The Sun.
London, England, 1863-07-31 00:00:00

THERMOMETER.

This morning
This day at Two o'clock

Barometer-30.25.
Wind—East ; light, with fine weather.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Nis Div.—Morning, 2a. Ilm.—Afternoon, 2h. 43m,
To-monnow.-Morning, 3h. Mo.—Afternoon, 3h. 30m

fJ3 4
Zit SUM

LONDON, FRIDAY, JULY 31, 1863.

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Should a war really arise out of these Polish 1
complications, it will be no partial war, we may
be quite certain of that—likc the last one, let us
siy, the battlefields of which were restricted first
of all to the borderland where the Russian and
Turkish Empires meet, and eventually even to the
soil of the Crimean peninsula. Another European
-war, a war originating, not like the last, in the

cupidity of the CZAR, as to the manner in which the
Sick Man might be expected after death " to cut

up," as the phrase is,• but in the fact, each day
becoming more recognisable, of the resurrection of
the Polish nationality from .he grave in which its
murdered remains have been now for the chief part
of a century buried away ! An European war, the
tocsin of which should prove to have been at length
rung by that Russian-Polish Nationality, would not
be a partied war, but a general war ; would not be
a war of Parties, but a war of Principles. At inter-
vals, during the last few months, this probable war
Principles, this threatening at least of a general war
among the great nations of Europe, has appeared
for a brief moment at a time—even in the esti-
mation of diplomatists —to be most immi-
nent. Even now the hez trd of it, is very
far from having passed away altogether. A
contest of this supreme importance and extraordi-
nary magnitude, is still within the limits of possi-
bility. Any day the signal for it may become visible
to all Europe, as suddenly as the signal which was
given for the war which broke out in Italy !
Meaning in the telegraphic announcement
of the severe words of reproof addressed
upon a memorable Jour de l An, by the
French EMPEROR, to the Austrian Ambassador.
And we are thus seriously' disposed to regard as
at this moment within the limits of possibility, if
not of probability, the announcement given as
suddenly and startlingly of this general war in
Europe, this war, not of parties, or of nations, but
of Princiai
es for several reasons that may at once
be very
readily particularised.
About the
most apparent of these reasons being
the fact that in reference to Poland itself the
alternative of war or no war seems to depend now
at any instant upon the choice decided upon
purely by the whim of one man in supreme power,
acting upon the spur of
tt-he moment, and under
irritation. the goad of a great
It will be remem-
bered by the readers of air.
INGLAKE'S shamefully
indiscreet, but here and there
wonderfully eloquent,
historical romance about
the last European war,
the war partially fought out
between Russia and
the Western Powers of Europe against that
great Autocracy, that in one
Of the most
picturesque passages in one of the
opening
chapters of the work, the writer refers to the
CZAR, seated in his Cabinet at St. Petersburg,
as to an angry man who had but to ring a bell,
the momentary dictate of his passion, and within
the throb of a few seconds upon the pendulum, to
light up, through the agency of the eiectric fire, the
flame of war at opposite extremities of his vast do-
The autocrat thus referred to, it is
true, was the Czar NICHOLAS, and not the Czar
ALEXANDER. But :hough the men were very dif-
both in capacity and in temperature,
ferent, indeed,
the :same. If the
the power remains identically
fierce resolve has no Enwe beaninherited by the
reigning Emperor of All the 'Russias, than has
appa.
and, in an earthly
rentin of his imme-
the lawless ambition,
diate progenitor, the supreme
point of view, the irresponsible authority of that
predecessor has passed intact into the
hands of
ALEXANDER 11. The latter has the same capacity
for doing good or for inflicting evil upon millions of
his fellow-creatures—meaning, here, not the
sixty million Russians in Europe, Asia, and
America owning allegiance to his swan
indirectly, the millions beyond his dominions,
the subjects of contemporary sovereigns. True it
", 110 doubt, that the Emper or ALEXANDER 11. be-

ininions.