The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-19 00:00:00

THE. CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA,

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)
NEW YORK, Oct. 6.
The r iege of the defences of Charleston has re-
comme need.. General Rosencranz is closely belea-
guered in Chattanooga, and the army of the Poto-
mac h as been deprived of about half of its available
strength to reinforce him. In other quarters little
is do ing ; but there is sufficient uncertainty with
respect to the three points here indicated to keep
people's minds in feverish suspense, and to operate
unfdvourably on the money-market. Charleston

gives the least anxiety. The belief is that if the
Federal army and navy cannot capture they can
destroy the city, and in the worse case they can
raise the siege and leave Charleston to itself for the
winter. General Meade's position inspires more
doubt. His army has been depleted, in the hope
rather than in the certainty that General Lee had
suffered a similar diminution for the reinforcement
of Generfils Joseph Johnston and Bragg. If it
should turn out, however, that Lee is in as great
force as ever upon the Rapidan, he may seize the
opportuTJity to attack Meade and renew the old
alarm ar the safety of Washington. As regards
Rosenexanz, the public is every day informed with
a loud flourish of trumpets that his position is im-
pregnable ; that his army is in the best
spirits ;
that the enemy dares not attack; that everything is
going on better than could have been expected'
and that he will infallibly gain a great victory in
a very few days. But the more the Government
protests the more the people disbelieve ; until the
impression is hourly gaining strength that
The that Rosen-
eranz is in a position of imminent il
rela-
tions between France and the Federalp Government,
arising out of the turn
whichc events have taken
in Mexico, also cause onsidertahbeleßiunsqsivainetfluedeet,
which not even the presence of
in the harbour of New York, the departure of Mr.
Mason from London in disgust, and the alleged soli-
citude of the British Government to prevent the
sailing of the Confederate rams from the Mersey
and the Clyde are sufficient to alleviate.
Another cause for discomfort has been discovered
in the defencelessness of New York and Brooklyn
against a naval attack. The ordinary entrance to
the Bay of New York is by Sandy Hook, and
through the Narrows—the route which is taken by
the Cunard and Inman steamers, and ninety-nine
out of every hundred vessels that trade with the
port. This entrance is defended at the Narrows by
Forts Hamilton and Lafayette on the right, and by
Fort Tompkins, not yet completed or mounted with
artillery, upon the left. But there is another and
equally available entrance, by way of Long Island
Sound, which is not defended at all, and through
which a hostile fleet can enter with the greatest
ease. "It was only the other day," says the New
London Star of the Ist inst., " that five Russian
men-of-'Aar of the largest class, sonic of them draw-
ing 27 feet of water, appeared off Montauk, steamed
throug;h the narrow passage between Fisher's and
Gull's Islands, usually called the Race, went up the
Sound, and were quietly at anchor within shelling
distance of the city of New York before any one
was aware of their presence. Had these been the
fleet of an enemy instead of a friend, the cities
and towns on the seaboard of Connecticut and
New York city itself might have been laid in
ashes." It appears that the people of the city
of New London have long been urging upon the
Government the necessity of erecting strong
fortifications at the points indicated, but hitherto
Without effect. Accustomed to deal with all
sorts of jobs and jobbers, the Administration
thought that nothing but a job of greater magni-
tude th an usual was intended, and, as there was
no electioneering strength to be gained by favour-
ing it, the consideration of the matter was postponed
or pooh-poohed. Perhaps, however, the prospect
of a foreign war, which never since the secession of
South Carolina appeared so imminent as now, may
ineluce the Federal Government to look to this un-
fastened back door before the steed be stolen.

