The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-05 00:00:00

Su N. LONDON, MONDAY EVENING, OCrOBER 5, 1863,

people;
the remotest chance of becoming
good
President; that
the
vauntedcommon and great man had
education of the people
tha t n o rea
schoolsults • that the boys, thrown
into trade as
led to no practical re
soon as they were 14, forgot their
school learning in the business of the shop, and were
y
o
as ignorant of the Constitution and history of their
country as of every other ; that their course of
reading was confined to the newspapers; that the
most popalar of these were of the lowest class, and
pandered to the most vulgar prejudices; and that
the education of the women was as defective as that
of the men, and consisted in the largest amount of
novel reading, with scarcely a smattering of any
kind of useful knowledge. All these things, and
many more such, an anti-English Englishman might
learn if he had a mind to study them. Whether he
afterwards returned to England with correcter no-
tions both of his own country and America would
depend upon the honesty with which he entered
into the inquiry, and the capacity of his mind to
profit by experience. Certain it is that he would be
a very tame and cold-blooded Englishman indeed if
he were not goaded into something like patriotism
by the insults levelled against his country, by all
manner of men, on all manner of occasions,—unless
he became a philosopher, and despised a vindictive.
ness of hatred which he was unable to account for.

London; City of London, Hendry, Liverpool. 27—The
Contest, Amy, Liverpool. 30—The Floating Light,
Starkie, Liverpool. Sept. 3--The Maldon, Scott, Liver-
pool. 4—The Glee Maiden, Marshall, Liverpool. s—The
British India, Hattrich, Liverpool.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

