The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-03 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 3, 1862.

A MOST DESIRABLE BREAKFAST BEVERAGE.
EPPS'S COCO A.
(Commonly called Epps's ITomceopathic Cocoa).
The delicious aroma, grateful smoothness, and invigo-
rating power of this preparation have procured its general
adoption as a most desirable breakfast beverage.
alb., alb., and 11b. packets, at is. 6d. per lb., by Grocers.

without any design of our own, as speedily as we
fell into it,"

The New Fork Shipping List, of the 18th, says:--
"The effusions of the British press generally are
very wild. In the absence of anything official,
however, there need bo felt no apprehension of a
disruption of the friendly relations between the
two countries. The reports that the British Go-
vernment has determined to adhere to its own inter-
pretation of the law, and treat this as a case to be
settled only by an imperative demand, the demand
to be accompanied with an offensive menace, and
that the special messenger said to have been de-
spatched by the Europa is the bearer of England's
ultimatum, appear to us to be too absurd for a mo-
ment's credence. If interne.tional law has been vio-
lated, it is assuredly a queotion to be settled by
diplomatic discussion rather than by war, and we
doubt not it will be so adjudged by the British
Government. At all events, until it is definitely
settled to the contrary, we shall continue to ad-
here to the belief that neither the British or
American Government has the least desire to en-
gage in hostilities, and that, so long as there is no
intent on either hand to 'provoke a war, there can
be none. If the action of Captain Wilkes was a
violation of the law of nations,,there is little doubt
that an apology will .be offgred. If it was not,
thou, if the demand fd an aPitgigeritas really been
put forth by the British Government, it will doubt-
less be withdrawn. Both Governments are doubt-
less open to conviction ; in view of which, though
things may look rather squally for the moment, all
disputed points, in our opinion, may be settled by
diplomacy. The Royal proclamation prohibiting
the shipment of articles contraband of war is in
accordance with Queen Victoria's previous procla-
mation of neutrality."
The New 1 ork Journal of Commerce concludes'
an articles as follows
__

" There is very little in all this to fight about. If
England claims the inviolability of her decks in
war as in peace, she will back out on a proposal to
make a treaty to that effect. If she asks an apology,
she cannot have it till she apologises for her Con-
sul's misdeed, and by so doing she will admit the
right of our deed. If she demands the giving up
of Mason and Slidell, we will call our children to-
gether and consider the matter."
The New York Herald, of the 17th, says :

" England cannot afford to go to war with us, for
the conflict, sooner or later, would involve the loss
of her West India Islands, of Canada, and the ad-
joining provinces, and, last and most fatal of all, the
loss of Ireland, her right arm in war, her granary
in peace. England cannot go to war 'Si' ith us, for
600,000,000 dols. worth of American stock is
owned I which, in the event
ofconfiscated ; and we now
ho hostilities,
Britishs,
would subjects,
b beieccall upon the companies not to take it off their
hands upon any terms. Let its forfeiture be held
over England as a weapon in terrorem. British
subjects have 200,000,000 dols. or 300,000,000 dols.
invested in shipping and other property in the
United States. All this property, together with
the stocks, would be seized, amounting to
900,000,000 dole. in all. Will England incur this
tremendous loss for a mere abstraction ? For the
purpose of intimidating us she issues a proclama-
tion prohibiting the export of saltpetre, arms, or
ammunition. We have saltpetre in the Mammoth
Cave, in Kentucky, and other parts of the country,
which, if properly worked, will render us indepen-
dent of England ; and we can manufacture arms
and ammunition for ourselves. But in a more vital

point she is not equally independent of us. We
can place an embargo on all breadstuffs, and the

effect of that measure would be to starve her popu-
lation in three months. Wo can prevent her getting
a pound of cotton.- All shell do in return is to
blockade Northern ports. But we will shut them
up against her ourselves, if she proceeds much fur-
ther in her hostile course. We can live indepen-

dent of her and all the world. We have a vast and
fertile country, with boundless resources, and all
that a nation needs within. We could prosper if

we had not a single ship, and every port were
closed. Our own internal trade and manufactures
would be ample to sustain a largo mercantile class.

