The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-23 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDoN, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 23, 1863.

KINAHAN'S LL WHISKY v. COGNAC
BRANDY.
This celebrated Old IRISH WHISKY rivals the finest
FRENCH BRANDY,
It i, Pure, Mild, Mellow, Delicious, and very Wholesome.
Sold in Bottles, 3s. Bd., at the Retail Houses in London ; by
the Agents in the principal towns in England ; or wholesale
at

8, GREAT WINDMILL-STREET,
Observe the Red Seal, Pink Label, and Cork branded
"liinahan's LL Whisky."

LS. D.—The ELECTRO-PLATED GOODS
• are coming to one of the Large East-end Drapery
Establishments.—EDWAttD, LLOYD and CO., 74, &a..
Shoreditch.

TF THIS SHOULD MEET THE EYE of any
A. one troubled with Wind in the Stomacb, Indigestion, or
Biliousness, take PAGE WOODCOCK'S WIND PILLS.
TUeir world-wide celebrity proves them of sterling merit.
Of all medicine vendors at is. lid. and 2s. 9d. ; or free by
post for 14 or 33 stamps from Page D. Woodcock, Chemist
Lincoln.

ALGERIAN ONYX MARBLE. Messrs.
HOWELL, JAMES, and CO., respectfully solicit an
inspection of their Onyx Salon, which contains upwards of
1,003 objects, consisting of Clock Candelabra, Lamps,Vases,
Jardinières, Inkstands, Pen-trays, and a variety of smaller
articles of taste, at moderate prices.

This beautiful marble is perfectly translucent, bears a very
fine polish, presents a diversity of pleasing tints, and can be
turned or chiselled into any form necessary for utility or
ornament. —5, 7,9, Regent-street, Pall-mall.

AT Christmas many suffer from INDIGESTION,
and require some little assistance. PARR'S LIFE
PILLS stimulate the digestive organs, and remove, without
the slightest pain, uneasy or nauseous sensations, so familiar
to those-,who have indulged a little too freely in good Christ-
mas fare. May be obtained of any medicine vendor, in boxes,
is lid, 28 Od; and in family packets, 118 each.

FAST AND WEST INDIA DOCK
COMPANY.
The COURT of DIRECTORS of the East and West India
Dock Company hereby give Notice, that a Half-yearly Court
or General Meeting of the said Company will be held, pur-
suant to the directions by the Act Ist and 2d William IV.,
cap. 52, at the Dock House, No• 8, Billiter-square, on FRIDAY.
the Bth day of January, 1864, at which Meeting a Dividend
will be declared on the Capital Steck of the Company forthe
Halt-year ending the 31st inst.
By order of the Court.
GEORGE COLLIN, Secretary.
East and West India Dock House,
8, Billiter-square,
21st December, 1863.
N.B.—The Chair will be taken at Two o'clock precisely.