The official organs of the Government have been
instructed to contradict the report that the failure
of the last draught to produce soldiers—although it
produced abundance of commutation money—has
impressed Mr. Lincoln and his secretaries with the
necessity of a second conscription, in which no com-
mutation shall be allowed. The statement, which
originhted in one of those violent Abolitionist jour-
nals that, " with the best of motives," are doing
their best, or worst, to drive the country to destruc-
tion, is denounced from Washington as a malicious
invention. But, if there is to be no new draught,
how is the government to be carried on ; and how
is Mr. Lincoln to continue the war ? He has not,
by 500,000, as many men as are necessary to the
safe prosecution of the task before him; and as ne-
groes cannot be got in sufficient numbers—and
white me,n scarcely at all—there must either be a
break d own that will surprise the world, some mira-
culous interposition of Providence, or some equally
miraculous succession of strokes of good luck by sea
and, land to prevent the North from exhibiting a
treectacle of helplessness such as has rarely been
witnessed among nations. But, perhaps, the secret
tof the disclaimer is not so difficult to fathom as it
'appears. For the next five or six weeks the elections
of Governors or other high officials will be in pro-
gress in the Western States, as well as in New
York and Pennsylvania, audit may therefore not be
politic on the part of the Government to incur the
unpopularity of ordering a new draught until they
are concluded. Inall probability this is the true
ex-
planation of the denial. Doubtless, if Mr Vallan
digham be defeated in Ohio, Judge Wood. wardin-
Pennsylvania, and the Democrats generally in New
York, where there is no election for governor this
year, the Government will take heart and allow the
rumours of a new conscription to be revived without
troubling itself to contradict them. Upon the tem-
per in which they shall be received by the press and
public will depend the future action of Mr. Lincoln
and his black Republican advisers.
But it is not only the want of soldiers but of sailors
that begins to embarrass thelExecutive. Notwith-
standing all the vaunts that are daily made of the
indomitable navy of the North, which with its 're-
sistless ironclads and monitors is, in case of a war
with Great Britain, to sweep the ocean of every ship
that carries a. hostile flag, the Administration has
the greatest difficulty in procuring seamen in suffi-
cient numbers to send even a moderate fleet to sea.
Perhaps,in case of actual war with any European
d especially with Great Britain, that which
power, an
is now a difficulty might grow into an impossibility.
Ireland and Germany have offered immense numbers
of volunteers and substitutes, and some few con-
but !hese resources would fail
scripts, to the army ;
the Federal Government in a naval war. Neither
the Irish nor the Germans make good sailors, or take
so naturally to a maritime. as to a military life, and
the naval force of the United States is either com-
posed of native-born AllleriCallS, or of English-
Norwegians. In what
English-
men, Scotchmen, and
Proportion the foreign stands to the native element
is not clearly known, though it is surmised by
These who, from their position and opportunities,
Ought to know, that less than one-half of the able,
bodied seamen on board American merchantmen
Or
81'4' of war are natives and citizens of the
country.
As Englishmen and Scotchmen do not
entertain that theological hatred against the British
Government
Catholics, whioh animates the Itish Roman
and have been mainly
high n in
the Federal service byhwadguesced to enteroffered,iti
the s
probable that in case of a war with Great Britain
the patriotism of thesemen would prove greater
than their cu
and
thatabthe Americans would
be left to fight their own se attles with such small
aid as the Scandinavians
mightaaffoi
this may be, the present need of al
sailors Howevertomanthe
m
fleet is urgent ; and
the Feder
which
itGovernmentwould
ulids
seriously incommoded in the efforts
gladly make, if it could, to capturetheFloridan and
Alabamas, which so disturb the equanimity of the
mercantile community. It having been rep:leuut:rd
to the Naval Department that considerable
of recruits for the navy could be procured
s
among the Cape cod fishermen if proper inducements
were held out to them at the close of the fishing
season, the frigate Sabine, under the command of
Commodore Ringgold, was despatched to the coast,
and arrived at Provincetown, Massachusetts, on the
Bth of September. The Commodore made known
his mission to the seafaring population, and offered
such terms of ray, bounty, and ctahce of prize-

money as were thought sufficiently attractive. Ves-
sels from the cod fisheries arrived daily at Province-
town, but not a sailor volunteered to serve. The

