The Sun.
London, England, 1863-01-06 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 6, 1863.

BANK OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA.-
Incorporated by Royal Charter.
THE COURT OF DIRECTORS HEREBY GIVE
NOTICE, That a HALF-YEARLY DIVIDEND, at the
rate of Six per Cent. per Annum (free of Income-tax), on the
Capital of the Bank, will be Payable to the Proprietors of
Shares registered in this country, on and after the sth day of
January next, at the Office of the Corporation, No. 7, St.
Helen's-place, Bishopsgate-street, between the hours of Ten
and Four.

No Transfer can be made between the 15th inst. and the sth
proximo, as the Books must be closed during that period.

By order of the Court. -
C. 31`IsTAB, Secretary.

No. 7, St. Helen's-place,
London, Dec. 9, 1862.

C IVIL ENGINEERING and SURVEYING
co r LEGE.
The COLLEGE COURSE of Instruction in Civil Engi-
neering, Surveying, Levelling, Plan Drawing, Measuring,
&c , will COMMENCE on WEDNESDAY next, January 7.
Terms for th , Course 10 guineas, which includes office and
field work, the use of instruments, &c. For prospectuses ap-
ply at the College, 24, Guildford-street, Russell-square,
London.

THE CONSERVATIVE LAND SOCIETY.-
THE ELEVENTH YEAR. Trustees, Viscount
RANELAGII and J. C. COBBOLD, Esq.,
Prospectuses, explanatory of the Share, Deposit, Land,
and Building Departments, will be sent, free of charge, to
any part of the world. No Partnership liability, and the
taking of land entirely optional. Present rate of interest,
payable in halt-yearly warrants, five per cent. per annum on
Shares (with participation in any profits above that allow-
ance), and four per cent. per annum on Deposit Accounts—
the investors not becoming members of the Society.
CHARLEi LEWIS GRUNEISON, Secretary.
Offices, No. 33, Norfolk-street, Strand, London, W.C.

METROPOLITAN RAILWAY COMPANY.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, That the METRO-
POLITAN RAILWAY will be OPENED for PUBLIC
TRAFFIC on and after SATURDAY, the 10th day of
January inst. _

Ito QrclV„ut.„thsf Beard,
JOHNHENCHMAN, Secrotary.
Offioes; 17, Duke-street, Westminster,
January 2, 1863.

GUARDIAN FIRE AND LIFE ASSURANCE
COMPANY,
No. 11, Lombard-street, London, E.C.
Established 1821.
Subscribed Capital, Two Millions.
DIRECTORS.
Sir MINTO FARQUHAR, Bart., M.P., Chairman.
CHARLES WIL LIAM CURTIS, Esq., Deputy Chairm n.
Henry Hulse Berens, Esq., G. Shaw Leferre, Esq.
Henry Bonham Carter, Esq. John Martin, Esq.
Charles F. Devas, Esq. Rowland Mitchell, Esq.
Francis Hart Dyke, Esq. James Morris, Esq.
Sir Walter R. Farquhar, Bart. Henry Norman, Esq.
James Goodson, Esq. Henry R. Reynolds, Esq.
Thomson Hankey, Esq., M.P. Abraham J. Robarts, Esq.
John G. Hubbard, Esq., M.P. James Tulloch, Esq.
John Labouchere, Esq. Henry Vigne, Esq.
AUDITORS.
Lewis Loyd, Esq. I Henry Sykes Thornton, Esq.
Cornelius Paine, jun., Esq. Noel Whiting, Esq.
Thos. Tallemach, Esq., Secretary I Saml. Brown, Esq., Actuary

LIFE DEPARTMENT.—UNDER THE PROVISIONS OF AN
ACT OF PARLIAMENT, this Company now offers to new In-
•urers EIGIITY PER CENT. of the Profits, at Quinquennial
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Since the establishment of the Company in 1821, the
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LOCAL MILITIA. and VOLUNTEER CORPS.—No
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LOANS granted on Life Policies to the extent of their
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ASSIGNMENTS OF POLICIES.—Written Notices of, re-
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MEDICAL FEES paid by the Company, and no charge
or Policy Stamps.
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN, that FIRE Policies
which expire st Christmas must be renewed within fifteen
days at this Office, or with Mr. SAMS, No. 1, St. James's—
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Losses caused by Explosion of Gas are admitted by thin
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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