gatiation on this matter" to the British Consul at
Charleston, he was informed that " the most perfect
accord on this question exists between her Majesty's
Government and the Government of lhe Emperor of
the French," and these instructions were accom-
panied by a copy of the despatch of the British Fo-
reign Office of the 18th May, 1861, stating that there
was no difference of opinion between Great Britain
and the United States as to the validity of the prin-
ciples enunciated in the fourth article of the declara-
tion of Paris in reference to blockades. Your prede-
cessors of the Provisional Congress had, therefore,
no difficulty in proclaiming, nor I in approving, the
resolutions which abandoned in favour of Great
Britain and France our right to capture enemy's
property when covered with flags of those Powers.
The " securities" desired by those Governments
were understood by us to be required from both
belligerents. Neutrals were exposed on our
part to the exercise of the belligerent right of
capturing their vessels when conveying the property
of our enemies. They were exposed on the part of
the United States, to interruption in their unques-
tioned right of trading with us by the declaration of
the paper blockade above referred to. We had no
reason to doubt the good faith of the proposal made
to us, nor to suspect that we were to be the only
parties bound by its acceptance. It is true that the
instructions of the neutral Powers informed their
agents that it was "essential under the present cir-
cumstances the,t they should act with great caution
in order to avoid raising the question of the recog-
nition of the new Confederation," and that the un-
derstanding on the subject did not assume, for that
reason, the shape of a formal convention. But it
was not deemed just by us to decline the arrange-
men on this ground, as little more than ninety days
had then elapsed since the arrival of our Commis-
sioners in Europe, and neutral nations were
fairly entitled to a reasonable delay in acting on
a subject of so much importance, and which, from
their point of view, presented difficulties that
we, perhaps, did not fully appreciate. Certain it is
that the action of this Government on the eccaeion,
and its faithful performance of its own engager
naents, have been such as to entitle it to expect on
the part of those who sought in their own interests
a mutual understanding, the most scrupulous adhe-
rence to their own promises. I feel constrained to
inform you that in this expectation we have been
disappointed, and that not only have the Govern--
ments which entered into these arrangements
yielded to the prohibition against commerce with
us, which has been dictated by the United States,
in defiance of the law of nations, but that this con-
cession of their neutral rights to our detriment has
on more than one occasion been claimed in inter-
course with our enemies, as an evidence of friendly
feeling towards them. A few extracts from the cor-
respondence of her Majesty's Chief Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs will suffice to show marked
encouragement to the United States to persevere in
its paper blockade, and unmistakable intimations
that her Majesty's Government would not contest
its validity.
On the 21st of May, 1861, Earl Russell pointed
out to the United States Minister in London that
" the blockade might no doubt be made effective,
considering the small number of harbours on the
Southern coast, even though the extent of 3,000
miles were comprehended in terms of the blockade."
On the 14th of January, 1862, her Majesty's Mi-
nister in Washington communicated to his Govern-
ment that in extenuation of the barbarous attempt
to destroy the port of Charleston by sinking a stone
fleet in the harbour, Mr. Seward had explained

"that the Government of the United States had lasi
spring, with a navy very little prepared for so ex-
tensive an operation, undertaken to blockade up
wards of 3,000 miles of coast. The Secretary of the
Navy had reported that he could stop up the large
holes' by means of his sh ps, bat that he could not
stop up the small ones.' It has been found neces-
sary, therefore, to close some of the numerous email
inlets by sinking vessels in the channel.'
On the 6th of May, 1862, so far from claiming
the right of British subjects as neutrals to trade
with us as belligerents, and to disregard the blockade
on the ground of this explicit confession by our
enemy of his inability to render it effective, her
Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
claimed credit with the United States for friendly
action respecting it. His lordship stated that " the
United States Government, on the allegation of a
rebellion pervading from nine to eleven States of
the Union, have no w, for more than twelve months,
endeavoured to maintain a blockade of three thou-
sand miles of coast. This blockade, kept up irre-
gularly, but when enforced, enforced severely, has
seriously injured the trade and manufactures of
the United Kingdom. Thousands are now ob-
liged to resort to the poor rates for sub-
sistence owing to this blockade. Yet her Ma-
jesty's Government have never sought to take ad-
vantage of the obvious imperfections of this blockade,
in order to declare it ineffective. They have, to the loss
and detriment of the British nation, scrupulously
observed the duties of Great Britain towards a
friendly State."
Again, on the 22d September, 1862, the same
noble earl asserted that the United States were
" very far indeed" from being in " a condition to ask
other nations to assume that every port of the coasts
of the so•styled Confederate States is effectively
blockaded."
When in view of these facts, of the obligations of
the British nation to adhere to the pledge made by
their Government at Paris in 1856, and renewed to
this Confederacy in 1861, and of these repeated and
explicit avowals of the
imperfection, irregularity,
and inefficiency of the pretended blockade of our
coast, I directed our Commissioner at London to
call upon the British Government to redeem its
promise, and to withold its moral aid and sanction
from the flagrant violation of public law
committed by our enemies, we were in-
formed that her Majesty's Government could
not regard the blockade of the Southern ports as
having been otherwise than " practically effective,"
in February, 1862, and that " the manner in which
it has since been enforced gives to neutral Govern-
ments to excuse for ascertaining that the blockade
has not been effectually maintained." We were
further informed, when we insisted that by the
terms of agreement no blockade was to be considered
effective unless "sufficient really to prevent access
to our coast," that the declaration of Paris was in
o
truth directed against blockades not sustained by
any actual
n-o f force,-w
a notoriously in-
adequate
a force,
a m
or the like."
It was impossible that this mode of construing
an agreement, so as to makeits terms mean almost
a such
i or
lin thesustained as
offing,the cc by
occasional appearance
of
the reverse of what they plainly conveyed, could be
considered otherwise than as a notification of the
refusal to the British Government to remain
bound by its agreement, or longer to respect those
articles of the declaration of Paris, which had been
repeatedly denounced by British statesmen, and
had been characterised by Earl Russell as " very
imprudent" and " most nnsatistactory."
If any doubt remained of the motives by which
the British Ministry have been actuated in their
conduct it would be completely dissipated by the,
distinct avowals and explanations contained in the
published speech recently
made by her Majesty's
Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In commenting on
the remonstrances of this Government against the
countenance given to an ineffective blockade, the
following qteguege is used ;—" It is said we have,
contrary to the declarations of Paris, contrary to in.
ternational law, permitted the blockade of 3,000
miles of American coast. It is quite true we did so,
and the presumable cause of complaint is quite true,
that although the blockade is kept up by a suffi-
cient number of ships, yet these ships were sent into
the United States navy in a hurry, and are ill-fitted
for the purpose, and did not keep up so completely
and effectively as was r equired an effective block-
ade."
This unequivocal confession of violation, both of

