The Sun.
London, England, 1862-03-19 00:00:00

—the horrors committed far and wide over the vast

expanse of the Roman Empire by the barbaric
hordes that successively laid it low—Goths, and
Ostrogoths, and Visigoths, and Vandals. If we are

indeed to believe the deliberate and positive assur-

ance uttered in regard to the deeds done by the
Taeping Revolution during the last ten or a dozen
years, from its earliest outbreak in 1850 until now,
the leader of it would almost seem to claim distinc-

tion in the world's history as "The Scourge of the
Devil," just as ALARIC of old obtained the designa-
tion of " The Scourge of God." Mr. LAYARD takes
his survey of the doings of the Taepings, not as is
remembered to have been done once upon a time
in respect to the doings of the belligerents in the
Crimean Conflict—to wit, From the Mast Head of a
British Man of War! The hon. gentleman—now not
only member for the metropolitan borough of South-
wark, and, as Punch has it, permanently also
Member for Nineveh, but Under Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs—scans the past and present
doings of the Taeping insurgents from that "'coign
of 'vantage"—so far as detailed, accurate and reliable
information is concerned—Office ! Surveying their
career from that serene and impartial altitude, he
seems to pronounce it—so far as ascertained facts
can in any way sustain him in pronouncing it—
during all these past twelve years of intermittent
rebellion against the constituted authorities—all
but diabolical. Whole tracks of country, he
tells us, have been laid waste by these
insurgents as utterly, we must repeat it, as by a
flight of locusts. During our own warlike opera-
tions there in China, our own officers and men have
passed through the ruins of what were generally

flourishing towns and villages, to find them so
absolutely and utterly destroyed by the revolu-
tions that the charred debris has proved to be only
the haunt here and there of the small wild game'
the hares and pheasants, of those Asiatic regions.

So long as we could in any way reasonably cherish
a hope of the kind,we have clung to the belief that at
least these marauding hordes 'of the Taeping Insur-

gents had amongst them some glimmering notions

of the truth of Christianity. After the disclosures
made last evening in the House of Commons by Mr.
LAYARD in his official capacity as her Britannic
MAJESTY'S Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, it
would be manifestly worse than idle seriously any
longer to entertain a belief in what is manifestly
proved now to be altogether erroneous. If holy
names are upon the lips of these Asiatic freebooters,
if sacred mysteries venerated by the veritable be-
lievers in Christianity amongst ourselves here in
Europe and elsewhei e, are babbled about by the Tae-
pings as within their comprehension and consecrated
to their homage—all is, according to the revela-
tions made by Mr. LAYARD in the unauthoritative
name of the British Government, literally and
actually but as a blasphemous Travestie of Truth.
Hitherto, that is to say, at least, until a compa-
ratively recent period, we " outer barbarians" from
the remotest corner of the eastern hemisphere have
had no kind of plea whatever for in terpcsition between
the Taeping Insurgents or Revolutionists, and the
Imperial Government against which they have
now during twelve years raised aloft the Standard
of Rebellion. So far as it in any way affected
our ourselves, it was nothing whatever to
us whether the Rebels or the Imperialists
should, in the end, prove victorious. The conflict
for ten years at least of the interval, has been alto-
gether out of our ken. It has raged inland. We
have had nothing whatever to do with it—there
has not even been an alternative before us, until
very recently, for intervention or for non-interven-
tion. The Rebellion has, however, at last been so
far brought home to us that it is, as it were, knock-
ing loudly at the doors of our Settlements. Ningpo
has been devastated. Shanghai is now
threatened—imminently—with destruction. So
alarmingly is it threatened with capture
and desolation by the Taepings, that even
our merchants there have gone the costly
length in the way of increasing their local defences
of employing three thousand Chinese Navvies (if
the existence of such amphibious creatures can be
imagined) in rapidly digging out a canal connected
with the great river of the Yang-tse Kiang, a canal
there, sufficiently broad and deep to admit of the
easy passage to and fro along it, of our British
gunboats.
What Mr. GREOSON asked yesterday in the
House of Commons has manifestly therefore not
been asked an hour too soon, And it has not
only been asked very distinctly and ex-
plicitly in the very nick of time, at pre-
cisely at the right moment—but it has forthwith
been answered quite succinctly and categorically,
and more than that (everybody will admit it, we
should think, even by this time Colonel SYKES him-
self) most satisfactorily. And this well-timed ques-
tion ? It is simply, of course, as to whether her
Britannic MAJESTY'S Government is prepared to
afford all possible protection at Shanghai and at our
other Chinesee fthe British
s t o the
therejust lives andnow m
th e pro-
pertyos
t
seriously imperilled. The answer accorded to this
inquiry has been, as every one might have been
certain it could only have been under the circum-
stances, instantly and unhesitatingly in the affirma-
tive. The stretched out arm of England will be
there in all its might—with a view to Vie effectual
protection of the lives and properties of British mer-
chants at Shanghai and at all the rest of our
Chinese settlements.