SPECTATOR.—There seems to be something of a
fatality about the appointments of the Whigs,
Every now and then they fill up a vacancy in a way
which raises publicexpectation very high. " Now,'
people say, "estates, degrees, and offices are no
longer to be derived corruptly—clear honour is to
by purchased only by merit." And then forthwith
the NI higs get quietly together and perpetrate a
snug little piece of party patronage, which, if it
does not quite deserve the ugly name of job, is,
nevertheless, sure to be called so by a public which
has been stimulated to this inconvenient height of
public spirit. We think something of this sort has
happened recently. There can be no doubt that
Mr. Baron Wilde was appointed to the post of
Judge Ordinary because he was thought the best
man for the post. He had never sat in Parliament,
and though he enjoyed the highest reputation in
the profession, he was almost unknown out of it.
The vacant post was one which the Attorney-
General might haVe accepted, for the Judge Ordi-
nary takes precedence of the puisne Judges, and no
one, therefore, could Lave called it a descent. It is,
however, understood that the Chancellor did not so
much as offer it to him. This was the perfect-
purity system. Then it was necessary to fill up the
vacancy left by the promotion of Baron Wilde in
the Court of Exchequer, and unhappily Lord West-
bury has not been able to maintain himself on his
flying wing at the same lofty elevation above the
vulgar assembly and damp soil of Westminster;
and consequently in some quarters there is a rather
unjust outcry of another Whig job. For six weeks
the puisne judgeship has been vacant. During this
period it has been more than once offered to the
Attorney-General, who had frequently refused a
similar post before. At last it is filled up, and at
the same moment the Attorney resigns. The reason
given is " Of course that is a sufficient
reason, and we do not doubt that it is one of his
reasons. But when a lower post, which he had con-
stantly declined, is pressed upon an Attorney who
was not so much as offered the higher one, which was
vacant only a week or two before, he may not un-
naturally regard it as a hint that the Government
does not value his services very highly. We do not
say that this was so, but it looks like it, and we
must say that if it was so, there would be some
ground for the Attorney-General's dissatisfaction.
There was at least as good a chance that ho would
have made an adequate Judge Ordinary as that Mr.
Sergeant Pigott will make an adequate Baron of
the Exchequer; and one does not see why the pub-
lic might not have run the risk just as well in the
one case as the other. If ill health is really the
cause of Sir William Atherton's resignation, we can
only hope that he may speedily be restored to active
life. We have said that the outcry against Ser-
geant Pigott is a little unjust, but it must be con-
fessed that at the present moment the Court of Ex-
chequer is rather in want of a strong judge. The
loss of Baron Wilde is a very heavy loss, and his
colleagues who remain cannot, fer one reason or
another, be considered as rising above the judicial
average. Either SERGEANT SHEE or Mr. Mellish
would have imparted more strength to the Court ;
the latter as being the man who has succeeded to
the position which Baron Wilde occupied at the bar
—the former because, as we ventured to point out
some weeks back, his age, lots position as senior
Queen's sergeant, his large practice, and high char-
acter alike place him at the head of the common-law
bar. But the merits of the one are only known to
the profession, and those of the other are over-
balanced by the fact that he is a Roman Catholic.
True that he is no Ultramontane, and has more
than once shown himself independent of ecclesiasti-
cal dictation—but Exeter Hall has a loud voice,
and mere professional merits cannot be expected to
outweigh the influence which Lord Shaftesbury
enjoys with the stepfather of his wife. So the dig-
nity falls to a good Whig, whose family has made
Reading a Whig borough, and who always has
voted, as his brother before him voted, steadily for
the Whigs. But still the truth must be spoken.
The appointment of Sergeant Pigott is a fair ave-
rage appointment. He is in the rank of the Queen's
counsel, and has a fair share of business both ou cir-
cuit and in town. He may fairly be reckoned on to
make as good a judge as many of his colleageesetind
it has by no means turned out to be true as a rule that
great at vacates always make the best judges. The
habit of partizanship is one which it is hard to throw
off at an advanced period of life. A colder temper
and more impartial judgment have often put good
abilities on a level with very superior intellects, at
all events, in the discharge of ordinary judicial
duties. To politicians, however, the_vaeauey caused
by the resignation of the Attorney-General will
afford a greater field for speculation. Tout Sir R.
Palmer should succeed him is a matter of course,
and, in this instance, the ordinary routine promotes
the man who, whether as a politician or a lawyer,
has the best right to promotion. Once again, the
Attorney-General will be, by common consent, the