agreement with us and international law,is defended
on grounds the validity of which we submit with
confidence to the candid judgment of mankind.
These grounds are thus stated :—" Still looking
at the law of nations,it was a blockade we, as great
belligerentPowerinformer times, should have ac-
knowledged. We, ourselves, had a blockade of up-
wearredsbound of 2d
in ,000 miles, and it did seem to me that we
w
justice to the Federal States of Ame-
bo

rica to acknowledge that blockade. But there was
another reason which weighed with me. Our

people were suffering severely for the want of
that material which was the main staff of

their industry; and it was r. question of self-interest
whether we should not break the blockade. But in

my opinion the men of England would have been for
ever infamous if, for the sake of their own interest
they had violated the law of nations and made war
in conjunction with those slaveholding States of
America against the Federal States."

In the second of these reasons our rights are tot
involved; although it may be permitted to observe

hat the conduct of Governments has not hereto-

'ore, to my knowledge, been guided by the prin-

eiple that it is infamous to assert their rights
whenever the invasion of those rights creates severe

suffering among their people and injuriously affect
great interests. But the intimation that relations

with these States would be discreditable because

hey are elaveholdiog, would probably have been

omitted if the official personage who has published

it to the world had remembered that these States
were, when colonies, made slaveholding by the

direct exercise of the power of Great Britain, whose
dependencies they were, and whose interests in the

slave trade were then supposed to require that her
colonies should be made slaveholding.
But the other ground stated is of a very grave
character. It asserts that a violation of the law of

nations by Great Britain in 1807, when that Govern-

ment declared a paper blockade of 2,000 miles of

coast (a violation then defended by law courts and

urists on the sole ground that her action was reta-

liatory), affords a justification for a similar outrage
on neutral rights by the United States in 1861, for

which no palliation can .be suggested; and that
Great Britain "is bound in justice to the Federal
States," to make return for the war waged against
her by the United States in resistance of her illegal
blockade of 1807, by an acquiescence in the Federal
illegal blockade of 1861. The most alarming fea-

turn in this statement is its admission of a just
claim on the part of the United States to require of
Great Britain, during this war, a disregard of the
recognised principles of modern public law and of
her own compacts, whenever any questionable con-
duct of Great Britain "in former times" can be
cited as a precedent. It is not inconsistent with re-
spect and admiration for the great people whose
Government have given us this warning, to suggest
that their history, like that of mankind in general,
offer exceptional instances of indefensible conduct