POST.—The battle of Fredericksburg has already
begun to produce those consequences which we
anticipated. In the Senate murmurs are now for
the first time beginning to be heard, and in the
Cabinet symptoms are shown of a desire on the part
of some of its members to avoid the coming storm.
The American people are at last becoming conscious
of the system of misgovernment to which they have
been so long subjected, and from almost every quar-
ter of the Northern States resounds under various
forms the demand that some radical change should
be effected in the Administration. The President
alone remains unaltered and unchangeable. The
same obstinacy and the same disregard for the
principles of that constitution he was sworn to sup-
port, which led him to suspend the Habeas Corpus
Act, and endeavour by proclamation to create laws,
equally prevent him now from recognising and giv-
ing effect to the declared wishes of the people. Mr.
Seward, the Foreign Secretary, and Mr. Chase, the
Secretary of the Treasury, have sent in their resig-
nations, but Mr. Lincoln has refused to accept them.
The unlucky general who, in obedience to the dic-
tates of his civil superiors, consigned some thou-
sands of his troops to indiscriminate slaughter, has
asked to be relieved of his command, but the re-
quest has been refused. Indeed, so far as regards
Burnside's resignation, we cannot help thinking
that the President has acted with justice if not
with judgment in decliiing to give effect to it. But
for the obstinacy with which Mr. Lincoln refuses to
reconstruct his Cabinet it is impossible to discern a
single excuse. The American Government is still
presumed to be, at least in form, constitutional, and
consequently the incongruity of conducting it as if
it were a pure despotism becomes all the more strik-
ing. Accustomed as we are in this country to re-
gard the voice of Parliament as the true and only
test of the stability of an Administration, and know-
ing that in theory the American constitution in this
respect does not differ from our own, we can with
difficulty comprehend how the American President
is enabled for a single month to conduct public
affairs with a Cabinet composed of Ministers who
both individually and collectively have lost the pub-
lic confidence. Nor is it alone the support of that
political section which at the recent elections sent
so many representatives to the Northern Congress
that is denied to Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet. Those who
have hitherto aided to their utmost that Adminis-
tration, and who, rather than see it shattered, have
patiently concurred in measures which their judg-
ments must have condemned, now loudly demand
its disintegration. It is the Republican and not the
Democratic members of the Senate who have de-
clared their want of confidence in the Government.
It is those who have quietly submitted to a rule not
less rigorous than that of an Oriental despotism,
nay, who have eulogised with the most fulsome
adulation the Government, because in the name of
liberty it reduced them to the condition of slaves,
who now stand aghast at the ruin which threatens
to overwhelm them, and who demand the exclusion
from power of their accomplices in the great work
of destruction in which they have been engaged.
Against General Halleck and Mr. Stanton the
popular clamour excited by the reverse at Frede-
ricksburg continues unabated. Burnside has
taken on himself the whole responsibility of the
advance across the Rappahannock ; but even if in
truth he had originated that disastrous movement,
the War Secretary and General Halleck would still
deserve censure for having compelled him so long
to remain waiting for pontoons. The delay thus
occasioned enabled the Confederates to construct
those defences which ultimately proved impreg-
nable to the Federal battalions. That neither Hal-
leek nor Stanton have followed the example of their
colleagues, Seward and Chase, in sending in their
resignations, affords another instance how utterly
regardless of public opinion are the members of the
Federal Government. The committee appointed
by Congress to examine into the circumstances
which led to the defeat of the army of Virginia at
Fredericksburg continues its labours, but will
scarcely succeed in eliciting any other explanation
of the reverse than that with which the public are
already acquainted. Burnside, who was examined
as a witness, admitted that he accepted the supreme
command against his will, and only did so in ac-
cordance with the pressing solicitation of M'Clel-
lan. It is, however, rather with the motives which
induced him to cross the Rappahannock, and at-
tack the Confederate army behind its entrench-
ments, than with those which led him to take the
command of the Federal army, that the American
nation is most desirous of being made acquainted.
If generals are to be mere automatons in the hands
of unscrupulous Ministers, the public ought to
know it. In the present instance they do not seem
to have been much in error in laying the blame of
the most bloody and profitless battle of a bloody
and profitless campaign at the doors of General
Halleck and Mr. Stanton.

