The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-16 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC jOUBNALS.

Tratse.—The resentment felt in the Northern
States against every one concerned in the cruise of
the Alabama is so natural, and the arguments of
the New York Chamber of Commerce are so plau-
sible, that it behoves us to look at the whole ques-
tion carefully and fairly. When the case is stated
from the Federal point of view, we cannot help
feeling a certain degree of sympathy with their
remonstrances. Here is a ship constructed by
Messrs. Laird, of Birkenhead, and supplied with
engines specially designed and manufactured by
them. It is further alleged; by way of aggrava-
tion, that she was built with British materials and
by British workmen, but as this is implied in the
fact of her being launched from the Birkenhead
Ironworks, we do not see what is gained by dwel-
ling on it. It is more to the purpose that she is
supposed to be manned by old men-of-war's men of
our Navy and seamen of the Naval Reserve, though
we have no ground for assuming that any of her
officers are English. Whether or not she was
bought with the money of British cotton brokers,
as a New York journal affirms, we have no means
of ascertaining, but we' learn from our correspond-
eat there that certain New York speculators share
with our own merchants the infamy of this imputa-
tion. There is no reason to doubt, what one of our
Liverpool contemporaries admits, that she is suP-
plied With coal (and perhaps with ammunition) by
a regular succession of ships from this country.
When in want of water or repairs she exercises
the right of taking refuge infra praesidia of some
one of our West India Islands, and if the Tuscarora
or San Jacinto choose to follow her thither, she
must submit to give her a 24 hours' start. All this
is highly vexatious, and when news come that ship
after ship has been overhauled by her and burnt at
sea we can understand the exasperation that it
causes at New York. Reprisals are out of the
question, for the blockade, whether effective or not,
has left no Confederate merchantmen for prizes.
Even the " British pirate" herself, as she is now be-
ginning to be called, is almost secure from cap-
ture. She was built expressly for speed, and carries
guns of longer range than her pursuers. In short,
the immense superiority of the Northerners at sea
has not been a little neutralised, their commerce
partially crippled, and the rate of marine insurance
sensibly raised by the movements of this mis-
chievous little craft, which but for Great Britain
could not have existed at all. What more venial,
then, than an outburst of wrath against this coun-
try, and what more obvious than the suggestion that
our ships of war should be employed to run down
and destroy the vessel which the Federal navy can-
not catch P When, however, we examine one by
one the complaints thus massed together into a
general charge against our Government, we shall
find that several of them are irrelevant, and that
they amount altogether to very little. We may at
once dismiss from consideration the magnitude of
the damage done by the Alabama. The same prin-
ciple which would justify her in capturing a fishing
boat would justify her in capturing every Federal
merchantman on the Atlantic. If the effect of her
activity is that the American carrying trade is trans-
ferred to our own ships or those of foreign nations,
we cannot help it; and Lord Russell has given a
clear proof of impartiality by referring the owners
of British property destroyed on board Ft deral ships
to the Confederate Prize Courts. So, again, assum-
ing that she is a lawfully commissioned vessel, we
cannot refuse her the ordinary hospitality of our
ports or give any extraordinary advantages to the
ships in search of her. Nor are we aware of any
law prohibiting the sale of stores, even if contra-
band of war, to a belligerent on the high seas. No-
thing, therefore, that has happened since July last,
when the Alabama put to sea, can be the subject of
legitimate objection. The real and only question is
as to the conduct of England before and about that
time. We say the conduct of England, because the
New York Chamber of Commerce joins in a common
indictment the people, the press, and the responsi-
ble Government of this country. This is a mistake
which American merchants should be the last to
make. What would they say of an attempt to fix
the guilt of Walker's and other filibustering expe-
ditions on their nation collectively ? It is idle to
insist upon oar supposed sympathy with the ob-
jects of Captain Semmes and his crew as having
anything to do with a point of International Law.
There are but two parties whose acts are material
in this case—the Government and those British
subjects who built, equipped, or enlisted on board
the Alabama. Now, we freely admit that these last,
if they wilfully give their services in arming, man •
ning, and fitting out a vessel intended to pillage
the marine of a State friendly to her Majesty,
have committed a legal offence. By so doing—if
they have so done—they have put themselves be-
yond the protection of Great Britain. They must
prosecute their enterprise at their own risk ; and
this risk will be increased by their participation
in the practice—forced upon them by circumstances,
but unknown among the usages of war—of making
their captain a judge without appeal and burning
their prizes at sea. Such was the tenour of the
Queen's Proclamation in May, 1861, and the Fo-
reign Enlistment Act declares such active interven-
tion in a foreign war to be a misdemeanour. To
what extent the provisions of that Act may have
been evaded by those who provided the crew and
armament of No. 290 is doubtful ; but this is a doubt
which we are not concerned to clear up. The ques-
tion is, not whether a number of Englishmen may
not have imitated the stratagem of the Garibaldians
at Genoa with less excuse than they, but whether
the English Government should be accused of con-
nivance, and taxed with a breach of neutrality for
not potting an effectual embargo upon them.
We might here cut short the discussion by con-
tending that no reclamation can he made against
a Sovereign, as such, for the misdeeds of his subjects
acting in a private capacity, We might refuse to
recognise the prohibition of military service under
a foreign Power as a part of the general law of na-
tions, and challenge the right of any Government
but our own to avail itself of the Foreign Enlist-
ment Act, seeing that it is not amenable to our mu-
nicipal law. By doing so, however, or by disputing
the application of the 7th section of that Act to a
case like that of the Alabama, we should but weaken
the strength of our own position. The truth is
that the advisers of the Crown did authorise
the detention of the Alabama, and an order
was sent to that effect, but she gave us the
slip. This appears from a despatch of Mr.
Adams himself, and we know further that cer-
tain bonds required by our Government from
her owners have been forfeited by her subsequent
proceedings. Of course it may be said that such
bonds were worthless as a security, and that ade.
quate vigilance would have prevented
lity of her escape, the possibi-
lity
doubt a despotic Executive,
acting under a sense of the " higher law," would
have made short work of it by seizing her on sus-
picion. Common report
a pieceport o
-would probably have been
held to justify such
smartness. Unfor-
tunately, no English Minister is armed with such
powers. The officers of the Customs cannot detain
any vessel carrying persons enlisted for illegal ser-
vice abroad without a sworn affidavit setting forth
the facts or circumstances upon which the deponent
grounds his information. They cannot safely seize
any ship which may have been fitted out to take
part in illegal operations of war until the persons
accused of equipping it shall have been convicted.
These preliminaries take time, and if the adren-
turtrs intereE'ucl in evading the law are skiltul and
know bow to keep their own counsel, the chances
fly in their favour. The line between

