The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The resentment felt in the Northern
States against every one concerned in the cruise of
the Alabama is so natural, and the arguments of
the New York Chamber of Commerce aro so plau-
sible, that it behoves us to look at the whole ques-
tion carefully and fairly. When the case is stated
from the Federal point of view, we cannot help
feeling a certain degree of sympathy with their
remonstrances. Here is a ship constructed by
Messrs. Laird, of Birkenhead, and supplied with
engines specially designed and manufactured by
them. It is further alleged, by way of aggrava-
tion, that she was built with British materials and
by British workmen, but as this is implied in the
fact of her being launched from the Birkenhead
Ironworks, we do not see what is gained by dwel-
Hug on it. It is more to the purpose that she is
supposed to be manned by old men-of-war's men of
our Navy and seamen of the Naval Reserve, though
we have no ground for assuming that any of her
officers are English, Whether or not she was
bought with the money of British cotton brokers,
as a New York journal affirms, we have no means
of ascertaining, but we learn from our correspond-
ent there that certain New York speculators share
with our own merchants the infamy of this imputa-
tion. There is no reason to doubt, what one of our
Liverpool contemporaries admits, that she is sup-
plied with coal (and perhaps with ammunition) by
a regular succession of ships from this country.
When in want of water or repairs she exercises
the right of taking refuge infra praesidia of some
one of our West India Islands, and if the Tuscarora
or San Jacinto choose to follow her thither, she
must submit to give her a 24 hours' start. All this
is highly vexatious, and when news come that ship
after ship has been overhauled by her and burnt at
sea we can understand the exasperation that it
causes at New York. Reprisals are out of the
question, for the blockade, whether effective or not,
:nets left no Confederate merchantmen for prizes.
Even the " British pirate" herself, as she is now be-
ginning to be called, is almost secure from cap-
ture. She was built expressly for speed, and carries
guns of longer range than her pursuers. In short,
the immense superiority of the Northerners at sea
has not been a little neutralised, their. commerce
partially crippled, and the rate of marine insurance
sensibly raised by the movements of this mis-
chievous little craft, which but for Great Britain
could not have existed at all. What more venial,
then, than an outburst of wrath against this coun-
try, and what more obvious than the suggestion that
our ships of war should be employed to run down
and destroy the vessel which the Federal navy can-
not catch ? When, however, we examine one by
one the complaints thus massed together into a
general charge against oar Government, we shall
find that several of them are irrelevant, and that
they amount altogether to very little. We may at
once dismiss from consideration the magnitude of
the damage done by the Alabama. The same prin-
ciple which would justify her in capturing a fishing
boat would justify her in capturing every Federal
merchantman on the Atlantic. If the effect of her
activity is that the American carrying trade is trans-
ferred to our own ships or those of foreign nations,
we cannot help it; and Lord Russell has given a
clear proof of impartiality by referring the owners
of British property destroyed on board Federal ships
to the Confederate Prize Courts. So, again, assum-
ing that she is a lawfully commissioned vessel, we
cannot refuse her the ordinary hospitality of our
ports or give any extraordinary advantages to the
ships in search of her. Nor are we aware of any
law prohibiting the sale of stores, even if contra-
band of war, to a belligerent on the high seas. No-
thing, therefore, that has happened since July last,
when the Alabama put to sea, can be the subject of
legitimate objection. The real and only question is
as to the conduct of England before and about that
time. Ws say the conduct of England, because the
New York Chamber of Commerce joins in a common
indictment the people, the press, and the responsi-
ble Government of this country. This is a mistake
which American merchants should be the last to
make. What would they say of an attempt to fix
the guilt of Walker's and other filibustering expe-
ditions on their nation collectively ? It is idle to
insist upon our supposed sympathy with the ob-
jects of Captain Semmes and his crew as having
anything to do with a point of International Law.
There are but two parties whose acts are material
in this case—the Government and those British
subjects who built, equipped, or enlisted on board
the Alabama. Now, we freely admit that these last,
if they wilfully give their services in arming, man-
Ding, and fitting out a vessel intended to pillage
the marine of a State friendly to her Majesty,
have committed a legal offence. By so doing—if
they have so done—they have put themselves be-
yond the protection of Great Britain. They must
prosecute their enterprise at their own risk ; and
this risk will be increased by their participation
in the practice—forced upon them by circumstances,
but unknown among the usages of war—of making
their_captain a judge without appeal and burning
their prizes at sea. Such was the tenour of the
Queen's Proclamation in May, 1861, and the Fo-
reign Enlistment Act declares such active interven-
tion in a foreign war to be a misdemeanour. To
what extent the provisions of that Act may have
been evaded by those who provided the crew and
armament of No. 290 is doubtful ; but this is a doubt
which we are not concerned to clear up. The ques-
tion iQ, not whether a number of Englishmen may
not have imitated the stratagem of the Garibaldians
at Genoa with less excuse than they, but whether
the English Government should be accused of con-
nivance, and taxed with a breach of neutrality for
nut putting an efftc' ual embargo upon them.
might here cut short the diFcussion by con-
tending that no reclamation can be made against
a Sovereign, as such, for the misdeeds of his subjects
acting in a private capacity, We might
recognise th
military
e prohibition of refuse to
service under
a foreign Power as a part of the general law of na-
tions, and challenge the right of
the anyF Government
but but our own to avail itself of
Enlist-
ment Act, seeing that it is not amenable to our mu-
so, however, or by •
nicipal law. By doing disputing
the application of the 7th section of that Act to a
case like that of the Alabama, we should but weaken
the strength of our own position. The truth is
that the advisers of the Crown did authorise
the detention of the Alabama, and an order
was sent to that effect, but she gave us the
slip. This appears from a despatch of Mr.