DAILY NEWS.—The suspension of the cotton fac-
tories in France, and concomitant distress of its
workpeople, have been, like almost everything else
in that country, kept in mysterious silence. The
Paris press, with one striking exception, did not
touch upon the subject; the provincial journals,
generally under the thumb of the Prefect,
said little more. The quantity of cotton-yarn
which had been introduced since the com-
mercial treaty, had allowed the weaving and more
advanced kinds of manufacture to proceed. Now,
however, all have come to a stand-still. The Go-
vernment authorities, unable to meet the amount of
distress, have not prevented the chief manufacturers
—of Normandy, at least—from coming together,
forming a committee, and making an appeal to their
countrymen. It is very remarkable that whilst we
work up about five times more cotton than the French
do (according to Mr. Ellison), the numbers of French
employed in cotton manufactures are more than one
half of those similarly employed in England. The
official returns of 1852 give 245,000 as the number of
the French employed in cotton manufactures; and
they must have considerably increased since. The
department of the Lower Seine, of which Rouen is
the capital, produces cotton manufactures in value
equal to half of those of all France. The Alsacian
district, with Mulhausen for its centre, produces
about a quarter. Half a quarter may be traced to
Lille, and the remainder to different scattered
localities. According to the Rouen Committee, of
which M. Cordier is the chief, there are 130,000
workmen out of employment in the department-
-30,000 discharged from mills, and 100,000 hand-
looms, or metiers a bras, whose industry has been
put an end to. The Rotten Committee appealed to
Paris, and there was a meeting in that capital, but
of course composed merely of those Parisians who
were connected or acquainted with Normandy and
its manufactures. The produce of the subscriptions
made at the meeting did not exceed £B,ooo—little
more than the amount of our daily contribution
from English charity to Lancashire distress. In
Normandy itself double that sum has been contri-
buted. But how far will £32,000 go towards
feeding 130,000 indigent for at least three
months ? In dividing £5,000 amongst 115,000
applicants, the Rouen Committee say they have
but poured a drop of water upon the conflagration.
The fault of this inaction, rather than indiffe-
rence, lies no doubt in the political habits of the
French people, and more especially in the spirit of
the existing Government, which prohibits associa-
tion, considering it dangerous, and makinm
possible for men to m^ ' --Is as 1M-
f Lc:Tether to discuss and aim

..vuomplishing anything in which the public in-
terest is concerned. There is no stirring without
M. le Prefet, who is afraid either to stir himself or
allow others to do so. He refers to his Minister,
and ere he gets an answer the object is lost. The
press is gagged just as much as the public. To point
out that a large proportion of the population of a
department is in danger of starvation, or in Rota,'

.

starvation, is bringing contempt upon the Govern-
ment, and that is high treason for a journal. It is
warned immediately, and at a second warning sup-
pressed. The reproach of the Rouennais against
the Paris press, that it is much more concerned in
the exclusion of an English Prince from the throne
of Greece than attentive to relieve 100,000 of its
fellow-countrymen from starvation, is scarcely just.
The French journalist has been given foreign poll-
tics7as a field in which he may play and lucubrate
at pleasure ; but domestic politics are like the beau-
tiful green sward of the public parks and pleasure
grounds in and near Paris, which you are permitted
to look at but forbidden to tread. It is to M. Fould,
therefore, and the Emperor, we fear, that the ope-
ratives of the Lower Seine must look. The mill-
owners of the region are not in the best odour with
the Imperial Government. With the exception of
the Dollfus family and a few others, the majority
have clamoured loudly against the Emperor for his
Free-trade policy and Anglo-French treaty. Now
that the proportion of work performed by hand has
come to be stated, one is not astonished that the
lowering of duties has thrown many out of work.
Much of the distress attributed to the want of
cotton must have taken place at all events. It
offers, however, a fair opportunity and pretext for
the Imperial Government to step in and show itself
under its favourite aspect of pater patrice.

