The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-04 00:00:00

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1863.

The assembly that took place on board the
Adriatic on Friday was of a very auspicious cha-
racter. It was the inauguration of the New
Atlantic Mail Steam Packet Company. The
directors entertained the Lord-Lieutenant, the
Lord Mayor of Dublin, and numerous other persons
of note and distinction. Nothing could have been
more successful than the affair on the whole. The
weather was also most favourable. Lord CAR-

LISLE'S name was received in a very enthusiastic
manner. The noble lord made one of his appropriate
speeches on the occasion. He frankly stated that
no credit due to the setting on foot of this under-
taking accrued to himself and his colleagues. But,
he added, it was not advisable to refer to the
troubles of the past, and he was happy in adopting
the philosophy of the old motto, " All's well that
ends well." His lordship's prognostications for the
future were of the brightest sort. He said, "I
yield to no one in the heartiness of my wishes for
the complete success of the undertaking; and I am
sure that the proceedings of the company could not
have been better inaugurated than on board the
magnificent vessel in which we are now assembled
—this sumptuous ocean-palace in which I am only
too proud to discharge the functions assigned of
old to the Doges of Venice—of wedding the
State to our new Adriatic." This idea was re-
ceived with loud applause. Nothing gains more in
a public assembly or attracts more notice on a festive
occasion than the introduction of a happy quotation
or the skilful adaptation of a proverb or well_known
occurrence. On one occasion Sir WALTER SCOTT
excited great amusement by proposing the health of
MACADAM, at some banquet, as the modern " Co-
lossus of Rhodes." Lord CARLISLE's remarks
were exactly suitable for the occasion, free from
stiffness and restraint, and replete with good
humour and good wishes. The noble lord thus
eloquently concluded his brief address :—" May all
happy influences flow from this auspicious con-
nexion; safe be your voyages, propitious your winds,
large your cargoes, skilful your captain, active and
healthy your crews, and remunerative your returns ;
and if I may express any further wish distinct from
the internal affairs and functions of the company
itself, it would be that when this noble vessel has
sped its useful and civilising errand across the broad
Atlantic, may it bring back to us the joyful tidings
that the blood of our brethren had ceased to flow in
murderous conflict, and that the nations and races

once more repose in peace."

The Lord Mayor, in the course of his remarks,
spoke strongly in favour of the company, and hoped
that the " wealth and commerce between the old
world and the new would flow through the centre
of Ireland." He also congratulated Irishmen on
having put aside political and polemical discussions
in
order to achieve their end, and he was brad they
had succeeded. They had gained also that respect
which always belongs to a united natian. Lord
CLANcan,r,,
congratulated the shareholders on the
auspicious
event,
seemed in He said that brighter times
Store for
them, and they were " appa-
rently emerging
series of bad seasons, after
they had been under a cloud of difficulties and dis-
tress, arising from
had no control." Alderman
over which they
shman REYNOLDS remarked
that the number of
the friends
in that county
was 1,600, and he said
population, the of the company
took in all the
better proof
that of
could be given of this asse/HtioonutseliZot,
Irish representatives in the " 105
Commons, 103
were in favour of the Galway line."
alderman excited great amusement by Th
he
sZatrhkYs
on Lord CARLISLE. He said that nobleman dis-
claimed any of the merit of laying the foundation
of the undertaking, but " who put the crown
the Corinthian pillar." He hoped when his Excel-
lency ceased to represent the QUEEN in Ireland he
might attain a high position on the other side of the
Channel, that he might he Premier, or et all events
Postmaster-General. Lord PALMERSTON also came
in for a word of praise. Alderman REYNOLDS said
that three times he had waited on Lord PALMER-
STON, in company with the Mayor of Dublin. The
noble lard always received them with kindness, and
although he made no promises they could almost
read on his expressive features, " You would get
your subsidy long ago if I could get any Cabi-
net to agree with me." This is very like
a true representation of the state of the
Lord PALMERSTON always has to
come to the rescue of his colleagues and rectify
the errors they fall into either of omission or com-
mission. In the present instance he has rendered
an essential service to the State by insisting on the
fulfilment of the Galway contract. ,The advantages

ease.