. _
Commodore remained a fortnight on the station,
with the same nnsaccess; and it is now reported
that the Sabiae will have to be laid up for the win-
ter for want of men. No considerations of the un-

popularity of the commander can be brought to

explain the failure, for Commodore Ringgold is not
only a good seaman, but a gentleman in the highest
sense of the word, and beloved alike by his officers
and his crew. The steam frigate Niagara, recently
completed, and described as being one of the very
finest ships in the world, is in the same predicament.
She lies at Charlestown, near Boston, prepared to
start in pursuit of the Alabama and the Florida, but
unable to move for want of a crew. The sailing ship
Saratogo, with a heavy battery, which would be use-
ful before Charleston, Mobile, or Wilmington, has
been ready for sea for three months, bat it has been
found impossible to man her. There may be, and
doubtless are, many other Federal war ships in a
similar predicament, though as yet no publicity has
been given to the facts. Tae Naval Department
knows not what to do. One set of advisers, undis-
mayed by the glaring failure of the conscription,
boldly urges the Government to introduce into Con-
gress in the first week of its sitting an Act for the
di impressment" of seamen, while another class in-

sists that many thousands of volunteers could yet
be procured if the bounty offered were increased,
and, above all, if the ordinance were repealed which
deprived the sailors of their "grog." It is asserted
that the increase of pay, to the amount of sc. per
diem, which has been granted to the sailor as a
solatium for the loss of his usual stimulant, is not
satisfactory, and that as long as this restriction upon
the free will and upon the tastes and habits of the
sea-going people is continued, so long will the Fe-
deral Government suffer for want of seamen. What-
ever remedy may be adopted, it is so uncertain in
its operation, that the Government may well be ex-
cused if it do not see the expediency of a war either
with Great Britain or France. An Impressment Act
would be odious to the people, which might not
signify much to a Government that seems deter-
mined to establish a despotism ; but it might fail in
its object, which is a contingency that no Govern-

went can afford to despise. As for the " grog," it
is likely that the severity o' the existing discipline
Will be relaxed, and that " Jack" will be allowed his

coveted modicum of rum or whiskey ; but whether
in the event of war with Great Britain any consider-

able number of British sailors in the present service

of the Federal Government will consent to be trai-

.ore to the land of their birth admits of the gravest

doubts,

The fact seems to be that the United States, or
what may remain of them, on the conclusion of

peace, may be a great military, but never can be

come a great naval nation. Their territory by its
very vastness is inland, and must breed an inland,

not a maritime population. It requires the sea to
beget a love of the sea. The hoy that is to be a
sailor when he is a man must sport upon the shore

when he is a child ; and this can be the destiny o'

but few Americans. If the coast line of the Federal

States, leaving Califoraia out of the calculation, be
measured from Norfolk in Virginia (somewhat more,
perhaps, than will be allowed after a settlement
between North and South) to the boundary line in
the Bay of Fandy, between the State of Maine and
the British colony of New Brunswick—the one in
lat. 32 deg., and the other in lat. 45 deg. 25 sec. N.,
—it will be found that the maritime population of
the Federal States only exists upon a length of

about 900 miles of coast. Compare this with the
coast line of the British isles, and it may be esti-
mated that the sailor-producing power of England
and Scotland, to say nothing of Ireland, is at least
twice as great as that of the Northern Union. Had
it not been for British sailors, the American navy,
national or mercantile, could not have been what it