head of the profession.
SATURDAY REVIEW.—The tide of success seems
to have turned once more in favour of the South.
The decisive defeat of Roeeecranz by Bragg threa-
tens to undo all the work of the Federal armies in
Tennessee; and Burnside, far from being able to
repair the disaster, appears to have placed his
troops in a position from which it may be very diffi-
cult to move them with safety. It is not to be
wondered at that the Northern press should turn
against its rulers in the hour of so unexpected and
serious a reverse, and should exclaim against the
incompetency of those who have thrown away so
many of the fruits of the patience and perseverance
of the North. The minuteness and infelicity of
the interference exercised by the Cabinet of Wash-
ington is illustrated by the revelation that the abor-
tive expedition of Gen. Franklin was undertaken
by orders from head-quarters, in defiance of tne
opinion of Geo. Banks. And certainly the misfor-
tunes of the Federals do not come singly. On every
side and at every point there is success more or less
for the Confederates, and some repulse or dis-
comfiture of their adversaries. The siege of
Charleston is said to have been suspended ; and
the suspension of the siege, when the advent of au-
tumnal storms makes every moment precious, is a
confession of present failure which will render the
ultimate capture of the city far more difficult and
tedious, it not impossible. Toe intelligence from
the Mississippi is little less discouraging to the
North, for not only does the river appear to be
closed to commerce by guerillas, but fortified points
are again being occupied by the Confederates, and
the advance of thepiorthern troops into the country
of the Red River on the western side of the Mis-
sissippi has been checked by two serious defeats.
The North will be scarcely less surprised than
Europe is to find the Confederates, after all their
losses and in spite of the severe strain which a two
years' war has placed on their resources and num-
bers, still springing up at the most remote points of
their enormous territories, defiant, viotorious, and
in possession of forces which even have the supe-
riority of numbers over their opponents. Both
combatants are fully aware of the importance
of the crisis which will arise in the ensuing spring.
In May, 1864, the three years' volunteers, forming
the greater part of the Federal army, will be en-
titled to their discharge. The recent draft, though
it has brought few conscripts into the ranks, has
produced, at an enormous expense, a considerable
number of recruits in the character of substitutes;
but even if the President succeeded in raising
300,000 men, a newly-enlisted army would be far
less efficient than the force which has been trained
by two or three years of war. The new levies are,
as they arrive in the field, incorporated with the
existing regiments, which will consequently once
more be reduced to skeletons if the old soldiers
claim their discharge in May. Even if the Govern-
ment devises means of overcoming the difficulty, the
Confederates will in the meantime be encouraged
to persevere in their resistance, and the lapse of
seven months affords ample scope for accidents and
changes of fortune. They will certainly not be
alarmed by the strange suspension of the habeas
corpus through the whole extent of the United
States. The expansion or contraction of constitu-
tional liberties in America concerns foreigners as
little as the physical alternations of frost and thaw,;
but it may be permitted to remark that a nation
which describes itself through a thousand speaking
trumpets as the most prosperous and united in the
world might be supposed capable of governing
itself by some less stringent machinery than the
rude contrivance of martial law. The Confede-
rates, who are more immediately interested in the
condition of their implacable enemies, will pro-
bably conjecture that Mr. Lincoln's proclamation
admits the failure of the first draft, and prepares
the way for the enforcement of a second. It will
be an amusing circumstance if the corporation of
New York once more buys off its unwilling con-
tingent, at a price which can scarcely fail to be in-
creased by the rising market for substitutes. The
republication of Mr. Seward's circular to the consuls
once more exemplifies the perverse mistake or
misrepresentation which pervades all American
speeches and writings. Toe Secretary of State,
addressing, through the consuls, the commercial
classes of Europe, or rather of England—proposes
to convince them that the shortest way to arrive at
peace is " to withdraw support and favour front the
insurgents, and to leave the adjustment of our
domestic controversies exclusively with the people
of the United States." As it can hardly be supposed
that Mr. Seward hopes to convince the builders of
iron ships who may have accepted orders from the
Confederates, he must be uuderstood to insinuate
that the mercantile body in general has not left the
adjustment of American controversies to those
whom they properly concern. It is utterly absurd
to say that English trailers have had either the
will or the polNer to iefinoce in the smallest de-