that will accrue are manifold. Ii the first ple ice
the annulling of the contract was a gross injust ice
to the shareholders, a very numerous body, eho
had put faith in the undertaking and fearlessly in-
vested their funds therein, deeming it safe, as it Nye.,
a Government affair. To create so much loes at id
distress, to create such ill-feeling and bitter ser iti-
merits throughout Ireland, in order to gre tify
political prejudice and to obtain a party trill mph,
was conduct unworthy of the ministers of a great
country beneath the dignity of enlightened states-
men. This is another of those points on which Mr.
GLADSTONE has had to give in. No one cou Id have
been more decided in his opposition to the plan
than was the Chancellor of the Exchequi.ir, but his
Parliamentary diatribes, and his victoriceas division
lists have not gained him the victory aft, ar all in the
long run. There is the great argument is fe.vour of
this contract, that it will conduce gr eat ly to the
prosperity of Ireland, Nothing c.T.n improve the
country more than to be made the pa ssage, as it
were, through which the stream of co%nmerce will
flow, and, as the Lord Mayor of Dublin observed,
the connecting point between the old a nd new world.
The Government, are certainly entitled to credit for
having given their consent at last to the carrying out
of this undertaking, and it is to be hoped that the
future will realise the bright hopes now entertained
of its success, that ultimately the prosperity may
satisfy its friends and silence its enemies, if not
convert them into allies. If it were only for the ill-
will that was engendered by the unhappy state of
affairs that lasted during thisstrife it was desirable to
come to some solution ; as ic id all seems well, and it is
to be trusted that the day of the inauguration may
long be looked back upon with delight as the start-
ing point of a prosperous career, and the termina-
tion of a series of doubts and difficulties that ren-
dered at one time so precarious the existence of the
Galway contract, and so dangerous the fortunes of
all concerned in it.

The address of Mr. VALLANDIGHAM Will be read
with considerable interest on both sides of the
Atlantic. The adventures of this gentleman have
formed one of the most remarkable and suggestive
episodes in the American war. They have illus-
trated in the most forcible manner how little of real
love for the Federal constitution animates the Go-
vernment of President LINCOLN, and how, in grasp-
ing at the shadow of sovereignty over the South,
the Northeaers are but too likely to lose the sub-
stance of their old political liberty. The arrest and
imprisonment of an independent citizen, a member
of Congress, f .r the mere expression of political
opinions is an act only worthy of the severest
continental despotism. The Minister who orders
such an act, the advocates who defend it, and the
people who submit to it, can no longer claim to be-
long to a free nation. There was not even the ex-
cuse that might have been made for so arbitray an
act had Mr, VALLANDIGHAM been attacking the
principle of the Constitution. On the contrary he
maintains them to the uttermost, he only lifts his
voice against a desperate and reckless war, costly
alike in life, in treasure, in social happiness and
commercial prosperity, and even in honour, for the
deeds of needless cruelty that have stained theban-
ner of the North have called forth the indignant
remonstrances of Europe. The pretence that has
misled so many sincere and well-meaning persons
—that the real subject of contention was slavery—
can scarcely be credited any longer by the most
fervent Abolitionist after the recent display of
Northern feeling towards the negro in New York.
Neither can President LINCOLN pretend that he is
fighting for the constitution when acts, such as the
imprisonment of Mr. VALLANDIGHAM, so loudly
bespeak the contary. Oce of the States has expressed
its opinion on this breach of law and defiance of
popular right in a marked and decisive measure.
The inhabitants of Ohio have unanimously elected
the exile Governor of that State while he was yet
a wanderer in the South. After being imprisoned
for three weeks in the North, from thence trans-
ferred to the enemy changing his denomination of
prisoner of State into that of prisoner of war;
given leave to depart a permission only available at
by running the blockade at hazard of his own coun-
try's ships, the new Governor of Ohio tells his
countrymen that he finds himself first a freeman on
British soil. "I am here,' ho says, writing from
the Canadian side of Niagara, "to enjoy, and, in
fact, to exercise, under the protection of the British
flag, the privileges and tights which usurpers deny
me at home." These are bold words from an
American addressing his countrymen, but the pre-
sence of Mr. VALLANDIGHAM on the northern side
of the great Falls is a severer censure to the Fede-
ral Government. Those waters, which place an
impassable barrier between the escaped slave and
his pursuer, are equally powerful to protect the
political fugitive from his oppressors. America, so
long the refuge of Chartist, Mazzinist, and red re,
publicans of every degree, has at length fugitives
of her own, flying from no offended law, shunning
no well-merited punishment, but escaping from the
unjust severity of a so-called constitutional Go-
vernment, which suffers no man to have a mind of
his own. In his address, Mr. VALLANDIGHAM
speaks, as might be expected, with indignant
warmth of the treatment he has met with ; not,
however, as a matter of personal hardship, but as a
constitutional wrong. " I ask," he says, "no per-
sonal sympathy for the personal wrong. No ; it
is the cause of constitutional liberty and private
right, cruelly outraged beyond example in a free
country, by the PRESIDENT and his servants, which
gives public significancy to the action of your con-
vention. Turning from the individual question to
the national, he observes, in words that the Cabinet
of Washington would do well to bear in mind—" It
is vain to invite the States and people of the South
to return to a Union without a Constitution, and
dishonoured and polluted by repeated and most
aggravated exactions of tyrannic power." The
question now at issue he considers to be not so
much the supremacy of North or South, but the
existence of constitutional Goverment. " What-
ever the President wills, that is law, Constitutions,
State, and Federal are nothing; acts of legislation
nothing; the judiciary less than nothing. In time
If war there is but one will supreme—his will ; but
one low—military necessity, and he the sole judge.
Military orders supersede the constitution, and mili-
tary commissions usurp the place of the ordinary
courts of justice in the land. Nor are these mere
idle claims. For two years they have been enforced."
And what, he asks, is the plea for such conduct ?
_
titary necessity. But if military necessity re-
quire such sacrifices then, he assures them, they
have said farewell to their liberties for if the war
is but to terminate by the subjugation of the South
tj
by force of arms it is impossible to foresee it close.
He has travelled, he tells
them, through a thousand
miles of the South without
or child who
not meeting man, woman,
Was
rather than to yieldresolved to perish
o force of
arms. The whole conduct of the South
throughout the struggle indicates
the 8m
conquerable resolution. They have
provaede.tun. -
n
many a hard fought field, in many a long sustained
siege, in wearying march and daring attack. They
have shown it in the readinesr of their enlistment,
so different to the forced conscription of the North;
they havd displayed it in the unanLity ef their