is, and the "Buncome" orators of vast inland re

gions, 1,000 miles from the sea, would have had
much less reason to boast of their ability to cope
with the greatest maritime Power that the world
has even seen or is likely to see.
A short letter addressed to the President by the
Hon. Josiah Quincy, of Boston, Massachusetts, the
only living American of any note who was born
before the Declaration of Independence, and who
was once in consequence a British subject, has ex-
cited considerable attention. The private and public
character of this venerable gentleman stand deser-
vedly high. He is in his 92d year, in full possession
of his faculties, was long a member of Congress and
of the Legislature of his native State, and has been
president of Harvard College and Mayor of Boston,
was on terms of intimacy with Washington,
Lafayette, and most of the earlier as well as later
Presidents, and is author of several works, of which
the life of his relative John Quincy Adams is the
best as well as most recent. It might be thought
that if the voice of any man in America would be
raised in favour of blessed peace it would be that of
a man so sage, so calm, so experienced, and so pat-
riotic. But it is not so. The abolition of negro
slavery, though the land should be deluged with
blood for 50 years in the attempt to enforce it, has
such entire possession of his mind that he has no
advice to give to the President or the people but to
fight on. He insists that compromise is impossible,
and believes that the final victory of the Federal
Government is inea itable. He, too, so far beyond
the ordinary age of passion, shares the passion of his
countrymen for extent of territory. The "Union"
is the God of his idolatry. And yet this Josiah
Quincy was the earliest dis-Unionist known. He
declared so far back as 1802 that the purchase of
Louisiana was unconstitutionai—that it was fatal to
the stability of the Union, and sufficient to justify
the secession of Massachussetts, and every other
State, if in pursuance of the Act of Congress, of the
undoubted rights of the South under the constitution
and of the solemn decision of the Supreme Court, the
officers of the Federal Executive, charged with a
legal warrant, should presume to lay hands upon a
fugitive slave on the soil of that commonwealth.
This only shows how great was the original incom-
patibility between North and South. When Aboli-
tionism was in the minority, it threatened disruption
of the Union, rather than obey a law which it did
not approve. Its maxim then, as now, was "rule or
rain ;" and Mr.
Quincy, its oldest, if not its ablest
apostle, is powerless to emancipate himself from its
thraldom. He declares the South to be " mad;"
but,
if so, he
weremignhott
madwe a
well alssko, himself whether
themen
Washington
wha acted with him, including Josiah Quincy.
existence in th
It was in this
British correspondence, some months ago,
society called the
that the
people were first informed of the
Brotherhood, whose illuian'
countryv.
secret
of a mysterious political
and whose objects
the establishment ofFenian, or Phinean
We members were all Irishmen,
that the true
name of this
Brotherhood; that anre
Irishthe invasion of Ireland and
the Republic. It appears
organization is the Fenian
ec.recy
veloped their proceedin which formerly
gs is no
en-
upon, and that the i‘ head longer to be insisted
Master, is one Colonel Centre," or Grand
John 0
York, now a loyal citizen of th Mahoney, of New
el United States, but
formerly of Dublin, and a
rebe
autho-
rity of Great Britain, under Mr. Smith
the
the cabbage-garden. In toobedience
emith O'Brien
in
numerously signed by the "centres" a requisition
of the Brotherhood at Philadelphia, Chicago,o! local chiefs
ville, and other large cities to the h„ssk Louis-
-awes of 60
70, this functionary has convened a general ns or
of the body to assemble at the Fenian gall
.eeting
in Chi-
cago, on the 3d of November next,
to debate on
"grave and pressing matters:' It is stated
that
Mr. Seward, Archbishop Hughes, and all the poli-
ticians in the Union, who are accustomed to court
the Irish vote on occasions of emergency, are well
aware of the objects of the society, and what is
highly important if it be true, that no Irishman
can obtain a commission in the Federal army
unless he esn prove his affiliation to the Fenians
and his sympathy with their designs. It
is hinted that immediately on the recognition of the
Southern Confederacy by Great Britain, or on a de-
claration of war on the grievance of the Confederate
rams, the Fenians will he let loose upon Ireland, to
stir up insurrection; that the Federal Government
(if it do noon tha interval tumble to pieces) will im-
mediately
recognise the Irish as belligerents, and
that the Shi-b •
eld
m ers of Boston, Brooklyn, and
iiillee ' '
, . ,Pala will construct
.., rams, monitors, and