"in former times," and we may well deny the
morality of violating recent engagements through
deference to the evil precedents of the past.
After defending, in the manner just stated,
the course of the British Government on the sub-
jeet of the blockade, her Majesty's Foreign
Secretary takes care to leave no doubt of the
the purpose of the British Government to prevent
our purchase of vessels in Great Britain, while sup-
plying our enemies with rifles and other munitions
of war, and states the intention to apply to Parlia-
ment for the furtherance of this design. He gives
to the United States the assurance that he will do in
their favour not only "everything that the law of
nations requires, everything that the present Foreign
Enlistment Act requires," but that he will ask the
sanction of Parliament" to further measures that her
Majesty's Ministers may still add." This language
is so unmistakably an official exposition of the policy
adopted by the British Government in relation to
our affairs, that the duty imposed on me by the Con-
stitution of giving you from time to time, " informa-
tion of the state of the Confederacy," would not have
been performed if I had failed to place it distinctly
before you,
I refer you for further details on this whole sub-
ject to the correspondence of the State Department,
which accompanies this message. The facts which
I have briefly narrated are, I trust, sufficient to
enable you to appreciate the true nature of the neu-
trality professed by this war. "It is net in my
power to apprise you to what extent the Government
of France shares the views so unreservedly avowed
by that of Great Britain, no published correspond-
ence of the French Government on the subject hav-
ing been received." No public protest nor opposi-
tion, however, has been made by his Imperial
Majesty against the prohibition to trade with us,
imposed on French citizens by the paper blockade
of the United States, "although I have reason to
believe that an unsuccessful attempt was made on
his part to secure the assent of the British Govern-
ment to a course of action more consonant with the
dictates of public law and with the demands of jus-
tice towards us."
The partiality of her Mejesty's Government in favour of
our enemies has been further evinced in the marked difference
of its conduct on the subject of the purchase of supplies by
the two belligerents. This difference has been conspicuous
since the very commencement of the war. As early as the
lst:of May, 1862, the British Minister in Washington was in-
formed by the Secretary of State of the United States that
he had sent agents to England, and that others would go to
France, to purchase arms, and this fact was communicated
to the British Foreign-office, which interposed no objection.
Yet in October of the same year Earl Russell entertainel
the complaint of the United States Minister in London, that
the Confederate States were importing contraband of war
from the island of Nassau, directed inquiry into the matter,
and obtained a report from the authorities of the island
denying the allegations, which report was enclosed to Mr.
Adams, and received by him as satisfactory evidence to dis-
sipate "the suspicion naturally thrown upon the authorities
of Nassau by that unwarrantable act." So, too, when the
Confederate Government purchased in Great Britain, as a
neutral country (and with strict observance both of the law
of nations and the municipal law of Great Britain), vessels
which were subsequently armed and commissioned as vessels
of war, after they had been far removed from English waters,
the British Government, in violation of its own laws and in
deference to the importunate demands of the United States,
made au ineffectual attempt to seize one vessel, and did ac-
tually seize and detain another which touched at the island
of Nassau, on her way to a Confederate port, and subjected
her to an unfounded prosecution at the very time when car-
goes of munitions of war were being openly shipped from
British ports to New York, to be used in warfare against us.
Even now the publio journals bring intelligence that the Bri-
tish Government has ordered the seizure, in a British port,
of two vessels, on the suspicion that they may have been sold
to this Government, and that they may be hereafter armed
and equipped in our service, while British subjects are en-
gaged in Ireland by tens of thousands to proceed to the
United States for warfare against the Confederacy, in defiance
both of the law of nations and of the express terms of the
British statutes, and are transported in British ships,withent
an effort at concealment, to the ports of the United States,
there to be armed with rifles imported ft °in Great Britait
n.
and to be employed against our people in a war for confeg
i ruea
ensce
No royal prerogative is invoked, no executive initenirPl a_
is interposed against this flagrant breach of while strained
international law, on the part of our enemies, w
constructions are placed on exaiasntoyi
Government
d
ments proposed, and questionable
precluding the possibility of purchase bY
purposes, unless
of vessels that are useless for belligerent
outside of the neutral j
hereafter armed and equipped
diction of Great Britain.
ew
have formed their appropriate functions with a
nv
megr
millions
tt aoetnunsttt e'Bof haswnarmieslexercisedne ongta andfelt -r.
defeated vast•
unquestioned For n ear l y threeurlits jurisdiction
aost yearsatane t
over
atbn us
united people.
d affection of its citizens, the Conlede•
by the confidence an
inde-
pendent nation, according to the principles of public law.
expedietla devised,
Its legislative, executive, and judicial departments, each in
regularity as as undisturbed as in a time of profound peace,
rvaactlye rhsa,swlhaockheadvneoi in
element vain so sought
h its
dsiustbivnegruisioshne.sSuanppord
and the whole energies of the people have been developed
in the organisation of vast armies, while their rights and
liberties have rested secure under the protection of the
courts of justice. This Confederacy is either independent
or it is a dependency of the United States, for no other
earthly power claims the right to govern it. Without one
historic fact, on which the pretension can rest, without one
line or word of treaty or covenant, which can give colour
to title, the United States having asserted, and the British
Government has chosen to oonoede, that these sovereiSn