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

M SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, MARCH l9, 1862.

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 of 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
Ireutz Zatung 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 capital, 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, matehes, 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 side of the river
Thames from Westminster Bridge downwards.
C'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 there 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 bringing in 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

the fitness of things), to be introduced en regle in a
Committee of the whole House. Seeing, however,
that the Bill did not undertake to impose any
charge on the public in regard to rates or
duties, and hearing the SPEAKER enforce this
fact by reminding the House that no
new burden was proposed to be put upon
the inhabitants of the metropolis by the pro-
position as it then stood—the Commons refused to
regard the motion as in any way informal, and
granted leave to bring in the Bill accordingly.
Before the Bill shall have advanced very far on its
way towards its ultimate growth into an enactment,
we are yet sanguine that it may apply not simply
to the question of a northern, but to the question
also of a southern embankment. Sooner or later that
southern embankment will prove to be a necessity. It
is clearly most desirable now. It will be absolutely
requisite when the Northern embankment shall
have been constructed. It will be a subject then
imperatively demanding the interference of our
administrators (of course, through our legislators to
begin with)—and this not merely because of its
involving a question of unsightliness, but literally,
and beyond any doubt of it, because of its involving
a question of actual safety. The purlieus of Lam-
beth, and Southwark, and contiguous districts on the
Surrey side often subjected even now to the
nuisance and misery of intermittent floods from the
river Thames, will thus run the danger, in parts
obviously, of being all but permanently under water,
in the basements of many of the dwelling houses,
those, that is to say, upon the lower level. It is
only a matter of time when the south embankment
shall set off or balance the north embankment of
the Thames, and by so doing complete and perfect,
as it ought to be completed and perfected, this first
and greatest of all our metropolitan improvements.

LATEST NEWS.

THE INSURRECTION AT NAUPLIA.
ATHENS, MARCH 15.

The insurgents are said to have asked for an am-
nesty. An armistice of 24 hours has been granted
them.
Athens is quiet.

ATHENS, MARCH 14.
Aria and all the entrenchments and outworks of
Nauplia have been taken.
Magor, Coroneos, and several other insurgents
were made prisoners.
Numerous deserters from Nauplia have joined the
Royal troops.

VIENNA, MARCH 18.

The Vienna evening journals state that the in-
surgents at Syra have proclaimed the third son of
Victor Emmanuel as King of Greece, under the
title of Otho 11.

RAGUSA, MARCH 18.

Yesterday the Turks occupied Grahovo.
A division of the Turkish army has advanced
against Joi, which was occupied by Vucalovich.
An engagement took place, the result of which is
not yet known. The Turks, however, are still ad-
vancing.

Yesterday a prolonged cannonade was heard here.

MEXICO.

:PER NIAGARA, BY TELEGRAPH FROM NEW YORK
TO HALIFAX.)

NEW YORK, MARCH 6, Evening.
Advices have been received here from Mexico
via Havannah to the 21st ult.
General Prim had had an interview with General
Doblado at Solodad. The result of the meeting
was generally considered to be favourable to a peace-
ful settlement.

The Diario Marina asserts that it has good autho-
rity for stating that the following terms were agreed

,o :

" Negotiations will be commenced at Orizaba be-
tween two Mexican Ministers and the Allies."

The Allied forces will occupy Orizaba, Cordova,
and Tehuacan as a sanitary measure.
" If the negotiations are at any time broken off
by disagreement, the Allied forces will retire to
their former positions.

" As soon as the forces move towards Orizaba,
Cordova, and Tehuacan, the Mexican flag shall be
displayed at Vera Cruz and on San Juan d'Ulloa
by the side of the English, French, and Spanish
flags.
" If the negotiations terminate unfavourably the
Mexicans promise to respect and protect the hos-
pitals of the Allies.
" The march inland will commence immediately."