citizens, the spirit of their soldiers, the common
sympathy and sentiment that animates the States ;
and Mr. VALLANDINGHAM assures us they were
never so well able to maintain their purpose as now.
The vision of union to which the governor of Ohio
looks forward is but a shadowy dream. More real
and practical is the protest on behalf of constitu-
tional liberty made by his election, and the reproof
directly given to the Cabinet of Washington by
that step. Tne President and his advisers had
better take care lest they evoke the same spirit in
the North that is now animating the South. The
spirit of determined resistance to untust preten-
sions, and the unconquerable resolution never to
yield to the sword of their adversary what the una-
nimous instinct of a free people declares to be their
national and inalienable rights.

Intelligence has been received from St. Peters-
burg to the effect that the Emperor of RUSSIA
had issued an ukase declaring free landholders the
two million peasants who are tenants of the Crown
domeins and appaneges. This information is so far
satisfactory ; but it must suggest itself to all who
consider the subject that it is but playing at reform
after all. What avail is it that one portion of the
Emperor's subjects should be free, or at least com-
paratively so, and that another portion of those
under his sway and subject to his rule are not so.
While the Poles are crushed down in the cruel, in-
tolerant manner that we shudder to read of, it
appears a mockery to talk grandiloquently, or to
declaim pompously concerning the goodness and
moderation of the CZAR. All must feel that he is
only carrying out a preconceived notion of policy,
and is actuated by no genuine motive. It would
require only the slightest occurrence to make him
change his mind, and revoke the favour he now is
granting with so much ostentation of benevolence
and parade of goodwill. It is melancholy to notice
to what subterfuges men will resort in order to
make the worse appear the better cause, and this
new era that is heralded for Russia is nut likely to
enhance in a particular degree her prosperity or her
happiness. The whole groundwork of the system
is wrong in the extreme, and it is to be feared that
it will be long before we witness any really radical
reform, or behold any striking amelioration in the
condition of that widely extended empire. It
appears to be " men and not measures"
that is required by that people. They
want rulers who can feel as well as act,
who are actuated and animated by some kindly
sentiment as well as influenced and excited by the
fury of their passions and the vehemence of their
wrath. While human life is held as roughly in the
balance if the slightest affront is put on the Im-
perial pleasure, and while cruelty that seems to re-
vive the worst features of the dark ages in its kind
and class rules rampant, it seems idle and useless to
deceive oneselt as to the probable result of all novel
experiments and fresh undertakings. In what re-
spect are the Poles better off than the serfs, whose
liberation is now vaunted as an act of such special
magnanimity, and calls forth such panegyrics in
various quarters. They are fettered in speech and
action, and hampered and restricted from the cradle
to the grave. They are dragged off to servo in the
ranks of the armies of their tyrants with as much
summary conduct and subject to as incontrovertible
a decree as if they were obeying the behests of an
Eastern potentate, and bowing to the mandate of a
despot of the days of old. It seems, therefore, only
a vain pretension for the admirers of Russian
policy to talk of this step as being progress. Pro-
gress to what, it may well be asked. Unless a
total change takes place, will these enfranchised
men be permitted to do or to say anything but what
may suit the pleasure, and obviate the forms of a
horde of spies and overlookers. The slightest
approval to participate in the real and actual