Not so England. She is an artificial nation, like
Venice of old, depending entirely upon her mari-
time commerce. Let that be struck down, and
where is she ? It is in our power to give it a death-
blow. We can spare from our merchant marine

6,000 ships for privateers. We can arm them and
send them over the ocean to :s weep her commerce
from the face of the deep. In her present circum-
stances, a few months of such warfare would ruin
her. The greatest injury she could inflict upon us
would be a little inconvenience—the deprivation of
a few luxuries by no means essential to the welfare
of a great nation. But the maritime prestige of
England once destroyed, and her commerce cut up in
every sea, she would sink immediately to the position
of a poor third or fourth-rate Power, destined soon,
perhaps, to become an appendage of France. What
has happened once may happen again. Venice, so
mighty for 1,300 years, and the greatest maritime
nation of the world, what is she now ? Where is
now the glory of Carthago and Tyre? Spain
Portugal, and the Dutch Republic have in turn
ruled the waves. But they have lost the trident,
and England, which has succeeded to the empire
of the seas, sees her sway gradually transferred
to the Western World. Hence h©r jealousy of
the American Republic, and her desirr to split it
into powerless fragments, but a war with us would
hasten her downfall, and precipitate the fate she is
so anxious to avert. In the event of England, in
her folly, declaring war against the United States,
the annexation of the British North American pos-
sessions, to which Mr. Seward looked forward in
his speeches made before the present Administration
came into office, will inevitably follow. Between
Vermont and Minnesota we could pour 150,000
troope into Canada in a week, and overrun the pro-
vince in three weeks more, It would take a longer
time to capture the citadelof Quebec, but still time
would do the work. In this invasion we should be
aided by a large portion of the inhabitants, two-
thirds of whom are in favour of annexation to the
United States."

NB. SEWARD UPON AMERICAN
INVESTMENTS.

Wa take the following letter, especially im-
portant at this moment of threatened confiscation,
from Seward's Works, vol. iii., p. 472 :

" Albany, Sept. 10, 1839.
46 TO WILLIAM BROWN, ESQ., OF THE HOUSE OF BROWN
BROTHERS AND CO., LIVERPOOL.

" I think your suggestions concerning the hazard of con-
fiscation of investments, by foreigners, in American stocks
very important and useful. I beg you to consider me under
very special obligations for them. I can easily appreciate
the solicitude foreign capitalists feel on that subject,
although no person here dreams that our Government could
be guilty of so gross a violation of faith as to confiscate in
time of war money invested in our securities in time of
peace. It will give me great pleasure to use these valuable
suggestions in a manner which may be of service in increas-
ing our credit. I have noticed the decline of confidence in
American securities. Nothing can be more absurd; but
what absurdity does not gain a temporary influence in the
operations upon 'Change ?
" Can you add to my obligations by any further sugges-
tions which would be of service to me in presenting to the
public the grounds of American credit in Europe ?
I am, dear Sir, with the most sincere respect and
esteem, your friend and obedient servant,

" W. 11. SEWARD."

The trade of Dublin has just been exempted
from some heavy imposts. The 2s. entry, and also the im-
posts on the trade of that port for the purposes of the Public
Safety Harbour at Kingstown, for the abolition of which
the Council of the Chamber of Commerce had laboured so
lcng, ceased on Tuesday, the council having, after extraor-
dinary exertions, induced the legislature to recognise the
injustice of those taxes upon the enterprise of our mer-
chants, and to decide upon their discontinuance. The dif-
ferential duties also ceased, byLwhich the Ballast-office
revenues will be decreased by 43,000 a year,

CAPTAIAr WILKES.

A writer in a contemporary says ;—I observe in
your paper an extract from a speech by Mr. White,
M.P. for Brighton, in which it is represented that
Captain Wilkes is the commander who many years
ago executed a midshipman for mutiny under cir-
cumstances which excited indignation. This is a
total mistake. The carve referred to is evidently
that of the brig Somers, which attracted general
attention, and was discussed at length in both Eng-
lish and American newspapers in the year 1843.
The commander of that brig having, as he imagined,
discovered a mutinous conspiracy on board, and
believing that the vessel could not be brought into
port without danger to the lives of the faithful
officers and crew, sentenced and caused to be hung
on the high seas, on the Ist of December, 1842, two
seamen and a midshipman, Philip Spencer, son of
the then Secretary of the American Navy. I have
now before me the commander's defence when tried
for the act by a court-martial held at the Navy-yard
at Brooklyn. Some of the passages in it are very
singular. The commander of the Somers was, he
says, alone on the ocean. "The high seas," he pro-
ceeds," furnished no learned jurists with whom to
consult. But he had with him a volume of Nature's
laws, written by the finger of God on the human
heart. In that volume he found that necessity
ordains its own controlling canons," &e. He was
acquitted by the court-martial, and in a sword of
honour was presented to him by a subscription of
his admiring countrymen ; but Fenimore Cooper
published in 1844 a pamphlet in strong reprobation
of his conduct, and I believe that in England public
opinion generally condemned him. But this officer
was not Captain Wilkes, but Lieutenant Alexander
Slidell Mackenzie, better known by the name of
Slidell, which name he bore till 1837, when he was
' authorized to assume his mother's name of Macken-
zie by an Act of New York Legislature. He had
previously acquired no inconsiderable reputation as
an author by his " Year in Spain," which was re-
viewed by his friend Washington Irving in the
Quarterly _Review, and re-published by Murray.
He died in 1848. As he was of a New York family,
and as Mr. Slidell, the Southern Commissioner
made prisoner by Captain Wilkes, is also of New
York origin, it is probable that they were related.
It is the similarity of names which has no doubt led
Mr. White, relying too confidently on an inaccurate
recollection, to make the statement which I wish to
correct. The name which is connected with the
affair of the Somers is not Wilkes, but Slidell.