Adams himself, and we know further that cer-
tain bonds required by our Government from
her owners have been forfeited by her subsequent
Proceedings. Of course it may be said that such
bonds were worthless as a security, and that ado-
(lwite vigilance would have prevented the possibi-
lity of her escape.
ncting
under
a sense of the "higher law," would
have made short work
sus-
picion. Common
re of it by seizing her on sus-
r a
%voila, probably have been
held to justify such
miniencietsf smartness. Unfor-
tunately, no English
powers. The officers of the Ceareits armed with such
persons enlistoenadseannot detain
any vessel carrying
vice abroad without a sworn affidavit setting forth
for illegal see-
the facts or circumstances upon which the deponent
groucds his information. They cannot safely seize
any ship which may have been fitted out to take
part in illegal operations of war until the persons
accused of equipping it shall have been convicted.
These preliminaries take time, and if the adven-
turers interested in evading the law are akiltul and
know how to keep their own counsel, the chances
are greatly in their favour. The line between
armin a ship with guns for use in the American
g
war, and selling the ship and guns with a shrewd
suspicion that they may be turned to that account;
By our correspondent's
13 very diffiCUlt to trace'.
last letter we learn that the Feeley' I authorities will
"ve 4n opportunity of try :rig the ea ,:eriment by,
stopping a vessel ow briny fn, " the Chinese"
-
in New York itself. If second Alabama shoutd
be hatched and eoi and
fledged under their own ee
should take wing tp ete prey on their commerce in
spite of all their prettiAtion
St they will better ap-
preciate the difficulties whieli enabled the first to
batik our Custom-house officers.

~1, .•

i'OST.—The extracts which We have published
kince the opening of the French Chambers, from
the official report of the Minister of Foreign

Affairs to the Emperor, arc characteristic of the 1
independent views and logical precision of M. I
Drouyn de Lhuys. The complete series will serve
to place his general policy before the world ; and,
unless we are very much mistaken, it will reflect
very high credit on the principles under which he
directs the foreign relations of France. M. Drouyn
de Lhuys is a statesman who enters upon office with
the full conviction that a Minister has his distinc-
tive resposibilities whatever may be the form of the
government or the individual capacity of the Sove-
reign. He is one who assumes these duties with
the resolution to carry out certain general views of
his own, and on the condition that he shall be him-
self an antecedent party to the foreign policy of the
Government. As such he is certainly marked out
for the confidence of the French nation. Office in
itself appears never to have possessed any great
charms for M. Drouyn de Lhuyheldi 8
thiingoht
stations, and has resigned them Lhuys. He
hastw o d
Sovereigns and dynasties. As a Minister Minister under
under
r
Louis Philippe, and as a
Napoleon 111., he hasretgoatrhdeedatotTincemneontt asof iannitcsned,lf
an end, but as a moans
and that clad has beenthwe
hmaatinhtuesnbn mostaeneceand exten-
sionadvan-
tageous of his own views of
for France and for Europe. In offering to
M. Drouyn de Lhuys, without measure or stint,
this tribute to the honesty of his purpose and the
clearness of his aims, we do net pretend to coincide
in all the opinions he may entertain as Minister of
France. Between two great and independent
Powers, possessing mighty interests- in different
quarters of the world, it is wholly impossible that
there can be any exact conformity of opinion ; and
there are certain Positions put forth in the present
report of the Foreign Minister to the Emperor from
which we are:disposed to dissent. The manner, for
instance, in which M. Drouyn de Lhuys here deals
with the Servian and Montenegrin questions appear
to us to be neither just nor defensible. To the
Eastern views which he here takes up we shall after-
wards advert more at length ; and we think that
upon these points the general opinion will be found
to be that France has been carried, in part, perhaps,
by sympathies with Powers which have long been 1
inimical to Turkey, but in part also by undue
and almost sentimental sympathies for her co-
religionists, irrespectively of the real merits or
demerits of their cause, far beyond what was
due to the cause which she professed to
espouse. It may, however, be remembered, in jus-
tice to M. Drouyn de Lhuys, that he was not him•
self the author of this line of policy, and that, in
enunciating the sentiments which the present offi-
cial report contains in regard to the affairs of the
Ottoman Empire, he is doing no more than follow-
ing in the wake of his predecessors. From the
trammels of such traditions even the boldest and
most independent Minister cannot wholly disen-
tangle himself. Obligations, for example, are en-
tered into between Governments rather than be-
tween Minister and Minister ; and it is impossible
to accept office without acknowledging in some
measure the principles to which the Government
has been committed by predecessors. To a certain
extent, M. Drouyn de Lhuys has broken through
the usages to which he was most opposed on his
appointment to the French Foreign-office. That
he has not done so upon all questions in which the
policy of France and England differs may, perhaps,
be a subject of regret in this country, but it can
scarcely be matter for surprise. Not the least im-
portant of the diplomatic proceedings recorded in
these papers is the narrative of the progress which
the French Government has made in negotiating
treaties of commerce with neighbouring States.
