The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-17 00:00:00

THE MERRIMAC.

The public mind in this city still continues to be
disturbed on the subject of the Merrimac. That
mischievous vessel has been thoroughly overhauled
at Norfolk, the damage she received in her duel
with the Monitor has been repaired ; she has been I
mounted with guns of a longer range and heavier
calibre than before ; a new iron prow, in lieu of that
which snapped off, like the snout of a swordfish
in the belly of a whale, when she ran into and sank
the Cumberland, has been replaced by another
of greater strength and dimensions; and she
is declared to be ready at a moment's notice to take
to sea, and attack New York or Boston. It is true
that the Monitor is watching her movements, but
the fact is not deemed sufficiently encouraging to
put the public mind at its ease. The people of
Boston are in a similar state of discomfort. Their
city in the estimation of the Confederates is par
excellence the " Yankee " metropolis ; the head-
quarters of abolitionism—the Mecca and Jerusalem
of what the Democrats call " nigger worship;" and
the whole South would greatly rejoice at any
damage that could be inflicted upon it. But
neither Boston, New York, nor any of the seaboard
cities, if they escape present danger, will long re-
main unprotected, for three several agencies are at
work to provide iron-clad frigates and gunboats
for the defence of the coast—firstly, the great corn

inercial cities ; secondly, the Atlantic States; and
thirdly, the Federal Government ; all of which

have voted, or are about to vote, money for the

purpose. Already the Government has entered into
a contract with the builders of the Monitor for the
immediate construction of six vessels of the same
character, but 40 feet longer, with proportionate
breadth of beam, and all other necessary qualifica-
tions for carrying a much heavier armament. Still
it is felt that the l‘lerrimac is not unlikely to steal
out some dark
night and pour a few shells into the
shipping, into the East River, or even into Broad-
way, and be off again before the citizens have time
to turn into the streets to see what is the matter.
THE SLAVERY QUESTION.
Upon the irritating as well as vital question of
slavery the policy of
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward
has been eminently cautious, These statesmen
desire above all things to restore the Union, and as
they cannot restore it under
present circumstances
by proclaimidg the emancipation of the negroes,
which would confirm every Waverer
in the South in
the fiercest hostility to the North, and convert the
war into a war of extermination, not
to be ended
except by the intervention of the European
Powers,
they have made the social subordinate to the politi-
cal question, and endeavoured to win back the fat.
tei log allegiance of the Border Stares and conciliate

the more decided enmity of the South by declaring
their determination to unhold the letter of the con.
stitution, and to take no action on the subject of

Slavery that shall not be initiated and approved by
the slaveholding States themselves, Thou gh Mr.

Lincoln and 11.1;. Seward have all their lives been
the friends of the slave, and though no wan in the
United States has incurred more odium in the South

than Mr. Seward for his eloquent and courageous
efforts to prevent the extension of a system which
he condemned, but which he, backed by the most
active and intelligent party in the State, was unable
to eradicate, the extreme Abolitionists, who would
rather the heavens should crack than that theoreti-
cal justice should not immediately be done, are loud
in their denunciations of these statesmen. General
Fremont, who endeavoured to thwart the President's

r policy, receives all their support and praise, and
General M'Clellan, with whom the President acts
in perfect oneness of counsel and of purpose, is
declared to be a " Quaker" or dummy General—to
have been deterred from attacking Manassas by
Quaker" or dummy guns, such as the Chinese for-
merly employed to frighten Europeans ; while the
old charge, that the Constitution of the United
States, which recognises the legality of slavery in
the States where it exists, " is a league with death
and a covenant with hell," is reiterated in news-
papers and lectures and dinned into the ears of a
people who obstinately persists in declaring that
they are not fighting for the emancipation of the
blacks, but for the Union of the whites. Mr. Wen-
dell Phillips, who was pelted with rotten eggs and
stoned last week at Cincinnati for avowing that he
had been a D sunionist for 19 years, and would
be a Disunionist again if the South were re-admitted
with its peculiar institution intact, has found this
week a co-mate in misfortune in the person of the
Rev. Mr. Aarn, a Baptist preacher at Burlington,
in Vermont. For reiterating the old cry about
the league with death and the covenant with
hell, the reverend gentleman, who is 70 years of
age, was pelted with eggs and stones, and nar-
rowly escaped severer ill-treatment. And this was
in Puritan New England, where the world has
been taught to believe the anti-slavery feeling is as
strong as the love of free discussion. These, and a
thousand other indications of the current of national
sentiment, show plainly enough what is neither
appreciated nor understood in England, that the
North is passionately in earnest in its desire to re-
construct the Union, even at the expense of gua-
ranteeing the maintenance of slavery in the cotton
States, but not at all in earnest in the desire of
obtaining freedom for the African race at the ex-
pense of the Union—a race which, in spite of all
that may be alleged to the contrary by anti-slavery
lecturers, the North hates or despises, and places
under social as well as political ban. Between
Secessionists on the one hand, and Abolitionists on
the other, Mr. Lincoln, as I think I observed in my
last, has a difficult game to play, but his unpre-
tending honesty and sturdy common-sense enable
him to play it with a degree of success which a man
of more brilliant talents and accomplishments, but
with less steadiness of character, might have failed
to attain.

