The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 23, 1863,

JZINAHAN'S LLBRWANHDyISKY v. COGNAC
This celebrated Old IRISH WHISKY rivals the finest
FRENCH BRANDY,
It i Pure, Mild, Mellow, Delicious, and very Wholesome.
Sold in Bottles, 3s. Bd., at the Retail Houses in London ; by
the Agents in the principal towns )n England ; or wholesale
at

SI GREAT WINDMILL-STREET, W.
Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label, and Cork branded
"Kinahan's LL Whisky."

S. D.—The ELECTRO-PLATED GOODS
e are coming to one of the Large East-end Drapery
Establishments.—EDlVAUD; LLOYD and CO., 7.1, (te.,
Shoreditch.

1F THIS SHOULD MEET THE EYE of any
one troubled with Wind in the Stomach, Indigestion, or
Biliousness, take PAGE WOODCOCK'S WIND PILLS.
'roar world-wide celebrity proves them of sterling merit.
Of all medicine vendors at is. Lid. rnd 2s. 9d. ; or free by
post for 14 or 33 stamps from Page D. Woodcock, Chemist
Lincoln.

ALGERIAN ONYX MARBLE. Messrs.
HOWELL, JAMES, and CO., respectfully solicit an
inspection of their Onyx Salon, which contains upwards of
1,000 objects, consisting of Clock., Candelabra, Lamps,Vases,
Jardinieres, Inkstands, Pen-trays, and a variety of smaller
articles of taste, at moderate prices.

This beautiful marble is perfectly translucent, bears a very
fine polish, presents a diversity of pleasing tints, and can be
turned or chiselled into any form necessary for utility or
ornament.-5, 7,9, Regent-street, Pall-mall.

AT Christmas many suffer from INDIGESTION,
and require some little assistance. Pillll.'S LIFE
PILLS stimulate the digestive organs, and remove, without
the slightest pain, uneasy or nauseous sensations, so familiar
to those;who have indulged a little too freely in good Christ-
mas fare. May be obtained of any medicine vendor, in boxes,
is lid, 2s Od ; and in family packets, lls each.

EAST AND WEST INDIA DOCK
COMPANY.
. The COURT of DIRECTORS of the East and West India
Dock Company hereby give Notice, that a Half-yearly Cour!,
or General Meeting of the said Company will be held, pur-
suant to the directions by the Act Ist and 2d William IV.,
cap. 52, at the Dock House, No. 8, Billiter-square, on FRIDAY.
the Bth day of Jaaunry, 1861, at which Meeting a Dividend
will be declared on the Capital Steck of the Company for the
Half-year ending the 31st inst.
By order of the Court.
GEORGE COLLIN, Secretary.
East and West India Dock House,
8, Billiter-square.
21st December, 1863.
N.B.—The Chair will be taken at Two o'clock precisely.