TIMES.—The political divisions of the North are
likely to neutralize, for war purposes, its superior
command of resources. And the difference between
the two rival sections as to supplies appears from
the evidence of the Southern journals to be decrees.
ing. The Confederacy obtains military stores and
provisions to an extent that perplexes Northern
observers. The Southern army has no superfluity
of rations or luxury of clothing; but it has stores
enough for existence, and the troops are armed to
efficiency as soldiers. It is evident that the blockade
is not complete. Cargoes are run upon the coast,
and find their way to Richmond and Charleston so
frequently as to make the sales by auction a regular
item of the newspaper advertisements. The an-
nouncements are generally "of such goods as we now
get through the blockade." There is no secrecy
observed, except as to the places of landing. Prices
are high, for a pound of candles costs 45., and a
sixpenny tooth-brush commands a dollar. But
the community is not wholly cat off from the
outer world. There is more mystery as to exports,
but some amount of business is quietly done. We
hear of agents in Richmond buying tobacco on
European account. Foreign speculators also invest
in cotton, and against these cargoes it is believed
the Southern Government draws for funds. There
are also reported purchases of Confederate Bends, '
which render the possession of the sinews of war by
the South not so inexplicable as it has appeared.
Of the scarcity of provisions in the Southern towns
the descriptions given in the North are both true
and not true. There have been short supplies, but
the inconvenience is not caused by actual dearth.
It is a result of interrupted communications, and
the derangement of the machinery of distribution.
Artificial scarcity has thus been produced in loca-
lities surrounded by abundance. The same thing
would happen in any European city if the railroads
were broken up, or used exclusively for the service
of an army. There is at this moment a scarcity of
provisions in St. Petersburg, because Nature has
not laid down the usual winter road of snow. The
railway lines of the South have been under the
control of the Government during the war, and
while the trains were carrying supplies for the troops
the citizens of the towns have undergone many pri-
vations. But there is no other evidence that the Con-
federacy will be crippled in its means of continuing
the war for another year. The greatest deficiency
under which its armies suffer appears to be the
want of shoes and good clothing. The contrast be-
tween the 11,000 Federal prisoners taken at Harper's
Ferry and their captors is described as having been
most striking in all externals. The well fed and per-
fectly booted Northerners could scarcely believe that
men could march and fight in such ragged array.
But if the contest becomes one of determination and
power of endurance, the united spirit of the South
will give it the superiority of morale. The ac-
knowledgments of this superiority made by the
Northern journals must be a compensation in the
south for much suffering. The New York gimes
actually holds up the Confederates as displaying
virtues worthy of imitation. " The rebels, notwith-
standing all their trials and disappointments, have
been patient. They have submitted with hardly a
murmur to the management of their leaders, have
not clamoured for intelligence, nor dictated plans,
nor mourned over mishaps. They have exhibited
remarkable trust and constancy." How are the
exactly opposite qualities to conquer the community
thus described in the next few months ? "Expe-
diency" would answer the question better than
" fanaticism."

