The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-30 00:00:00

vernment took no means to inform themselves of the pro•

ceedings of those courts, and that they were always ready,
at the instance of Mr. Adams, to subject the English mer-
chant to the pressure of English law. In the case of the
Alexandra there was one peculiarity of that law which the
hon. and learned gentleman was instrumental in bringing
out in a striking degree. No costs could be given against
the Crown, and they, nevertheless, heard that the hon. and
learned gentleman, in carrying out the decrees of the Ame-
rican Minister Minister, had resolved not to be content
with the decision which had been given against him, but
to wear out the defendant by carrying him to courts of ap-
peal, where he hoped to gain by the boundlessness of the
Government purse that which he could not get by the fair
interpretation of the law. They saw nothing of that acti-
vity in putting down Federal enlistment in the south-
west of Ireland, nor any attempt to inquire into the causes
of that emigration which had recently increased 300 per
cent. In conclusion, the noble lord inquired for information
concerning the reported detention at Liverpool of the Gib
raltar, on taking two of Blakeley's guns on board as part of
her cargo, and declared ►hat if it proved true it would be but
another instance of that gross partisanship under which
British merchants were now and had been suffering at the
hands of their own Government. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. COBDEN said he felt himself in rather a neve
position when he appeared even by implication to be taking
a side in opposition to the merchant and shipowner, whilst
the noble lord who had just sat down was the champion and
advocate of those interests. With regard to commercial
blockades, and it was well known that he had no sort of
sympathy for such proceedings, he thought that such a
mode of carrying on warfare between two belligerents, by
which a greater amount of injury was inflicted upon the in-
nocent neutral than upon the belligerents themselves, could
be objected to on the ground of natural justice. But who
were the principal authors of that system of warfare ? Un-
doubtedly the public men of this country. Under these cir-
cumstances he could not say a word against the blockade
as it was now carried on in the United States, it being the
public men of England itself who principally upheld the
system, in the belief that, when we became belligerents, it
would be useful and necessary to ourselves. (Hear, hear.)
He granted that, if a vessel were bona fide bound for Nassau,
an American cruiser had no right to stop her; but every-
body knew that there was a great contraband trade carried
on by way of that port, and it did not become them, know-
ing that England had a monopoly of the trade, to come
down to the house and complain of the inconvenience which
it incidentally occasioned the innocent merchant. He was
not going to be such a purist as to say that capitalists
might not carry on a trade attended with such risks, but
when pursued in contravention of the Queen's proclama-
tion, it did not become the house, aware of all the facts,
to complain of the inconvenience which naturally grew out
of such trade, and which might affect legitimate commerce.
The noble lord contended that the decisions of the
American prize courts should not be respected be-
cause the judgments of the American courts were
given under the pressure of bayonets. He was as dili-
gent on observer of what was passing in America as the
noble lord, and he had not seen that the supreme court
of Washington had given a judgment in favour of President
Lincoln because the court had been surrounded with armed
men. He asked the noble lord to reflect before he made such
statements, and to furnish the house with proofs of them.
(Hear.) The noble lord had alluded to the judgment in the
case of the Alexandra. He was not going to say a word
about the law of the case ; but this he should tell the noble
lord, that, if that decision should be confirmed as interna-
tional law, it would be far more injurious to the interests of
our commercial and shipovvning community than to all the
rest of the world. The shipowners of Liverpool were
awakening to a consciousness of the danger to which they
were exposed, for it amounted to this, that a neutral power
might build ships of war for a belligerent, provided only
that that power kept the armament and the ship apart until
a distance of three miles from the coast had been reached.
If, therefore, England were at war with Brazil or with Ire-
land, provided only she were acknowledged as a belligerent,
it would be competent for the shipbuilders of Boston and
New York to build vessels of war for either, and England
would have no ground of complaint. If the law as laid down
in the Alexandra case were to be established as interna-
tional law, it would simply be inviting a return to the
anarchy of the middle ages, when every war between two
States became a universal war. He had thought the object
of the Foreign Enlistment Act had been to assist in stop-
ping that system, but it appeared now that we were to lose
that safeguard for the future. The noble lord stated that
we were not dealing impartially, because we allowed enlist-
ment for the Northern States in Ireland and elsewhere.
That was a most gross—not conscientiously so, but still a
gross and ignorant mhrepresentation, because if the noble lord
had read the correspondence between Mr. Adams and Earl
Russell he would have seen that when the noble earl men-
tioned the subject, Mr. Adams denied the allegation and
challenged proof, and Earl Russell was obliged to admit
that he had none in his possession. As for the 30,000 emi-
grants from Ireland, they were easily accounted for by the
high rate of wages now ruling in the Northern States, and
by the recent homestead law by which the American Go-
vernment gave every head of a family of emigrants 160 acres
of land for merely the price of the survey, viz,, 3d. per acre,
or 40s, for the whole. As the American Government had
over 1,000 millions of acres to giveaway, there was of course
enough to empty not only Ireland, but all Germany as well.
He hoped he should not hear thesevague aspersions against
the Northern States repeated in that house.
Mr. S. FITZGERALD regretted those continual dissen-
sions, because they had hitherto resulted only in making
British Ministers appear anxious to support a state of things
which would be highly injurious to British commerce. The
hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Cobden) appeared in a very
extraordinary light, because 4e. had for some years past ad-
vocated the universal extension of trade ; but now he was
compelled to come forwarl and advocate the straining of
belligerent rights to a point against ourselves to which they
had never been pressed before. The hon. gentleman said
that when shipowners entered upon blockade running spe-
culations they did so at their own risk, and deserved no
sympathy when they were caught. That might be, but the
serious part of the complaint was that those repeated and
unjust attacks upon our shipping interfered with legitimate
commerce. It was notorious that our trade in Matamoras
(which was a neutral port) had vastly increased, and yet the
hen, member for Rochdale called that trade disreputable.
Mr. COBDEN—I said it was not reputable—nor is it—
in the face of the Queen's proclamation.
Mr. S. FITZGERALD said the hon. gentleman was