gotiation on this matter" to the British Consul at
Charleston, he was informed that " the most perfect
accord on this question exists between her Majesty's
Government and the Government of the Emperor of
the French," and these instructions were accom-
panied by a copy of the despatch of the British Fo•
reign Office of the 18th May, 1861, stating that there
was no difference of opinion between Great Britain
and the United States as to the validity of the prin-
ciples enunciated in the fourth article of the declara-
tion of Paris in reference to blockades. Your prede-
cessors of the Provisional Congress had, therefore,
no difficulty in proclaiming, nor I in approving, the
resolutions which abandoned in favour of Great
Britain and France our right to capture enemy's
property when covered with flags of those Powers.
The " securities" desired by those Governments
were understood by us to be required from both
belligerents. Neutrals were exposed on our
part to the exercise of the belligerent right of
capturing their vessels when conveying the property
of our enemies. They were exposed on the part of
the United States, to interruption in their unques-
tioned right of trading with us by the declaration of
the paper blockade above referred to. We had no
reason to doubt the good faith of the proposal made
to us, nor to suspect that we were to be the only
parties bound by its acceptance. It is true that the
instructions of the neutral Powers informed their
agents that it was "essential under the present cir-
cumstances that they should act with great caution
in order to avoid raising the question of the recog-
nition of the new Confederation," and that the un-
derstanding on the subject did not assume, for that
reason, the shape of a formal convention. But it
was not deemed just by us to decline the arrange-
men on this ground, as little more than ninety days
had then elapsed since the arrival of our Commis-
sioners in Europe, and neutral nations were
fairly entitled to a reasonable delay in acting on
a subject of so much importance, an.l which, from
their point of view, presented difficulties that
we, perhaps, did not fully appreciate. Certain it is
that the action of this Government on the occasion,
and its faithful performance of its own engage-
ments, have been such as to entitle it to expect on
the part of those who sought in their own interests
a mutual understanding, the most scrupulous adhe-
rence to their own promises. I feel constrained to
inform you that in this expectation we have been
disappointed, and that not only have the Governs-
ments which entered into these arrangements
yielded to the prohibition against commerce with
us, which has been dictated by the United States,
in defiance of the law of nations, but that this con-
cession of their neutral rights to our detriment has
on more than one occasion been claimed in inter-
course with our enemies, as an evidence of friendly
feeling towards them. A few extracts from the cor-
respondence of her Majesty's Chief Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs will suffice to show marked
encouragement to the United States to persevere in
its paper blockade, and unmistakable intimations
that her Majesty's Government would not contest
its validity.
Earl Russell pointed
outO ntothtehe2lustniotfedMsa
yta,telsB6M4inister in London that
" the blockade might no doubt be made effective,
considering the small number of harbours on the
Southern coast, even though the extent of 3,000
miles were comprehended in terms of the blockade."
On the 14th of January, 1862, her Majesty's Mi-
nister in Washington communicated to his Govern-
ment that in extenuation of the barbarous attempt
to destroy the port of Charleston by sinking a stone
fleet in the harbour, Mr. Seward had explained
"that the Government of the United States had last
spring, with a navy very little prepared for so ex-
tensive an operation, undertaken to blockade up-
wards of 3,000 miles of coast. The Secretary of the
Navy had reported that he could atop up the large
holes' by means of his sh ps, but that he could not
stop up the small ones.' It has been found neces-
sary, therefore, to close some of the numerous small
inlets by sinking vessels in the channel."
On the 6th of May, 1862, so far from claiming
the right of British subjects as neutrals to trade
with us as belligerents, and to disregard the blockade
on the ground of this explicit confession by our
enemy of his inability to render it effective, her
Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
claimed credit with the United States for friendly
action respecting it. His lordship stated that " the
United States Government, on the allegation of a
rebellion pervading from nine to eleven States of
the Union, have no AP, for more than twelve months,
endeavoured to maintain a blockade of three thou-
sand miles of coast. This blockade, kept up irre-
gularly, but when enforced, enforced severely, has
seriously injured the trade and manufactures of
the United Kingdom. Thousands are now ob-
liged to resort to the poor rates for sub-
sistence owing to this blockade. Yet her Ma-
jesty's Government have never sought to take ad-
vantage of the obvious imperfections of this blockade,
in order to declare it ineffective. They have, to the loss
and detriment of the British nation, scrupulously
observed the duties of Great Britain towards a
friendly State."
Again, on the 22d September, 1862, the same
noble earl asserted that the United States were
" very far indeed" from being in " a condition to ask
other nations to assume that every port of the coasts
of the so styled Confederate States is effectively
blockaded."
When in view of these facts, of the obligations of
the British nation to adhere to the pledge made by
their Government at Paris in 1856, and renewed to
this Confederacy in 1861, and of these repeated and
explicit avowals of the
imperfection, irregularity,
and inefficiency of the pretended blockade of our
coast, I directed our Commissioner at London to
call upon the British Government to redeem its
promise, and to withold its moral aid and sanction
from the flagrant. violation of public law
committed by our
enemies,,we were in-
formed that her Majesty's Government could
not regard the blockade of the Southern ports as
having been otherwise than " practically effective,"
in February, 1862, and that " the manner in which
itm ehna
tss sincen o
excuse
for nto neutral Govern- been
a enforcedascertaining
t agives
n g
that the blockade
has not been effectually maintained." We were
further informed, when we insisted that by the
terms of agreement no blockade was to be considered
effective unless "sufficient really to prevent access
to our coast," that the declaration of Paris was in
truth directed against blockades not sustained by
any actual force, or sustained by a notoriously in-
adequate force, such as the occasional appearance
of a man-of-war in the offing, or the like."
It was impossible that this mode of construing
an agreement, so as to make its terms mean almost
h
conveyed, could be
consideredvers eh
oft er whatwis
e they
a notification of the
refusal to the British Government to remain
tere
otherwise
thanplainly
a s
bound by its agreement, or longer to respect those
articles Of the declaration of Paris, which had been
repeatedly denounced by British statesmen, and
had been characterised by Earl Russell as " very
imprudent" and " most unsatisfactory."
If any doubt remained of the motives by which
the British Ministry have been actuated in their
dissipated by the
a
conductdistinet aitvowwoaullsdabned ec:pnilaPnleatteYilons contained in the
published
rs. In commenting on
the remonstrances of this
ineffective blockade, the
retary sfpoere Fchoreg cnenAtlffylimde by her Majesty's
Secretary
following language is used,--" It is said we have,
contrary to the declarations of Paris, contrary to in •
ternational law) permitted the blockade of 3,000
miles of American coast.. It is quite true we did so,
and the presumable cause of
- complaint is quite true,
that although the blockade is kept up by a ,
suffi-
cient number of ships, yet these ships were sent into
the United States navy ill-fitted
. in a hurry, and are
for the purpose, and did not keep up so completely
and effectively us wad required au effective block-
ade."
This unequivocal confession of violation, both of