gree the fortunes of the American war. To those
whom he professes to address, Mr. Seward's advice
s simply unmeaning ; but the reflex operation of a
Federal opinion may not be equally innocuous.
There seems to be no doubt that the universal exul-
tation which prevails in the North is combined with
a vague purpose of quarrelling with England,
partly to avenge imaginary offences, and also with
an ulterior hope of annexing Canada. Mr. Seward
perhaps may not wish, like Mr. Sumner, to infu-
riate his countrymen by misrepresentation ; but it
is unworthy of a statesman to sanction, in formal
State papers, a vulgar and dangerous delusion. If
it is true that European statesmen have officially
predicted the failure of the Northern enterprise, it
is intelligible that the Secretary of State should
recapitulate for their information the progress of
the invading armies; but it is utterly untrue that
the insurgents have been enabled to protract
their resistance by means of the sympathy or
aid which they have received from abroad. In a
certain sense, customs: s require the sympathy and
aid of dealers. Butchers and bakers render house-
keeping possible, and ladies are forced to procure
their finery from milliners and dressmakers ; but,
in the ordinary sense of words, purchased services
arc not called aid, nor is there any connection be-
tween sympathy and selling. The Confederates
have not received a gun or a bayonet without pay-
ing its full value, with an additional percentage to
cover the risk of the blockade ; and precisely the
same sympathy and aid has been afforded, on a
scale tenfold larger, to the Federal Government
itself. Mr. Seward cannot seriously believe that
the insurgents have derived any benefit from the
good-will with which their heroic resistance has
been contemplated by a part of the community
which, according to Lord Russell's conjecture, is
not even a majority. The Government of Rich-
mond has shown its estimation of official sympathy
by withdrawing its diplomatic agent from London
—a measure which seems paradoxical if its hopes of
success depend on the continuance of the present
relations between England and the Confederacy.
It is a backward step in civilisation if peace and
war are henceforth to depend on words. If freedom
of speech is no longer permissible in England, some
check ought in common fairness to be imposed on
American eloquence. Mr. Sumner's speech alone is
nearly as voluminous as all English disquisitions
on Secession put together, and it is more wilfully
hostile and offensive; yet even his studied malignity
suits the popular scheme of dismembering the
British Empire. Not a week passes without a
written or spoken proposal for the annexation of
Canada, and yet the Chairman of the Committee
of Foreign Relations thinks that the most urgent
duty of the present moment is to stimulate the
animosity of his countrymen to England.
EXAMINER.—By the end of the present month
the term will have expired of the notice given to
Denmark, that she must submit to be partitioned,
or to take the consequences. It is already known
that she accepts the alternative, and prefers inva-
sion, if it should come, to submission. Throughout
the protracted controversy, whose issue thus draws
nigh, Denmark has shown a tenacity of purpose,
and a degree of moral courage, worthy of her old
renown. All Germany has been for fifteen years
abusing and bullying her, and threatening to rend
from her one of her fairest provinces. The pre-
tences for such interferences are tao well known to
need repetition. That they have been, from first to
last, pretences and no wore, has been made apparent
to all who have impartial eyes to see, or ears to bear
since the concession by the Danish Government of
nearly all the local reforms which the Federal Diet
declared they must occupy Holstein to effect. The
debate on the merits is closed, and nothing remains
but the naked question of jurisdiction. About this
conflicting jurists; may and probably will wrangle
on for ever. But the public opinion of Europe is a
court ol modern equity, not of feudal law ; and its
decisions are guided by the maxims of common
sense, and of practical justice, for the benefit of the
parties more immediately concerned, and of their
neighbours and dependents, whose well-being is con-
sequently involved in their fate. There can be no
doubt as to the award of this ultimate tribunal. A
contingent of Saxon and Hanoverian troops have
been ordered to prepare for the occupation of Hol-
stein. Prussia, formerly so eager in the quarrel, is
now in the mood to play marplot, and having lost
the initiative teems disposed to lag behind. Austria,
on the other hand, declares herself ful'y prepared
with such a reserve as must utterly outnumber and
overpower any force the Danes can bring into the
field. But will they be left to stand alone ? The
despatch of Count Manderstrom to the Swedish
Ministers in London and Paris, calling the attention
of the Western Powers to the imminency of the
situation, and proclaiming the unity of the Scan-
dinavian States in resistance to German aggression,
sufficiently answers the question. It is the best set-
off to the truckling advice treacherously proffered
by Russia to the Cabinet of Copenhagen, not to re-
gard the occupation of the Duchies as a casus belli.
It is too palpably the interest of Russia tnat the
Government of Denmark should be humiliated in the
eyes of its people and in the face of Europe ; that
the old spirit of independence should be lowered,
and the nerves of its integrity unstrung. Nothing
could so effectually prepare the way for the future
imposition of her Protectorate ; while nothing could
in other respects serve her purposes better than the
encampment of an Austro-Hanoverian army
beyond the Eider, justifying, as the Court of
St. Petersburg would speedily argue, the
landing of a corresponding force of Musco-
vites in Jutland. Russia has long coveted
this Naboth's vineyard of the North. The
heart of her ambition is sick, until she possesses an
Atlantic seaboard. The seizure of Finland was the
first stride towards the ocean, the sinister rescue and
defence of Denmark would be the next ; but for this
Denmark must first be invaded and put in jeopardy.
It is a transparent policy which Sweden clearly sees
through, and is prompt to countervail. But does it
not equally behove other Atlantic States to act with
decision in like manner ? Can Holland, France,
and England afford to see Denmark made the battle
ground of Germany and Russia, or to allow either
to force its way by arms to the ocean ? Every mo-
tive of expediency combines with every considera-
tion of honour to dictate a peremptory inhibition by
them of the threatened inroad into Holstein. In
defiance of such a mandate Austria and tier satellite
confederates dare not stir. The march of the Saxons
and Ilanoverians would be arrested; and the dip-
lomatic casuists of Vienna and Frankfort would
betake themselves for fifteen years longer to their
old trade of protocol-spinning. No more than this
is requisite, but less than this would be inexcusable.

