the Leopard, parallels precisely the occasion to
which we have above alluded in the life of every
schoolboy at a public school. The Thistle left
Liverpool on the 20th November with a very valu-
able cargo for Nassau, New Providence, and of
what the cargo consisted we need not trouble
our readers to inquire. She encountered some
very had weather, bat arrived in Funchal Roads,
where she cast anchor, about noon, six days after
her leaving England. As the Thistle stood in to-
wards the island she sighted a large screw steamer,
to all appearance heavily armed, and whose rig
corresponded to the description of the Northern
States war steamer, the Tuscarora. The Tuscarora,
as our readers may recollect, is a sullen-looking
craft, drawing much water from her armament,
which acquired a reputation over in this country for
her intended but frustrated acts of mischief to the
Sumter when coaling and equipping at Southamp-
ton. However, those on board the Thistle saw this
ugly stranger put to sea, and for four-and-twenty
hours absent herself from Madeira, where the
Thistle was taking in coal. The day after the ar-
rival of the Thistle her captain and passengers were
much gratified at the advent of her Britannic
Majesty's steamer Leopard, bound to China, which
ran into the roads, and anchored outside the mer-
chant vessel, also to take in coal. Three days after-
wards the Thistle proposed to resume her route
but, at about four o'clock in the afternoon previously
u I
to the day of her departure, the sign aimq:
bay,
Loo Fort, an isolated fortified rock in
h
an-
nounced that " An American man;ef. of w
the two pre-
was stand-
ingthe
in, and t 39011 after the wonder
the roads, the
ceding days steamed majestically
hhber mizen peak." A
our this, carrying
stars and stripes floating from.
suspicious, nasty looking neighbour
six or sevenshe heavy guns, with
a broadside of
pivot guns on d
several large
was and wherever she came from, those in command
did not show the customary decencies of et'.quette
and ordinary respect, for the new comer steamed
silently to an anchorage a little ahead of the Thistle
and astern of the Leopard, and never dipped her en-
sign either to the Portuguese or British flags. " Con-
sidering the Thistle's destination," writes Mr. Un-

PRICE..... -..4d.
—.id.

Tthrititthe should keep
derhill," it was not
a sharp look-out 011 her formidable neighbour ; and
these precautions proved to be founded on reason,
for several times, during the night, one of the Fe-
deral vessel's boats, commanded by an officer, was
found to have sneaked alongside the merchant
steamer, with the effort more than once repeated to
engage in parlance, which might be useful for ul-
terior purposes, with the look-out man on board the
Thistle." It will be observed that the captain of
the Tuscarora and his subordinates have very loose,
if any, notions of punctilio or good breeding.
The next day being Saturday,
away sped the
Thistle, and passing at tho hour of sunrise between
the two war ships saluted, as the fashion in-
variably is, each vessel in her turn. The Yankee
disdained the courtesy, ignored it altogether; the
Englishman, as a mere habit, dipped his ensign
in return. It had been remarked that the Tus-
carora kept her steam up all the night, and
accordingly the Thistle had not journeyed a mile
from her anchorage when the American captain
was seen to slip his cable and pursue with all his
might and main. Away went the Thistle at fall
speed, and was distancing her pursuer, when the
American, very incautiously, and with an undue
haste for his own interests, fired a bow gun as a
signal for the merchant vessel to stop, and the cap-
tain of the Thistle, Captain Matted, who is
evidently a very knowing and experienced hand,
immediately brought to, as he did not mind being
questioned and overhauled while be could still claim
the protection of the English man of war. So the
Thistle was hove to. Down came the Yankee, like
a hawk or buzzard swooping for prey ; down he
bore at full speed, " his ports open and guns run
out, while his ports and hammock nettings were
one mass of faces as the crew crowded to look at
their chase," and eagerly gloated over their " pro-
spective prize." Presently a boat, manned with
an armed boarding party of eleven men, under
command of two officers, came alongside the Thistle,
and the first lieutenant of the Tuscarora, by com-
mand of his captain," Captain Craven—an unhappy
name—commanding the United States steam
sloop Tuscarora," stepped on the deck of the
Thistle, with plenary orders to search her from
stem to stern, as she was reported to be carrying
" ammunition and other articles contraband of war

for the use of the rebels in the Southern States."
Captain Maxted replied that his information was
perfectly erroneous, and at the same time politely
pointed to the English red ensign which was flying
overhead, with the additional intimation that the
Thistle was a British vessel, with a British clearance
from one British port to another, and that if neces-
sary the protection of her Britannic Majesty's ship
Leopard would be claimed. The lieutenant, appa-
rently a German by Mr. Underhill's narrative,
with more emphasis than courtesy, expressed his
contempt for the flag and protection so invoked, and
demanded a sight of the ship's papers, menacing
the captain with his armed force if refused, and
threatening " if he found anything contraband on
board to seize the vessel as a United States prize."
What a terribly important, vaunting, and Bobadil
race seem the mercenaries in both army and navy of
th 9 Northern States. No sooner does an expatriated
adventurer, either from public or private necessities
touch the Yankee shore, than he is clothed in arro-
gance, self-assertion, and vulgar recklessness such as
any roystering, ill-reputed, loose rapparee assumes
when he comes into a company where his antece-
dents are unknown. The bills of lading, however,
were inspected, and were too much, with their mis-

cellaneous contents of " coffae, tea, brandy, &c.,"
for this swaggering sea lieutenant. Presently he
avowed his determination to search the cargo, but
as 260 tons of coal would have first had to have
been removed, and as he was advised to be quick in
his duty "as the Leopard was approaching," he
signalled his own vessel for further orders, and re-
ceived instructions to repair back to the Tuscarora.
"No countenances" writes Mr. Underhill, and we
implicitly believe him, " ever displayed disappointed
rage more strongly than did those of the ill-looking
and motly crew (apparently of every nation) of the
Tuscarora's boat, as they pulled back to their own

ship, amid cheers for England,' hurrahs for
the Leopard, and so on." The whole story is very
well to d by Mr. Underhill to the Scotsman, and the
following illustrations of the chaff between the
American boat's crew and the crew of the Thistle
smacks so strongly of reality that we cannot for-
bear quoting it entire.

" One of the Thistle's mates, the late boatswain of the
Confederate steamer 290,' asked if the Tuscarora's crew
had made much prize money this fall. A Yankee in the
boat reckoned they hadn't turned a cent.' Oh,' re-
sponded the mate, You're not half chaps. The Alabama',
men have each made a little fortune off the New York
blockade.' Oh,' said the officer in the boat, we should
like to fall in with that pirate Semmes. Do you think he is
near this ?' 'No chance of his being in these latitudes,'
replied the mate, or the Tuscarora daron't have ventured
down.' Some of the Britishers expressed their wish to be
'in the land of cotton,' and their intention of living and
dying in Dixie ;' while an Irishman in the boat suggested
that they ' maybe hadn't to get there first, and so on."
The Leopard, as the first lieutenant of the Ame-
rican man-of-war returned from his bootless cruise,
came very close, and accordingly the Tuscarora
steamed back towards Funchal, with the Leopard
slowly following in her wake. Towards afternoon
the Leopard stood out to sea to make assurance

doubly sure, but the captain of the Thistle, seeing
the enemy safe, turned his vessel's head to wind,

and went ahead at full speed. The Thistle, at
nightfall, changed her course, "headed away for
the north-east trades," and saw no snore of the

Tuscarora or Leopard.
It would spoil such a pleasant adventure to com-
ment on the satisfaction of the Thistle in slipping
through Captain Craven's fingers and the very grasp
of the German first lieutetlant.