GENERAL PIIELP&S PROCLAMATION

AGAINST SLAVERY.

The following is the text of the proclamation
issued by General Phelps:—

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE SOUTH-WEST,

Headquarters, Middlesex Brigade, Ship Island,
Mississippi, Dec. 4.

To the loyal Citizens of the South-West,—With-
out any desire of my own, but contrary to my
private inclinations, I again find myself among you
as a military officer of the Government. A proper
respect for my fellow-countrymen renders it not
out of place that I should make known to you the
motives and principles by which my command will
be governed.
We believe that every State that has been ad-
mitted as a Slave State into the Union since the
adoption of the constitution has been so admitted
in direct violation of that constitution.
We believe that the slave States which existed as
such at the adoption of our constitution are, by be-
coming parties to that compact, under the highest
obligations of honour and morality to abolish sla-
very.

It is our conviction that monopolies are as de
structive as competition is conservative of the prin-
ciples and vitalities of republican government; that
slave labour is a monopoly which excludes free la-
bour and competition ; that slaves arc kept in corn
parative idleness and ease in a fertile half of our
arable national territory, while free white labourers
constantly augmenting in numbers from Europe,
are confined to the other half, and are often dis-
tressed by want ; that the free labourer of the North
has more need of expansion into the Southern
States from which it is virtually excluded, than sla-
very had into Texas in 1846; that free labour is
essential to free institutions ; that these institutions
are naturally better adapted and more congenial to
the Anglo-Saxon race than are the despotic ten-
dencies of slavery; and, finally, that the dominant
political principle of this North American continent,
so long as the Caucasian race continues to flow in
upon us from Europe, must needs be that of free in-
stitutions and free government. Any obstructions to
the progress of that form of government in the
United States must inevitably be attended with dis-
cord and war.

Slavery, from the condition of a universally re-
cognised social and moral evil, has become at length
a political institution, demanding political recogni-
tion. It demands rights to the exclusion and anni-
hilation of those rights which are insured to us by
the constitution, and we must choose between them
which we will have, for we cannot have both.
The constitution was for freemen, not for slaves.
Slavery as a social evil might for a time be tole-
rated and endured; but as political institution it
becomes imperious and exacting, controlling, like
a dread necessity, all whom circumstances have
compelled to live under its sway, hampering their
action, and thus impeding our national progress.
As a political institution it could exist as a co-
ordinate part only of two forms of government,
namely, the despotic and the free, and it could
exist under a free government only where public
sentiment in the most unrestricted exercise of a
robust freedom leading to extravagance and licen-
tiousness, had swayed the thoughts and habits of
the people beyond the bounds and limits of their
own moderate constitutional iprovisions. It could
exist under a free government only where the 'peo-
ple in a period of unreasoning extravagance had
permitted popular clamour to overcome public rea-
son, and had attempted the impossibility of setting
up permanently as a political institution a social
evil which is opposed to moral law.
By reverting to the history of the past, we find
that one of the most destructive wars on record, that
of the French Revolution, was originated by the
attempt to give political character to an institution
which was not susceptible of political character.
The church, by being endowed with political power,
with its convents, its schools, its immense landed
wealth, its associations, secret and open, became the
ruling power of the State, and thus occasioned a
war of more strife and bloodshed, probably, than
any other war which has desolated the earth.
Slavery is still less susceptible of political charac-
ter than was the church. It is as fit at this moment
for the lumber-room of the past as was in 1793 the
monastery, the landed wealth, the exclusive privi-
lege, &c., of the Catholic Church in France. It be-
hoves us to consider as a self-governing people, bred
and reared and practised in the habits of self go-
vernment, whether we cannot, whether we ought
not to revolutionise slavery out of existence with-
out the necessity of a conflict of arms like that of
the French revolution.
Indeed, we feel assured that the moment slavery
is abolished, from the moment our Southern
brethren, every ten of whom have probably seven
relatives in theNorth,would begin to emerge from a
hateful delirium. From that moment, relieved
from imaginary terrors, their days become
happy, and their nights peaceable, and free from
alarm. The agregate amount of labour under
the new stimulus of fair competition becomes

greater day by day; property rises in value, invi-
gorating influences succeed to stagnation, degene-
racy, and decay ; and union, harmony, and peace, to
which we have so long been strangers, become re-
stored, and bind us again in the bonds of friendship
and amity, es when we first began our national