LONDON REVIEW.—It is probable that the President's
Emancipation Proclamation has hitherto disappointed the
hopes of its friends and its enemies. Those who predicted
the horrors of a servile war are equally at fault with those

who looked forward to the immediate re-establishment of the

Federal Power. The apathy of the slave is, perhaps, justi-
fied when wo consider the wide-spread belief that the Pro-
clamation will never be carried out. There are not wanting
reasons by which the Federal Government might defend its
conduct to itself if the subjugation or capitulation of the
Confederate States ehould be followed by the withdrawal of
the Proclamation. The doubts as to its legality maybe held
by the Supreme Court to be well-founded, in which case it
becomes necessarily inoperative. In any case, it may be
forcibly contended that the proclamation was issued not as
a boon to slaves, but as a penalty upon rebellious
slaveholders, and its remission would be simply an
act of grace to the latter, involving no breach of
faith with the bondsmen. We do not, however, believe that
these arguments will prevail. The unprincipled rowdies of
New York may be sufficiently shameless to urge their adop-
tion, but the events of the last three months have shown
that the Central Government is strong enough to thwart
the will of the Empire City. The Republicans are too much
committed to the proclamation to be able to withdraw it,
and the Democrats, like the Tories at home, ars powerless,
because they have no distinct policy, No restoration of the
Union is possible unaccompanied by the liberation of the
slaves in the rebellious States. If the result of the contest
should be, as is perhaps more likely, the establishment of an
independent Southern Confederacy, it is now clear that the

limits of such a union will be very circumscribed. Outside
it there would be States whose native slaves would be freed
through the action of the proclamation, and which would be
States of refuge, unvexed by any Fugitive Slave Law, to
the slaves escaping from the Confederacy. Although what
are euphuistically called the loyal Slave States are not sub-
ject to the President's proclamation, it is impossible to be-
lieve that slavery can permanently exist in them after
having been abolished in their rebellious sisters. Even the
intelligence of a slave will probably detect the hollowness
of an argument which pro Yes that he ought to be in thraldom
in l‘laryland, whilst his brother ip free in Alabama. But
there are more substantial reasons for thinking that slavery
is doomed in the Loyal States. A Slave State having a Free
State on its border is ruined without the protection of a
Fugitive Slave Law, and no ono dreams that such an enact-
ment can ever be revived. Moreover, the Loyal Slave States
are the breeding States, and it is useless to breed slaves
when there are no slaveholding planters to whom they may
be sold. There can be little doubt that peace would be fol-
lowed by measures to secure the emancipation of the slaves
in all the States under the Federal authority. It is difficult
to form any estimate of the number of freed negroes who
will be thrown upon the hands of the Federal Govern-
ment. There is now some talk of raising coloured troops
to the extent of 200,000, and of 100,000 more blacks to
be employed in operations auxiliary to the main work of the
army. If the Federals could succeed in getting such a force,
it would represent a very large proportion of the able-bodied
slaves in the South. The total number of slaves in the Union
may be said to be, in round nutub3rs, four millions, and of
these it is probable that three-fourths were resident, at the
outset of the war, within the limits of the rebellious States.
A total population of three millions represents, according
to ordinary data, 900,000 men capable of bearing arms, so
that the requirements of the Northam armies demand one
out of every three able bodied slaves in the South, To oat-

