The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-09 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This morning.
This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-29.85.
Wind—South-Westerly; light, and cloudy.

k

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 9, 18G3.

Au exceedingly delicate question is now arising
as to whether El Toussoun or El Monassir are to be
detained in Mr. LAIRD'S Building-yard down at
Liverpool. Whether those two steam rams, now
upon the very eve of their completion, aro to be
detained there, by order of Her MAJESTY'S Go-
vernment, under the Foreign Enlistment Act. The
settlement of this question one way or the other,
and that within a very few days from the present
moment, is dependent, of course, upon the deei-
sion arrived at by :the law officers of the
Crown, as to the bearing of that enactment upon one
of the nicest points of international law. Whether
can it be shewn that the destination of these
two formidable ships-of-war is such as would
bring their retention in the building-yard within
the capacity or authority of the Government !
That is, really and truly, the question. Originally,
as is well known, nay as their outlandish names
sufficiently indicate, El Toussoun and El Monassir,
they were ordered to be built is Mr. LAIRD'S yard
by his Highness the late Pasha of EGYPT. They
were ordered by him, we believe, about the time
of his visit to this country: when his Highness
was feasting his guests on board his yacht with
all kinds of good cheer, while undermining his
own constitution by poisoning himself with stale
bottled-up Nile water. They were ordered, these
two steam-rams, as one may say, vicariously or
circuitously : that is to say by a French House, to
whom had been given by the late Pacha a strange
twofold commission—one for coining a considerable
sum of Egyptian money in France, the other for
getting constructed, here in England, by one of oar
best shipbuilders, these very two steam-rams Ei
Toussoun and El Monassir. At the period of the
late PACITA'S sudden and unlooked for demise, one
of those two commissions had already been com-
pleted. The money, to the full amount stipulated,
had been duly coined in France, and, not only that,
it had been actually conveyed from France into
Egypt. So that that part of the contract could not
by possibility be repudiated. Not so did it happen
to be, however, in regard to the other part of the
commission—that is to say, in regard to the two
steam-rams, then, at the time of the PAGIIk'S death,
—merely in course of construction. The commis-
sion, so far as it related to them, was at once can-
celled by his Highness's successor. The re
sponsibility of the order devolved, in consequence
of that unexpected repudiation of it in Egypt, upon
the French house from which Mr. LAIRD had re-
ceived it. The problematic circumstance in regard
to the transaction ire its present phase, therefore, is
—as to the purpose to which these two steam-rams
are about to be applied by the French House for
which they have been manufactured. What may
be their destination ? The destination, that is,
of El Tonssoun and El Monassir ? Not Egypt, as
originally intended—that we know. Whither,
when completed, is it intended that they should
proceed ? " The accusation is," says the Premier's
organ, the Morning Post, " that they are destined
for war with a friendly Power. They will conse-
quently," says the Post (and we presume it speaks
thus confidently upon authority !)—" they will con-
11_."luently be detained, and a court of law will
determine whether, under the terms of the Fo-
reign Enlistment Act, the detention is legal, or
whether the owners can recover them from the
hands of „
an insurance Government." Upon mere suspicion
ha peened'
l
eeoffice endeavoured (ineffectually, as it
4 b
to evade, only the other day, the com-
pletion of
at
itausiness contract into which it had
entered
j7deliberately. d good will and pleasure, quite
fraud, and arson
pan
a mere suspicion of foul play, of
atrocities besides—rnarwae know hardly what other
in cold blood, and almost,
one might say, by wholesale,
.seeing
LEY V. POLE, was saidthat the lives
of the whole TEMPLE fmnii;
to
1:011 theb case of WOOL-
Lave wilfully jeo-
pardised by the plaintiff on the
burning down of
his dwelling-house, on Campde.
more thaniil
a year ago.
All this was
attempted
to be
brought home to the accused upenraereaos &
for there was not evidence of any Weir.h.
addPiucambnl
to support the charge. It will be wise on Coe part
of the Government, therefore, in this metier of
the
two steam rams now in Mr. LAIRD'S building yard,
upon mere suspicion !
not to act simply and solely

Recent events have materially contributed to
enlarge our general store of knowledge. The wars
and revolutions of our own days have familiarised
us with the details of localities whose named were
•
scarcely to be found in the old geographies and
guidebooks. The Crimea, although figuring In
Tartar history, was not so well known in England
and France tm years ago as it is now; Cawnpore
and Lncknocv were names only &wilier to Anglo-
Indians, while the student might turn over a good
many maps of Italy before he lighted on Solferino
or Magenta; and we have all learned to thread our
way more readily through the perplexing maze of
English and Indian names, whicti serve to distin-
guish the localities of the vast States of America
from following the track of this unhappy war.

