The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-06 00:00:00

partment at Washington to prevent the depreda-
tions of the Florida and Alabama and their now
numerous consorts—one of which, the Tacony, or
Florida No. 2, captured the Liverpool em ;rant ship
the Isoac Webb, on her way to New Y nk, and only
about 75 miles distant—Governor Seymour, of New
York, should take the matter in hand. Governor
Seymour has lately determined, without reference
to the President's forthcoming conscription, to re-
organise the New York State Militia to its full
complement of 120,000 men, a very respectable
army ; and it is argued, as he is Commander-in-
Chief of the naval as well as the military forces of
the commonwealth, that he ought in this capacity
to supplement the action of the weak Central Go-
vernment, and protect the citizens of the State of
New York at sea as well es on shore. Why, it is
asked, should he not call upon patriotic capitalists
to lend or fit out for hits a squadron of fast
steamers to pursue the formidable war-ships of the
Southern Confederacy, and by capturing them free
the commerce of the city from frightful loss of ships
and goods, as well as from enormous sea risks,
smounting to an insurance of 10 and 20, and in the
case of the Californian traders of 25 and even 30
per cent. ? These are suggestive hints, presaging
the time—that may come, and that will come, in the
estimation
t oo ff
umt ua rhiy who b
tyt ne tl ivheei er
they
ei g hcbaohu rase—e much
when
and try to recover the trade of the independent
the great State of New York will set up for herself
South, by a new secessionfsryolvanmAnbiao,liatniodntishte
aNgerwi.
England, Protectionist Pennsylvannia,
the strife, and before the assault upon
cultural North-West. At a very earFlyerptesr,iuomdteorf
had driven the Northern people beside themselves
with vindictive passion at the outrage upon their
flag, the erection of New York into a free city, after
the model of Hambarg, Lubeck, and Bremen, was
openly debated, and found many supporters.
Governor Seymour's action with respect to the
Militia, and the recommendation that he should
make himself forthwith a great naval as well as
military potentate, look as if the idea of separation
were not considered entirely illusory in the contin-
gency of Southern success; and that in the day of
the debacle New York, the Empire State, may per-
haps find it advisable to look to herself for the shap-
ing of her own destiny.
While General Banks, at Port Hudson, has been
endeavouring to prove to the world how bravely
negro soldiers will fight, and how obediently they
will suffer themselves to be slaughtered at the
command of their superior officer, Colonel Mont-
gomery, late of Kansas, has undertaken to prove
—what was not needed—that negroes when their
blood is inflamed, and their passion aroused by
bad example, will commit all the worst horrors
that ever disgraced the practice of war. Intend-
ing to excite the negro slaves of Georgia to in-
surrection against their masters, or at the very least
to run off as many thousands of them as he
could lay hands on for service in the Federal army,
Colonel Montgomery placed his black troops on
board of several transports on the 11th inst. and
sailed up the Altamaha river to the town of Darien.
All the inhabitants, including the slaves, fled at his
approach, and when he entered the place scarcely a
straggler was left. The correspondent of the Herald
states, " that the town was burnt, which was some
consolation to the War Party ;" while the Savannah
News, not finding any consolation in the act, describes
it, on the authority of a correspondent whose whole
property perished in the conflagration, in terms that
will be anything but consoling to those numerous
good men among the Northern people who believe
that war has its decencies and humanities as well as
its duties, and who do not wish their cause to be
disOaced in the eyes of the civilised world by bar-
barons and needless atrocities, whether committed
by black men or by white. The negroes burnt the
churches, the chapels, the market-house, the bank,
the court-house, the gaol, and all the public and
private dwellings in the town, having previously
smeared the wooden houses with turpentine to in-
crease the rapidity of the conflagration, and rifled
the shops and stores of wine, spirits, clothing,
jewelry, and everything they needed. They even
went so far as to shoot the cattle in the streets in
wantonness and destruction, and did not retire until
nothing was left of Darien but a heap of smoulder-
ing ruins. "The Confederates," says the Express of
to-night," heap coals of fire upon our heads by not
acting in a similar manner in Pennsylvania. In-
deed, they might relieve us from shame, if they
would only burn up a town or two, and thus take
the blushes off our cheeks." The Abolitionist jour-
nals say nothing on the subject, and one of them last
night, in narrating the brilliant deeds of Colonel
Montgomery, prudently omitted all mention of the
burning of Darien, contenting itself with the simple
annouccement of the capture. It would be well for
their credit, however, if they would join their de-
nunciations to those of the rest of the people against
this diabolical mode of warfare, which not only con-
signs to infamy its leaders and instigators, but will
array against the Federal Administration an amount
of obloquy that no government can endure and live.