are gr

arning a ship with guns for use in the Arnericin
War, and selling the ship and guns with a shrewd
Suspicion that they may be turned -to that account,
is very difficult to trace. By cur correspondent's
last letter we learn that the Federal authorities will
have an oPpottulAtv of trying
stopping 4 weasel the experiment by
now being built for " the Chinese"
in New York itself.
'
be hatched and fledged under
If a second Alabama shoula
their own eyegi and
should take wing to Prey on their commerce in
spite of all their precautions, they will better ap-
preciate the difficulties which enabled
the first t(;
baffia our Custom-house officers.

POST.—The extracts which we- have published
since the opening of tbe French Chambels, from
the official report of the Minister of Foreign

,
amity closer than those ;
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e which
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country and Portugal
peladeehaavned wardbineeu aiin;
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tice and friendly action.
been invaluable
price o
Finally, we have not
lhuaatb lallianceinwou
earned the good will but the contempt of the North.
abusing us—the
All parties there agree in cordially
folly of the pusil-
lanimity Intelligent men despise the
Republicans from passion, the Democrats from po-
lanirnity of our Government; the masses believe,
insanely but not unnaturally, that England is afraid
of them. They see so clearly that it is our interest
at almost any price to bring about a peace, and that
we might do so If we would, that they can assign
no other reason for our inaction save a feer of their
vengeance. Consequently they are mere insolent
than ever, :their abuse more furious, their insults
more gross, their piratical outrages more audacious.
It is strange that even Lord Russell does not see
the folly of his refusal, now that ho perceives its
effect in every direction, unless, indeed, the ono I
. ffect it was intended to produce wer,3 the concilia-
tion of Messrs. Bright, StanSfeld, and Taylor. The
expediency of recognition i 3 plain from the eager-
ness with which it is demanded by the Confede-
rates, and the rage which the fear of it excites

among the partisans of the Federal Governmcnt,
They are better judges of its effect than We can

be, and they evidently concur in believing that it
would terminate the war. The encouragement
which.' it would give to the growing feeling in