HERALD.—Most of us must remember in our
school-time experience the thoroughly sympathetic
satisfaction with which the interference of a cham-
pion on behalf of some urchin about to be soundly
thrashed, and perhaps cleaned out or filched from
by one of the customary bullies of Dr. Swish's esta-
blishment, has been regarded and repaid with
hearty applause. One of the significant occasions
in which Mr. Thackeray takes care to let us under-
stand the character of Dobbin in " Vanity Fair," is
when he protects young Osborne from the cock of
the school, who is about to perpetrate some act of
cruelty to the infliction of which he considers him-
self irresponsibly entitled. The story told by Mr.
Underhill, a passenger on board the British mer-
chant steamer the Thistle, which was stopped and
searched by the Tuscarora, and at the exactly pro-
per and most critical moment rescued from the jaws
of the devourer by her Majesty's paddle steamer,
the Leopard, parallels precisely the occasion to
which we have above alluded in the life of every
schoolboy at a public school. The Thistle left
Liverpool on the 20th November with a very valu-
able cargo for Nassau, New Providence, and of
what the cargo consisted we need not trouble
our readers to inquire. She encountered some
very had weather, but arrived in Funchal Roads,
where she cast anchor, about noon, gix days after
her leaving England. As the Thistle stood in to-
wards the island she sighted a large screw steamer,
to all appearance heavily armed, and whose rig
corresponded to the description of the Northern
States war steamer, the Tuscarora. The Tuscarora,
as our readers may recollect, is a sullen-looking
craft, drawing much water from her armament,
which acquired a reputation over in this country for
her intended but frustrated acts of mischief to the
Sumter when coaling and equipping at Southamp-
ton. However, those on board the Thistle saw this
ugly stranger put to sea, and for four-and-twenty
hours absent herself from Madeira, where the
Thistle was taking in coal. The day after the ar-
rival of the Thistle her captain and passengers were
much gratified at the advent of her Britannic
Majesty's steamer Leopard, bound to China, which
ran into the roads, and anchored outside the mer-
chant vessel, also to take in coal. Three days after-
wards the Thistle proposed to resume her route ;
but, at about four o'clock in the afternoon previously
to the day of her departure, the signalman from the
Loo Fort, an isolated fortified rock in the bay/fini
an-
nounced that " An American man-of-war wtawsoß t
pre-
ceding in, and 89011 after the wonder of
the roads, the
ceding days steamed majestically
peak." A
stars ;Jai stripes floating from.
..likeour this, carrying
suspicious, nasty looking neiguurinintoizen
heavy guns,
or seven with
a broadside of six
o
several large pivot guns on deck; but whoever she
was and wherever she came from, those in command
customary decencies of
did not show theetetiquette
respect, for the new comer steamed
and ordinary
silently to an anchorage a little ahead of the Thistle
anolastern of the Leopard, and never dipped her en-
sign either to the Portuguese or British flags. " con-
sidering the Thistle's destination," writes Mr. Un-