The King of PRUSSIA and VICTOR EMMANUEL
have both of them strained their rights as consti-
tutional Monarchs to the uttermost, but the Prus-
sian King must be regarded as far the worse
offender. The Italian Monarch's chief fault lay in
being as much influenced by Court favourites as by
considerations of public policy. There were those
about him who hated the noble and honest RICASOLI
much as HERODIAS hated JOHN the BAPTIST, and
it is generally asserted, and with" far too much pro-
bability, that the King was far too desirous of
pleasing them. The other consideration which
influenced him was doubtless the dislike of the
Emperor for RICASOLI, and his strong preference
of RATTAZZI ; and if it was personally unworthy
of VICTOR EMMANUEL to heed the whispers of
Court favourites in a political matter, it was politi-
cally unworthy of him to regard the wishes
of a foreign potentate in the choice of his
Prime Minister. For this last we acknowledge
that there is some excuse, in the peculiar position
of the KING in regard to the EMPEROR. It is
useless to act on the fiction that the King of ITALY
can yet contemn the serious wishes of the Emperor
of FRANCE. The mode lii whioll Italian freedom
was acquired, and the occupation of Rome, forbid
that. The unconstitutional act of the KING re-
solves itself into this, that, like our WILLIAM the
FOURTH, be dismissed his Minister without the
People's Representatives having shown in any
formal way their dissatisfaction with him. RICA-
SOLI
used, indeed, as a pretext, the plea that be
had not found in the House all the support he
wished; still,
on a question of confidence, he could
k always have commanded a large majority. The
KING had a full technical, constitutional right,
) therefore, to hint to him a wiigthtvt it o
h do
thei t.
wish for his resignation,
but he had hardly a moraln .
Altogether different is
King of
PRUSSIA. Nv necessity of •
Paling some deference

to foreign wishes, and no special personal antipathies,
have had anything to do with his high-handed
proceedings. He is a very common-place military
officer; he understands obeying superiors and com-
manding inferiors, and owing no responsibility to
the latter. Now, of course, all the Deputies, col-
lectively as well as individually, are not co-ordinate
power; they are merely the subordinates of the
KING by the grace of GoD, and in his eyes it was
infinite presumption in them to want accounts
which he was not disposed to furnish. The Prus-
sian Commons only wished for a kind of appropria-
tion bill ; they wished the money his MAJESTY
asked of his subjects to be appropriated to objects
which he should specify in demanding it ; and they
desired that in this way, as in England, and even
in France some check should be placed upon the
Administration in the disbursement of the public
money. Had he but inquired a little of either
country, he might have ascertained how easy it is
for a Minister to exceed his estimates, and obtain
an indemnity and the vote next session ; but the
KING seemed to become reckless. His first thought
was of coercion—political coercion, at present ; and
when his Ministers, better Constitutionalists than
himself, resigned, he would not hear of it. They
must retain their places, and give him, not
the advice they thought best, but that
which he preferred—which was, to dissolve
the House that watched too carefully over his
subjects' money. Even the advice of the young
Crown Prince, who already seems to have learned
something by his close connection with our Royal
family, was unheeded, and the dissolution of the
refractory House-pf Representatives ordered.
It appears, however, that the better part of the
Ministry can bear humiliation no longer. Greatly
to their credit, they consider their honour bound up
with the position of constitutional servants of a
professedly constitutional Crown. They have at
last, therefore, insisted on resignation, and the KING
has so far been compelled to give way. More com-
pliant successors have been obtained, and the elections
are to be proceeded with as quickly as possible. As
the estimates for the year have not been voted,
delay is of course impracticable. All that now re-
mains to be seen is, whether the Prussians them-
selves are more of Constitutionalists than of
Monarchists. They may not like much to affront
their King, but if they have the least spirit he
will find that the majority against him—for he
has almost made it a personal thing between
himself and the electors—is larger than that which
he sent for re-election. With the exception of the
Kreutz Zettung party, the fanciful feudalising re-
actionaries, all Prussians, Moderates as well as
Radicals, regard King WILLIAM as a failure; and
it will be weakness, rather than loyalty, if they
concede to him now at all. If he does not under-
stand the most elementary duties of a constitutional
king, he had better go to school to firm subjects.