agreement with us and international law,is defended

on grounds the validity of which we submit with
confidence to the candid judgment of mankind.
These grounds are thus stated :—" Still locking
at the law of nations, it was a blockade we, as great
belligerent Power in former times, should have ac-
knowledged. We, ourselves, had a blockade of up-
wards
boof2r in justice 0 miles, and it did seem to me that we
were e to the Federal States of Ame-

rica to acknowledge that blockade. Bat there. was
another reason which weighed with rne. Our

people were suffering severely for the want of
that material which was the main staff of

their industry ; and it was a question of self-interest
whether we should not break the blockade. But in
my opinion the men of England woule have been for
ever infamous if, for the sake of their own interest
they had violated the law of nations and made war
in conjunction with those slaveholding States of

America against the Federal States."
In the second of these reasons our rights are tot
involved; although it-may be permitted to observe
that the conduct of Governments has not hereto-

fore, to my knowledge, been guided by the prin-
ciple that it is infamous to assert their rights

whenever the invasion of those rights creates severe

suffering among their people and injuriously affect
great interests. But the intimation that relations

with these States would be discreditable because

they are slaveholding, would probably have been
omitted if the official personage who has published

it to the world had remembered that these States
were, when colonies, made slaveholding by the

direct exercise of the power of Great Britain, whose
dependencies they were, and whose interests in the

slave trade were then supposed to require that her
colonies should be made slaveholding.
But the other ground stated is of a very grave
character. It asserts that a violation of the law of
nations by Great Britain in 1807, when that Govern-

ment declared a paper blockade of 2,000 miles of

coast (a violation then defended by law courts and

jurists on the sole ground that her action was reta-
liatory), affords a justification for a similar outrage
on neutral rights by the United States in 1861, for
which no palliation can .be suggested; and that
Great Britain "is bound in justice to the Federal
States," to make return for the war waged against
her by the United States in resistance of her illegal