The French Government here records with reason-
able pride the great advance which it has made in
the trade and interchange of France. " The Em-
peror's Government," says M. Drouyn de Lhuys,"
" has succeeded in obtaining from Europe in the
course of last year new and precious adhesions to
the liberal policy inaugurated by our treaties of
commerce with England and Belgium; a policy
which, though of recent date, has already the
authority of a tradition." To these treaties are
added a commercial alliance already concluded be-
tween France and Prussia, and another in course
of negotiation with the Italian Government. It is
not often that retrospective documents of this sort
really contain any intelligence, otherwise than as
eliciting the bias of the Government which pro-
duces them. Bat we learn with great satisfaction
on the present occasion that the difficulties which
the treaty between France and Prussia interposed
among the different States of the Zallverein are in
a fair way of being surmounted, and that the
Southern States of Germany, hitherto so averse from
its provisions, and threatening even to leave the
Zollverein rather than submit to such an inroad on
their monopolies, are beginning to yield to a better
judgment. " The intention and aim of the Berlin
treaty," continues M. Drouyn de Lhuys, " are every
day better appreciated ; and in the South of Ger-
many the manufacturing classes even, enlightened
as to their own interests, more ccrfident in their
strength, now daily solicit as a benefit the execution
of a contract which they not long since rEjected as a
danger." The Dutch Government and the Hanse
Towns have also announced their desire to be more
closely allied in commerce with France. Thus the
Second Empire appears to be gradually allying
itself with the commercial interests, which are
necessarily the pacific interests of all Europe. This
guarantee for peace and prosperity is one of inesti-
mable value ; and its completion will, when attained,
be in all probability in no slight degree the work
of M. Drouyn de Lhuys.
HERALD.—We regret to see, by the tone of all
Miuisterialist speakers, that the Government has no
intention of modifying its American policy in defer-
ence to the opinions, or in regard for the interests'
of the country. That policy means the pro:ongation
of war in America—a war of devastation, of revenge,
we fear soon of reciprocal massacres in cold blood—
and the indefinite protraction of distress in Lanca-
shire; a distress which must end in the total ruin of
our cotton manufacture. That policy has brought
upon us misery at home and disrepute abroad.
It has alienated the affections of the Southern
people, always inclined to look up to their
mother country with filial regard and to hold in
check the hostile propensities of the mongrel
population of the Northern States. Had we
had to do only with the Southern colonies, it
may be doubted whether the rebellion of 1776
would ever have occurred; had those colonies formed
a confederacy of their own we should probably have
been now on closer terms of amity with that confe-
deracy than with any other power in the world,
slavery notwithstanding. The Southerners are
English in blood, in habits of thought, in policy, in
, religion ; the Northerners are aliens in all but lan-
guage; and the sympathies of the South have
turned to England all the more strongly by reason
of the causeless and venomous antipathy of the 1
North. We might have had in the Confederate
States an ally bound to us by ties of interest and
amity closer than those which subsist between this
country and Portugal ; an ally who would have
been invaluable to us in peace and in war; and the
esinahapvlye inuo;s
tpircieceanofd tfhriaetndallylianaccetiowno.uldFhianvaellyb,eewn
earned the good will but thcoercdoianitleymapbtuosfintgheuNs—ortthhe.
1
All parties there agree
il3
ti:. publicansln tlntelligent
i gfreonmt
men passion,
despisethe
the Democratsfollfolly
oof the
frompups
jot
..-
lard'icY of our Government ; the masses believe,
insanely
but not uunaturally, that _England is afraid
of them. They see so clearly that it is our interest
at almost any price to bring about a peace, and that
we might do so
if
"iv e would,
they
t haarte t I
raw
no other reason for our inaction save a fear of their
vengeance. Consequently
than ever, their; abuse m • •
ous their insults
more, m
gross, their piratical outrages furious '
oyr e can
in sole assignnt .
ore audacious.
It is strange that even Lord Russell does not se ' the folly of his refusal, now that ho e
'
iperceives its 1
tifect in every direction, unless,ini eed, the one i 1
{feet it was intended to produce were the -
Owl of Messrs. Bright, Stansfeld, and Taylor. The
expediency of recognition is plain from the eager-'
ness with which it is demanded by the Contede-
I rates, and the rage which the fear of it excites
among the partisans of the Federal Government,
They are better judges of its effect than we can
be, and they evidently concur in believing that it
would terminate the war. The encouragement
which it would give to the growing feeling in