rights of freemen would, doubtless, call down
heavy displeasure on their offending heads,
and woe betide the luckless criminals. There are
plenty of ways by which the weight of the Im-
perial displeasure may be manifested towards those
who are called free ; and without returning to the
chains of serfdom according to the letter of the
law, it may not be kept according to the interpre-
tations of the spirit. They keep the word of pro-
mise to the ear and break it to the heart, may well
be said of the cruel and crafty rulers who exercise
their ingenuity and display their policy at St.
Petersburg. It is an error to imagine that a man
can be cruel in one place and kind in another, and
statesmen and monarchs canna be guilty of such
cold-blooded and deliberate assaults on the women
and children whose helplessness should be their
shield, as the priests whose profession should
render them sacred, and on many others who should
escape with immunity from the penalties of treason,
and at the same time establish any claim for them-
selves to be called enlightened and humane with
any show of reason or groundwork of common
sense. Had these changes taken place even a few
years back they might have been hailed with en-
thusiasm as the dawn of a better state of things,
but, as it is, the eyes of Europe have too long
dwelt on the carnage that has so cruelly devastated
the people of Poland for any hope or expectation
to take root at the present juncture. The promise
of a reform at the eleventh hour has also been un-
fulfilled, and the last desperate attempt at a remedy
seems likely to prove a signal failure. The notes
of the three Powers have been totally useless to
alter the determination or to influence the policy of
Russia. They seem trying to gain time by causing
endless delays in the discussion of affairs, doubt-
less in the hope that by the time these remonstrances
are given up as useless, and theee propositions are
finally rejected, Poland will be crushed, and
then they can carry out their own course unmolested.
The French papers state that Prince GORTSCHA-
KOFF'S despatch has excited universal reprobation
at Vienna. It seems the object at present with
the Cabinet of St. Petersburg to irritate rather than
to conciliate the Powers that seek to mediate. The
despatch to Paris was of a very peculiar nature,
and now Prince GORTSCHANOFF is taking Austria
to task for her conduct in this affair. No one can
possibly predict the result of all these complications,
and it is idle to profess to do so, but they are
sufficiently deplorable to cause great regret, and to
make wellwishers lament that the interposition of
the three Powers has been of so little avail, and
seems likely in the future to prove equally ineffec-
tual. It is sad to reflect on the possibility that in
this advanced state of civilisation a brave people
should be trampled down anew in the sight of the
world, and no one nation able to interfere or assist
in a manner that may prove of present relief and
ultimate advantage.

DEPARTURE OF HER MAJESTY FOR GERMANY.

—Arrangements were yesterday commenced at Woolwich
for the embarkation of the Queen from the Royal Arsenal
pier, Woolwich. The landing-place is ordered to be car-
peted and arranged simply as on the embarkation of any
personage of distinction, it being her Majesty's desire, as
on the last occasion, to dispense with all ceremonial.

SOUTH KENSINGTON MUSEUM.—lluring the
week ending August 1 the visitors have been as follows :
On Monday, Tuesday, and Saturday (free days), open from
10 p.m., 8,868 ; on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday,
students' days (admission to the public, 6d.), open from
10 a in. till 6 p.m., 1,491; total, 10,359, From the open-
-1,1!g of the museum, 4,165,784. Museum of Patents—
Number of visitors for the week ending August 1, 1,787;
total number since the opening of the Museum, free daily
(14483' 2, 858), 740,547.