blockade of 1807, by an acquiescence in the Federal

illegal blockade of 1861. The most alarming fea-
ture in this statement is its admission of a just
claim on the part of the United States to require of
Great Britain, during this war, a disregard of the
recognised principles of modern public law and of
her own compacts, whenever any questionable con-
duct of Great Britain "in former times" can be
cited as a precedent. It is not inconsistent with re-
spect and admiration for the great people whose
Government have given us this warning, to suggest
that their history, like that of mankind in gmeral,
offer exceptional instances of indefensible conduct
"in former times," and we may well deny the
morality of violating recent engagements through
deference to the evil precedents of the past.
After defending, in the manner just stated,
the course of the British Government on the sub-
ject of the blockade, her Majesty's Foreign
Secretary takes care to leave no doubt of the
the purpose of the British Government to prevent
our purchase of vessels in Great Britain, while sup-
plying our enemies with rifles and other munitions
of war, and states the intention to apply to Perna-
tnhtefouretihteedfsu rttahteeeratnhceeaoefeutrheinsede etshigetn
he.
wHiell gdiev
in
mtoe
their favour not only "everything that the law of
nations requires, everything that the present Foreign
Enlistment Act requires," but that he will ask the
sanction of Parliament'` to further measures that her
Majesty's Ministers may still add." This language
wouldnotw
havehic
h
lis so unmistakably an official exposition of the policy
adopted by the British Government in relation to
our affairs, that the duty imposed on me by the Con-
stitution of giving you from time to time,'' informa-
tion of the state of the Confederacy,"
been performed if I had failed to place it distinctly
before you.
I refer you for further details on this whole sub-
ject to the correspondence of the State Department,
whhieahvelle brieflyee narratedmpani are,esthismessge. The facts
I trust, sufficient to
enable you to appreciate the true nature of the neu-
trality professed by this war. "It is not in my
power to apprise you to what extent the Government
of France shares the views so unreservedly avowed
by that of Great Britain, no published correspond-
ence of the French Government on the subject hav-
ing been reeeived." No public protest nor opposi-
tion, however, has been made by his Imperial
Majesty against the prohibition to trade with us,
imposed on French citizens by the paper blockade
of the United States, "although I have reason to
believe that an unsuccessful attempt was made on
his part to secure the assent of the British Govern-
ment to a course of action more consonant with the
dictates of public law and with the donnas of jus-
tice towards us."
The partiality of her Mejesty's Government in favour of
our enemies has been further evinced in the marked differenoe
of its conduct on the subject of the purchase of supplies by
the two belligerents. This difference has been conspicuous
since the very commencement of the war. As early as the
Ist of May, 1862, the British Minister in Washington was in-
formed by the Secretary of State of the United States that
he had sent agents to England, and that others would go to
France, to purchase arms, and this fact was communicated
to the British Foreign-effice, which interposed no objection.
Yet in October of the same year Earl Russell entertained.
the complaint of the United States Minister in London, that
the Confederate States were importing contraband of war
from the island of Nassau, directed inquiry into the matter,
and obtained a report from the authorities of the island
armiesesu o
1:
it.
denying the allegations, which report was enclosed to Mr.
Adams, and received by him as satisfactory evidence to dis-
sipate " the suspicion naturally thrown upon the authorities 1
of Nassau by that unwarrantable act." So, too, when the
Confederate Government purchased in Great Britain, as a
neutral country (and with strict observance both of the law
of nations and the municipal law of Great Britain), vessels
which were subsequently armed and commissioned as vessels
of war, after they had been far removed from English waters,
the British Government, in violation of its own laws and in
deference to the importunate demands of the United States,
made an ineffectual attempt to seize one vessel, and did ac-
tually seize and detain another which touched at the island
of Nassau, on her way to a Confederate port, and subjected
her to an unfounded prosecution at the very time when car-
goes of munitions of war were being openly shipped from
British ports to New York, to be used in warfare against us.
Even now the public journals bring intelligence that the Bri-
tish Government has ordered the seizure, in a British port,
of two vessels, on the suspicion that they may have been sold
to this Government, and that they may be hereafter armed
and equipped in our service, while British subjects are en-
gaged in Ireland by tens of thousands to proceed to the
United States for warfare against the Confederacy, in defiance
both of the law of nations and of the express terms of the
British statutes, and are transported in B ritish ships,without
an effort at concealment, to the ports of the United States,
there to be armed with rifles imported from Great Britain
and to be employed against our people in a war for conquest.f
uhilleistrained
international law, on the part of our enemies, w
new enact-
iNs No
interposed
s Qd prerogative
against
thisis ifinavgorkaendt,
breach
ae
ceche executive i vino interference
constructions are placed on existing
precluding the possibility of purchase by
t purpose, unless
of vessels that are useless for belligerent 1
the neutral juris-
hereafter armed and equipped outside o
diction of Great Britain.
Government has exercised
scoefoenutfrheedeeracy is either independent
ments proposed, and questionable expaetaditetiteitsss'devised,
Government
For nearly three years this
many millions of wiiling and
unquestioned jurisdiction
its citizens th • CPP3rted
upnedeeprlethhaevperboeteenctidoenveolfopthede
racy has leckcd no clement which Lis mbuishes en inde-
pendent nation, according. to the principles of public law.
Its legislative, executive, dui judicial departments, each in
its sphere, have formed their appropriate tunetions wills a
lu,yn in-
vadersi:hede , people.cwonhfiode confidence
have Ie t
and
nn has,viaami
affection
csto.toviu andgnr
hotf: defeatedti
si. t. subversion.vas.t
regularity as undisturbed as in a time of profound peace,
in the organisation of vast armies, while their rights and
of the United States, for no other
the right to govern it. Without one
alcoeinoarburde
trirhtt tt
courts
heyoisesfp
justice.l voahwha edvo r whole
epc lee anniresteddemTre energies
dependency
sys
historic fact, on which the pretension can rest, without one
line or word of treaty or covenant, which can give colour
to title, the, United States having asserted, and the British
Government has chosen to concede, that t'aese sovereign