Another clergyman, and he by far the most dig-
nified and powerful in America, has declared himself
in favour of peace. Archbishop Hughes, who took
especial pains a few weeks ago to impress upon the
minds of a youthful auditory the fact that a small
republic, with liberty, was better than a large re-
public without it, has gone still further in the ex-
pression of those sober second thoughts on the war
which aro fast recommending themselves to the in-
terest as well as to the conscience of the American
people. At the dedication on Sunday last of the
New Roman Catholic church of St. Theresa, in this
city, after a touching discourse on the purely reli-
gious aspects of the ceremonial in which he bore the
most conspicuous part, he touched in few but preg-
nant sentences on the awful question of the war.
" Speaking for the Roman Catholics, he would say
that they had no hand nor part in bringing about
the coudition of affairs which now distracts and
afflicts the land."
` L
ti pray to God to have mercy u`
puent
theu ,h " e
peopleeont
ui continued
u d
this,
country, and by some means, devised in His great
wisdom, bring about an amicable termination of the
struggle. That was a legitimate prayer. As to that
there would, no doubt, be prayers upon both sides of
the line. Differences of opinion must exist with
regard to the accomplishment of it, but he was in
it shouldThb:
Aatrteehnbdiesdhubpy
itshae
favour of a happy termination of the present diffi-
culties, even though
ne.,"and on the few occasions
edai vu itsi ioonns oafn
da
prudentgre a t pe ompal
when he touches upon polities follows rather than
leads the sentiment
many
of
nhis
thousandspeople. T 'rho Irishthe
ir Romanyeut
youth
Catholics have sent y
to perish on the bloody, and as yet fruitless battle-
fields, where they have been more cruelly sacrificed
by the rashness and stupidity of commanding officers
than by the sword of the enemy, relentless as that has
been;
and if any body of citizens have a right de-
rived from their efforts in the war to speak of
their desire for peace, it belongs to them and to the
Archbishop of their faith, The position taken by
the Archbishop, and in which he follows most of
the Irish members of the Democratic party to which
he belongs, and
in which he will possibly lead the
remainder, is the same assumed by Mr. Fernando
Wood—Peace, even at the cost of Disunion. A
large section—perhaps as yet the majority of the
Democratic party, having its head-quarters in the
city of Albany, and not in New York, and known
as the Albany Regency—tako less logical ground,
and loudly proclaim that they are in favour of peace,
but not at the expense of a division of the Union.
In this respect they are but in accord with Mr. Lin-
coin and Gen. Hooker, with Mr. Wendell
Phillips
and Miss Ann Dickinson, with Gen. Butler and the
Rev. Mr. Beecher, and with the whole of the Re-
publican party, except the gentlemen who have
large war contracts, and cannot in a country such as
this, if they could in any other, be expected to allow
the Christian and the patriot that may be latent in
their nature to get the better of the trader and the
" smart" man of business. All these, from Mr. Lin-
coln down to Mr. Beecher and Mr. Tilton, are men
of peace, but peace only to be acquired by the subju-
gation of the South. Archbishop Hughes, Mr. Fer-
nando
Wood, and the working classes of New York
are peace men of another kind. They
its own sweet self. They are sick of lovetlee pweaarce for
all that belongs to it. The poorer classes more espe-
ciel:y aufnr grievous ills from it, and expect to suf-
fer in a still higher degree, if it be not immediately