sliders such a result seems unattainable, and it would be at
once rejected were it not for the confessedly large numbers
already employed in attendance on the Federal army. It is
clear that refugees thus enrolled in the service of the North
will not involve, in attendance upon them, the usual pro-
portion of women, children, and infirm ; but we might
perhaps estimate at 500,000 the number of negroes thrown
upon the Federal Government as a direct consequence of
services in the field, if the enlistment of negroes should
really be carried out upon so large a scale. We know the
device by which Mr. Lincoln last year sought to meet the
difficulty which ho saw looming in the future. As he
looked upon the freed negroes in the district of Columbia,
and as he heard by every mail of the contrabands with the
army of the Potomac, at Port Royal, and at Vicksburg, he
conceived the brilliant notion of exporting every black to
some premised land in Central America, The scheme was
a more expression of hopeless weakness, lice our oft-men-
tioned plan of removing the Irish difficulty by a submer-
sion for a few hours of the Green Island in the Atlantic;
but it gave occasion to a speech in which Mr. Lincoln
expounded to congregated negroes the unconquerable
dislike they aroused in every American breast. Tho
cynical frankness of the avowal, and the humorous re-
quest to the negroes to take themselves off, awoke won-
dering laughter in England; but the scheme itself, it is
needless to add, fell stillborn, and has never since been heard
of. The difficulty, however, has since then enormously in-
creased, and it is not difficult to understand the reasons
which actuated the Secretary of War in the beginning of
this year, when he appointed a commission of inquiry to
examine and report on the pressing question--What was to
be done with the freed negroes? The commission appointed
by the American Government to examine this question of
the freed men may have been wisely chosen, but we confess
to having doubts of it when we tee at the head of its three
members the name of Mr. Robert Dale 0 wen. Our acquaint-
ance with that gentleman as the evangelist of Spiritualism
fails to satisfy as of his capabilities of investigating evidence
and discriminating causes, and can only hope that he had
able coadjutors in Mr. James M‘Kaye and Mr. Samuel G.
Howe. Their report, which has just been published, 'bating
an occasional tendency to American tall talk, is, on the
whole, sober and reasonable. It opens with a frank exami-
nation of the negro's vices ; his lax notions of property, of
truth, and of the marriage relation—all, however, springing
directly from the slave system of the South; and proceeds
to a report on his value as a military labourer. It is on his
willingness to work that the future well-being of the negro
and the success of any Government organisation on his be-
half depend ; and the report of the commission is, as far as
it goes, very favourable. Major-General Dix, in his evi-
dence, declared that the military labour furnished by the
refugees under him was a full equivalent for the rations
and wages which they, their wives, and children received ;
and Brigadier-General Saxton, Military Governor of the
Department of the South, who had about 18,000 refugees
under his care, said, "The coloured people here have been
no expense to the Government. They have received a good
many articles of clothing from charitable societies at the
North; but the balance of credit, I think, is largely in fa-
vour of the negroes." The work, however, which is thus
done under military supervision, would probably differ
materially from the work which would be voluntarily ac-
complished. Our own experience in the West Indian
Islands is that, except at Barbadoes, where the population
is so great that the negroes must either work or starve, no
wages will induce them to do more than procuro the neces-
saries of life.

COUNTRY MARKETS.


NOTTINGHAM-SATURDAY.

There was a fair quantity of new wheat to-day from the
growers, the condition of which was very good. The de-
mand ruled fair, and prices unaltered. Barley plentiful.
—White wheat, from 418 to 468; red wheat, 408 to 433.
Barley—malting, 34s to 41s ; grinding, 28s to 31s. Oats
old, at 24s to 31s Od ; new, 22s to 265. Beans sold at 38s
to 43s per qr. ; new, 38s to 425.