V arious circumstances have combined to give fresh
in terest to the long-pending strife between Den-
a lark and Germany, and in consequence we are all
lily to know more about the quiet little duchies
rf Schleswig and Holstein than our predecessors
e rver learned. There has always been a degree of
s ympatby existing between the English and the
1 Janes, due perhaps in some measure to our Viking
a ricestry. The two peoples have many charac-
t i-ristics in common. They have the same love of
fi'eedom, the same fearless truthfulness, the same
s pirit of daring and adventure, the same resolution
te, maintain unshaken their ancient constitutional
F.ghts. Travellers tell us, too, of a striking simi-
-13 rity in the appearance and language of the two
re ces. A recent visitor to the town of Rendsburg
declares that the country near it bears the strongest
re semblance to our richer agricultural districts,
while the chattering of the peasants in their low
German increases the familiar impression. This
to wn of Rendsburg, though little known to travel-
lers, is not without importance, and occupies a some-
what remarkable position in reference to the quarrel
with the Diet. It is a very ancient city, claiming to
have been in existence nearly a thousand years, but
it is not old enough, strange to say, for the question of
its exact locality to have been decided. Thematttbeer
of its site was one of the four points which
commissioners who undertook
finding
odrawit
impossiblethebona-
dary line failed to agree upon,
toto unite in assigning it to either duchy. yrh
ques-
tion in dispute is whether Rendsburg belongse
Holstein or to Schleswig. The origin of the dis.
pute is thus summed up by a recent visitor ;—"The
difficulty is occasioned by the circumstance that the
town is situated upon what must be called islands
in the Eider. The river, which here farms its junc-
tion with the Eider Canal, separates into three
branches as it approaches Rendsburg. Between
the Schleswig and the Holstein branches as we may
call them—the third is a trifling stream running
through the town and seemingly serving as a sewer
—Rendsburg was built. Now the Eider is the boun-
dary between the two duchies, and both the con-
tending parties recognise it; but the Danes say
that the Holstein branch is the real Eider, whilst
the Germans contend that the Schleswig branch is
the true stream. The Rendsburghers, who are
thorough Holsteiners, and by no means well affected
to the Danish Government, claim, however, in sup-
port of the Holstein contention, that they were
recognised as part et the empire in its palmy days;
and that the town sent its deputies to the assembly
summoned by the Empercr." How this vexed
question will be ultimately decided it is of course
impossible to say, but a military solution of the
difficulty is certainly very much to be deprecated on
all sides. Germany is already split into sections,
',distracted by factions, and threatened by despots.
She has quite enough to do for the next half cen-
tury et least in consolidating her own internal
forces, and in encouraging unity and peace at home.
Why should she harass and oppress a neighbouring
Power, who in no way interferes with her well-
being or crosses her prospects. The motive was
plainly stated in the English House of Commons by
the Prime Minister; and the Danes, who study
carefully our English politics, must have regretted
very vividly that Lord PALMERSTON did not hold
the seals of the Foreign-office in place of his incon-
sistent and letter writing colleague, Earl RUSSELL.
Lord PALMERSTON found the key to the riddle in
the wild and fruitless ambition, long cherished
by Prussia, to become a great naval Power.
The countrymen of FREDERICK THE GREAT
have good right to any pretensions they may choose
to make in the way of military distinction; but,
without any disparagement to a brave and enlight-
ened nation, we may decidedly say that nature has
denied them the requisites of a naval nation. Even
the long sought possession of the coveted harbour
of Kiel would not, in itself, convert a people, whose
proper classification is into soldiers and civilians,
into a nation of sailors, and the endeavour to force
a war upon a peaceable and well-disposed nation
will not tend to raise Germany in the estimation of
the thinking portion of Europe, and will tend very

tittle to the furtherance of her own interests.
Denmark has now a fine career open before her, if
she is suffered to run it unchecked by internecine
strife. Her peop:e have all the capacities for de-
veloping Into a great nation. Her sympathies and
traditions are liberal, her population brave and
enlightened; her KING is beloved by his people,
and her Constitution is moderate and capable of
improvement. The intellectual powers of her race
rank high, as many names known and honoured i❑
Art and Literature testify. Politically, the last
year or two has witnessed events of considerable
importance connected with her fortunes. The
alliance of her Royal family with the first of the
great Powers of Europe cannot fail sensibly to
affect her fortunes, notwithstanding the unhappy
meddlings of an English statesman in an affair
which we must charitably hope he did not under-
stand. The election of another scion of her ruling
house to the vacant throne of Greece, although not
so complimentary as if it had been made earlier, is
another noticeable occurrence. Greece, like Den-
mark, has great capabilities, though her history is of
the past rather than of the future. She is now, it is
true, plunged into anarchy and confusion ; but it
young King GEORGE and his advisers are equal to
the position, a rapid change for the better may be
expected. When his position is fully assured and
the area of his power extending, the youthful
Monarch of Greece will hardly forget that he Was
once a Dane, and his sympathies and his influence
will henceforth weigh in the scale of his country.
men and relatives. If rumour speaks truly another

fair Princess of the Danish Houso is to extend the
influence of her country further .North, and under

these auspices the angry aggression of the German

Diet loses much of its terrors. IVe must hope that

hat venerable body will exercite their charac-

eristic and proverbial caution, and pause before
hey rashly commence hostilities, ruinous to the

interests of both countries, and especially injurious

to that scheme of German unity which is now more

than ever filling the dreams of German visionaries;

and occupying the thoughts of German patriots.

The Polish reply to the Russian appeal is worthy
of notice. It is certainly replete with interest, and
animated with a spirit ofindependence. The Poles
commence by stating that for seven months " a mur-
derous contest has raged in our country between
two nations—the one eager to oppress and enslave,
aanndatwhiethotahejrusfitghting in self-defence." This is a
that their
very true definition of the state of affairs recently ;
in crushing pride do the patriots go on to say
opponents have drawn many forces from
the remotest limits of the empire, but they have not
succeeded
their courage,
proceed, with
sible, to reject
quest" on the
devotg: them—they have not quenched
indigniont., or endurance. Then they
What
the
that is quite comprehen-
part of
they trulyn 8 ca ll
haughty self-conceit of the subjects a " cruel re-
Even the
ojeets of the CZAR
might blush to hear the sharp j
r • eoinders they have
called forth from a trampled-on but -
ut unsubdued
nation. They are shown that the 44 highest object
of a noble nation is not comprised in the oppression
of a kindred race, or in destructive dreams of donli_
nation over two quarters of the globe." This em-
phatic passage forcibly explair! the lack of progress
that is made by the :nighty ltroitia tmpire. It i,