The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-22 00:00:00

The Weather—Sun Office, Oct. 22, 1863.

THERMOMETER.
This day at Two o'clock 6O

Barometer-30.20.
Wind—West ; light, and fine.

44 4, .4
4
Wlgt

LONDON, THURSDAY, OCT. 22, 1863.

The principal news just received from America
may be summed up in three announcements. An
important flank movement on Meepe's right—
reported at New York on the 12th, as having been
effected by General LEE! An attack upon the
Federal fleet before Charleston, apparently by Con-
federate ironclads, causing considerable damage
among the vessels of that fleet and great alarm
amongst them as to their safety ! The continued in-
terruption of all communication between ROSEN-
CRANZ'S base at Nashville and his main force at
Chattanooga! In those three announcements we
have the gist of all the tidings brought to us yester-
day and to-day by the Bohemian and the
Glasgow—the gist at least of those portions of the
tidings relating to the warlike operations at the
three chief points of interest, on the Tennessee, on
the Rapidan, and at Charleston. Simultaneously
with the receipt of these fragments of intelligence
we have vague intimations from the North, as to
certain mysterious plans for a pacification lately
submitted (with what result, if any, we are not in-
formed) to Mr. LINCOLN'S Cabinet. And from the
South a frank expression through the Richmond
Enquzrer, of the gratification of the Confederates at
having the French for neighbours in Mexico, the
Confederate journal remarking that "the South
would willingly make an alliance with France to
protect French and Southern,interests in America."
The Richmond Examiner, at the same
time, denouncing all peace propositions, as
craven hints not for one moment to be seriously
thought of ! In effect, it has been manifest here
on the European side of the Atlantic ever since the
successful accomplishment of NAPOLEON'S enter-
Prise for the occupation of Mexico—it has been
perfectly manifest to every unprejudiced observer
of events as seen from this side of the Atlantic,
that the on, inevitable sequel to that successful
Alexieoby.French troops, would ne-
cessarily be the
bringing together, sooner or
later, in intimate alliance, offensive and de-
fensive—of the French
The proclivities of France, and
the Confederates.
have been to the South.lf frona the first,
there is one
European personage who is regarded by the North
with especial repugnance and indignation,
French EMPEROR.
attemptsogenerous
His xvury,stw it is the
but ill considered and utterly futile
bring about a reconciliation between the to
bellige.
rents have estranged the feelings of one portion, at
least, of these belligerents against him and his
Go-
vernment, more and more earnestly than ever.
This estrangement, this antagonism, it
should be
called, has been completed, has been perfected, so to
speak, by the knowledge, all but unendurable to the
North, that Mexico—that Mexico so often coveted
by American Eel)ublicans—has fallen completely
into the possession
of the Emperor of the FRENCH.
So completely that his .AJESTY can coolly offer, as
ho has offered, the conquered republic to the Austrian
Archduke MAXIMILIAN for transformetion into a new
Empire. Later on, the result is sufficiently obvious
of its kind. France must fall on the one hand into
more direct antagonism with the Federals, and into
more intimate and cordial alliance on the other
hand, with the Confederates. Triumphing over
their antagonists, even when unaided from without,
the
southern veterans would infallibly be heartened
on to yet more doughty feats of arms by a con-
sciousness that there was already avowed sympathy,
and that there
might be eventually, if such should be
deemed in any way
advisable, actual co-operation
on the part of the French troops, as near neigh-
bours, there, in Mexico
of the troops, of the Confe-
derates. Meanwhile hfeeling, whatever may
be here
said inEngland the popular
the ono hand by
Earl RUSSELL
and on the other
to the contrary on
by Mr. BEECUER, the popular
feeling here in
England is every day becoming
more and
lin:nista:ably Southern or Coneed more
eraie A
audience in Exeter-hall, a body of packed
People
matter how large and noisy) got together(no
there
for a set purpose, to listen open-mouthed to the e
rhetorical ravings of a man of such exceedi •
ngly
bad taste and vile passions as the Rev.
WARD
BEEC 3ER, and to applaud him to the echo, can be
accepted in no way as evidence of what in reality