We had hardly penned our remarks yesterday,
when we were enabled, before going to press, to
publish the confirmation of one of them by a tele-
gram from New York and Queenstown. The Con-
federates were not, according to the rumour, sur-
rounded at Murfreesborough, which the reader will
find in the centre of Tennessee, but retreated further
south before the Federal forces; whether they will
have courage to risk a battle with the now nume-
rous forces of the North in that quarter may, per-
haps, be doubtful. If not, it is questionable whether
they can long be kept together. Tennessee is now
so fairly in the hands of the North that a provisional
government has been appointed, and measures are
being taken to arm and protect the " loyal," that is
Unionist citizens; the Federal mails have also
resumed their connection with the eapital, Nash-
ville.

The reader may remember that the Confederates
held to the last one important place in Kentucky—
Columbus. Driven out of the rest of the State, they
remained here. It commanded the Mississippi,
and was a place of some strength ; the Federals left
it behind, apparently trusting to its isolation as
compelling its abandonment. They have proved
right. The Southerns,seeing themselves unsupported,
have actually laid the place in ashes and decamped ;
this time, however, they have carried off the guns
of the fort and every thing else available, there
being no one at hand to interfere with them. They
have gone down the Mississippi about a hundred
miles in direct distance, to Fort Randolph, from
which, also, as Western Tennessee is now
as free as Kentucky from Confederates,
they must probably soon retreat again. The
Federals appear unable yet to combine their
gunboats and military operations on the Mississippi
itself, probably because the army is employed in
clearing Tennessee from west to east. Hence Port
Randolph and Memphis on the great river may be
kept by the Confederates for a time, as Columbus
was in Kentucky, it being certain that when iso-
lated they cannot long hold out.
Taxation seems at last to have really descended
on Yankeedom, and this, combined with the victo-
ries, has actually raised the Government inconver-
tible paper to a small premium. Spirits, printing
paper—even cattle and flour itself—tobacco, oil,
salt, gas, leather, passengers by railroad and steam-
boat, carriages, advertisements, matches, all are
taxed. A legacy duty and income-tax is added,
and licenses for any business completes the list.
Tea, sugar, and coffee had gone before, so
that it is now hard to say what will
be left untaxed. We must not complain too much
of the Northerns for adopting our old policy of
protection, if they return also to our old policy of
taxation. It is obvious that they wish to go back
altogether to what seme may still regard as the
good old ways. Who can tell whether, wearied
out at last with their " magnificent experiment" of
combined Federalism and Democracy, they may
not become clamorous at last for a hereditary
monarchy. They may begin to clamour for a central
authority which can afford to hold the balance
fairly and impartially between wrangling parties,
because respected by all, and because having nothing
to lose or gain personally by the triumph of any.

Leave was yesterday in the House of Commons
asked by, and given to, Mr. COWPER—to bring in a
bill for the embanking of the north aide of the river
Thames from Westminster Bridge downwards.
fi'n'est que le premier pas qui coute—and now that
first step has been taken. There is a satisfaction at
any rate in knowing that—in feeling absolutely
certain that these is no retracting now in this
matter on the part of any one, particularly on the
part of the right hon. gentleman the Chief Commis-
sioner. Notwithstanding the obstructions that were
attempted to be placed in the way of Mr. COWPER
first of all by the hon. member for the Tower
Hamlets, and afterwards, strange to say, by the
noble lord (JOHN MANNERS) formerly Chief Com-
missioner in the Earl of DERBY'S Government, leave
for bringingin this long looked for bill, when asked
by Mr. COWPER yesterday, was at once granted to
him by the House of Commons. It was simply
captious, as it appears to us, and as it was, in fact,
eventually decided to be by the Right Hon. the
SPEAKER, to maintain, as Mr. AYRTON maintained
last evening, that the bill, as asked for, was de-
manded in a way out of all order—affecting a tax,
as it did, according to the hon. gentleman's crotchet,
and therefore requiring (according to his notion of