Meanwhile, the cause of the " contrabands," as
Negroes are called in the slang of the newspapers
and the streets, has come before Congress as inve-
terately as usual, and more particularly with refe-
rence to the existence of slavery in the district of
Columbia. The Northern friends of emancipation,
while reluctantly admitting the constitutional right
of the Southern States to hold slaves within their
own limits, have always denied their right to main-
tain slavery in the national capital and the district
around it. The question, as was to have been expect-
ed, has lost none of its original importance in conse-
quence of the war. The proposition before the Senate
is to emancipate the slaves in the district of Columbia,
with compensation to their owners, to which
Senator Doolittle, has moved an amendment that
such emancipated slaves be not suffered to remain
in the district, but that measures be taken to trans-
port them further South, to Mexico, to the West
Indies, to Africa, or anywhere they themselves
please, provided it be beyond the limits, present or
prospective, of the United States. Mr. Doolittle,
like many others, has no love for slavery and little,
if any, love for the Negro, and thinks it a misfor-
tune that there are Negroes anywhere, except in
their native Africa. Mr. Sumner made an eloquent
speech on Monday in support of the original pro-
position, and it is likely that it will pass the Senate,
though not without strong opposition from the pro-
slavery members whom Secession has still left in
that assembly. The owners of slaves in the district,
many of whom are women and who let out the ser-
vices of their human chattels as coachmen, hack-
drivers, gardeners, barbers, &0., allowing them to
retain a portion of their wages for their subsistence,
appear to be alarmed at the measure, and to fear
that emancipation may be decreed without compen-
sation, or at a price they deem too low. To make
safe they are taking advantage of the time occupied
by the discussion to remove their " property" fur-
ther South, and to sell it on the best terms it will
fetch. The gap thus left in the ranks of Negro
labour is supplied by escaped " contrabands" who
pour in daily from the seat of war. Few of them,
however, seem to venture so far North as New York.

_RAILWAY AND OTHER COMPANIES.

DUNDEE AND ARBROATH.

On Tuesday a meeting of this company was held
in Dundee, to consider the propriety of amalgama-
ting with the Scottish North-Eastern Railway
Company. Mr, R. Fergusson presided.
The CHAIRMAN moved the approval of the terms
recommended by the directors—namely, that the two
lines should be worked as one concern, and that the
gross revenue for both lines, after deducting the cost
of working, &c., should be divided between the
two companies in the proportion of 85 per cent.
to the Scottish North-Eastern and 15 per cent. to
the Dundee and Arbroath. It was also stipulated
that the dividend payable on the ordinary stock of
the Dundee and Arbroath should not be less than
6 per cent. for the present year, and not less than
7 per cent. in all time coming. The arrangement
was to subsist for 20 years, or until an Act was ob-
tained. The Chairman said that the revenue of the
Scottish North-Eastern had been increasing for a
number of years back in a proportion more than
equal to that of the Dundee and Arbroath ; and had
the proposed arrangement been in operation for the
last five years, the shareholders would have received
from the 15 per cent. a dividend fully equal to that
paid to them. He moved the adoption of the report.
Mr. GTBSON seconded the motion.

After considerable discussion, the motion was car-
ried by 2,679 votes to 351 against an amendment for
two months' delay.

The same day, the agreement was unanimously
approved at a meeting of the Scottish North-
Eastern Company held at Aberdeen.

RAILWAY BILLS.
The following Committee, No. 14, of the House
of Commons, on Scottish Railways—namely, Mr.
Mowbray (Chairman), Mr. Bellew, Mr. A. Smith,
Mr. Brooks, and Mr. Butler Johnstone, has been
appointed to commence its inquiry after Easter into
the bills for the Caledonian Railway (Leith
branches), Edinburgh and Glasgow, Edinburgh and
Perth and Fife and Kinross, North British, Edin-
burg'a and Perth and West of Fife, Edinburgh and
Glasgow and Dumbartonshire, and Edinburgh,
Dunfermline, and Perth Railways.
LONDON, BRIGHTON, AND SOUTH COAST.—This
company, in compliance with an order of the House
of Lords, have reported that the number of houses
inhabited by the labouring classes which they pro.
pose to take for the enlargement of their station in
the parish of St. Olave, Southwark, amounts alto-
gether to 50 ; that the number of persons to be dis-
placed thereby amounts to 398; that their bill does
not propose to provide houses in substitution for
them ; and that there are plenty of houses and
lodgings of the same character to be obtained in the
neighbourhood.