PRICE..... -..4d.
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' derhill, " it was not unnatural that she should keep
a sharp 100k-out on her formidable neighbour ; and
these precautions proved to be founded on reason,
for several times, during the night, one of the Fe-
deral vessel's boats, commanded by an officer, was
found to have sneaked alongside the merchant
steamer, with the effort more than once repeated to
engage in parlance, which might be useful for ul-
terior purposes, with the look-out man on board the
Thistle." It will bo observed that the captain of
the Tuscarora and his subordinates have very loose,
if any, notions of punctilio or good breeding.
The next day being Saturday, away sped the
Thistle, and passing at the hour of sunrise between
the two war ships saluted, as the fashion in-
. variably is, each vessel in her turn. The Yankee
disdained the courtesy, ignored it altogether; the
' Englishman, as a mere habit, dipped his ensign
i❑ return. It had been remarked that the Tus-
carora kept her steam up all the night, and
accordingly the Thistle had not journeyed a mile
from her anchorage when the American captain
was seen to slip his cable and pursue with. all his
might and main. Away went the Thistle at full
speed, and was distancing her pursuer, when the
American, very incautiously, and with an undue
haste for his own interests, fired a bow gun as a
signal for the merchant vessel to stop, and the cap-
tain of the Thistle, Captain Maxted, who is
evidently a very knowing and experienced hand,
immediately brought to, as he did not mind being
questioned and overhauled while be could still claim
the protection of the English man of war. So the
Thistle was hove to. Down came the Yankee, like
a hawk or buzzard swooping for prey ; down he
bore at full speed, " his ports open and guns run
out, while his ports and hammock nettings were
one mass of faces as the crew crowded to look at
their chase," and eagerly gloated over their " pro-
spective prize." Presently a boat, manned with
an armed boarding party of eleven men, under
command of two officers, came alongside the Thistle,
and the first lieutenant of the Tuscarora, by com-
mand of his captain," Captain Craven—an unhappy
❑ame—commanding the United States steam
sloop Tuscarora," stepped on the deck of the
Thistle, with plenary orders to search her from
stem to stern, as she was reported to be carrying
" ammunition and other articles contraband of war
for the use of the rebels in the Southern States."
Captain Maxted replied that his information was
perfectly erroneous, and at the same time politely
pointed to the English red ensign which was flying
overhead, with the additional intimation that the
Thistle was a British vessel, with a British clearance
from one British port to another, and that if neces-
sary the protection of her Britannic Majesty's ship
Leopard would be claimed. The lieutenant, appa-
rently a German by Mr. Underhill's narrative,
with more emphasis than courtesy, expressed his
contempt for the flag and protection so invoked, and
demanded a sight of the ship's papers, menacing
the captain with his armed force if refused, and
threatening "if he found anything contraband on
board to seize the vessel as a United States prize."
What a terribly important, vaunting, and Bobadil
race seem the mercenaries in both army and navy of
the Northern States. No sooner does an expatriated
adventurer, either from public or private necessities
touch the Yankee shore, than he is clothed in arro-
gance, self-assertion, and vulgar recklessness such as
any roystering, ill-reputed, loose rapparee assumes
when he comes into a company where his antece-
dents are unknown. The bills of lading, however,
were inspected, and were too much, with their mis-
cellaneous contents of " coffee, tea, brandy, &e.,"
for this swaggering sea lieutenant. Presently he
avowed his determination to search the cargo, but
as 260 tons of coal would have first had to have
been removed, and as he was advised to be quick in
his duty "as the Leopard was approaching," he
signalled his own vessel for further orders, and re-
ceived instructions to repair back to the Tuscarora.
"No countenances" writes Mr. Underhill, and we
implicitly believe him, "ever displayed disappointed
rage more strongly than did those of the ill-looking
and motly crew (apparently of every nation) of the
Tuscarora's boat, as they pulled back to their own
ship, amid cheers for Old England,' hurrahs for
the Leopard, and so on." The whole story is very
well told by Mr. Underhill to the Scotsman, and the
following illustrations of the chaff between the
American boat's crew and the crew of the Thistle '
smacks so strongly of reality that we cannot for-
bear quoting it entire.

" One of the Thistle's mates, the late boatswain of the
Confederate steamer 290,' asked if the Tuscarora's crew
had made much prize money this fall. A Yankee in the
boat 'reckoned they hadn't turned a cent.' Oh,' re-
sponded the mate, ' You're not half chaps. The Alabama'.
men have each made a little fortune off the New York
blockade.' Oh,' said the officer in the boat, we should
like to fall in with that pirate Semmes. Do you think he is
near this ?" No chance of his being in these latitudes,'
replied the mate, or the Tuscarora daren't have ventured
down.' Some of the Britishers expressed their wish to be
in the land of cotton,' and their intention of living and
dying in Dixie ;' while an Irishman in the boat suggested
that they maybe hadn't to got there first, and so on."

The Leopard, as the first lieutenant of the Ame-
rican man-of-war returned from his bootless cruise,
came very close, and accordingly the Tuscarora
steamed back towards Funchal, with the Leopard
slowly following in her wake. Towards afternoon
the Leopard stood out to sea to make assurance
doubly sure, but the captain of the Thistle, seeing
the enemy safe, turned his vessel's head to wind,
arid went ahead at full speed. The Thistle, at
nightfall, changed her course, " headed away for
the north-east trades," and saw no more of the
Tuscarora or Leopard.
It would spoil such a pleasant adventure to com-
ment on the satisfaction of the Thistle in slipping
through Captain Craven's fingers and the very srasp
of the German first lieutenant.