The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-13 00:00:00

NOTICE.

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HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
DAY.--Morning, 4h. 48m.—Afternoon, Sh. 2m.
THIS
TO-HORROW.-Mon_

We have now the official interpretation of the
President's recent proclamation. Mr. SEWARD
himself has furnished us with it. lie has made it
the subject of a circular addressed to all the diplo-
matic and consular representatives of the United
States in Europe—that is, to all the courts and
nations of Europe. Our readers perused it on
Saturday, and they have seen, therefore, that our
recent comments on the proclamation are declared
to be just and fair by the American Chief Secre-
tary himself. According to him it is not a procla-
mation based on any principle, not one which re-
cognises
negro rights and offers to redress negro
wrongs. " All the good and wise men of all
countries," he says, " will recognise this measure
as a just and wise military act, intended to deliver
the country from a terrible civil war." We do
not quarrel with this so far as it goes. We have,
from the beginning, told the Federals that they
never could conquer except through justice to the
negro. We have scouted the pro-slavery cant of
certain journals in this country, which have en-
deavoured to confound emancipation with a bloody
servile war. We have asserted, fearless cf con-
tradiction, that neither our own experience in
Jamaica, nor the dictates of common sense, could
teach us that to bless the enslaved with liberty
was the way to make them murderers, but
we have not like Messrs. SEWARD and LIN-
COLN represented Emancipation as a purely
" military measure." We have shown that it
was something far better ; that it was a great
duty, one which this country paid £20,000,000
rather than not perform ; but one worth more
than ten times that sum to the United States in
what it would save of the cost of the war. We
have always represented the bloody rebellion of
the South against the decision of the election into
which they entered, as releasing the PRESIDENT
from the technical slavery clauses of the constitu-
tion, and as legally authorising him to abolish the
evil which morality and Christianity had long ago
denounced as treason against the human race.
We now see Mr. LINCOLN and Mr. SEWARD'S
view of the posture of affairs. On the 22d of Sep-
tember, five days after the bloody battle of Antie-
tam Creek, when the combined losses, according to ,
M'CLELLAN, amounted to very nearly forty-five
thousand men, the President and his Secretary take
a most hopeful view of the Northern cause, and re-
gard the proclamation as the weapon which is to
complete their triumph. True, the North must do
something more than issue proclamations. They can
have
iloeffeet beyond the reach of Federal guns.
Still v
4e representation is, that the Confederate
aggressive
movement is checked, while the Federal
troops are
re-
sources reanimated ; the Southern "financial
declinere-
isp idly," while " the financial posi-
tion of the North
good ;" the Southern " means I
of raising troop
are
exhausted," while in the
North " the call for fresh
responded to." th: troops is being promptly
Position of things the Pre-
sident ploys his last card,
lie places plainly before
the people of America, that
‘ if these states persist
in imposing on the country, the choice between the
dissolution of the Government a
slavery, it is the Union and not the abolition of
i
be maintained and saved." slavery that must

It was thought by many, at first, that the
pro.
earl clan.ation was much more intended for for • than
for home use. The forwarding of this circular
to
Europe looks like it. If so, however, Mr. sEwmtb
ought to have been aware that treating emancipa-
tion as merely a just "military measure" was not
exactly the way to commend his cau,se to tha sym-
pathies of Europe. We should rejoiee, indeed, to
see American slavery blotted out as the result of
the war, but to make military success the sole rea-
son for the proposal, is to deprive it of all its merit
here; we may think it selfish wisdom, but we can-
not commend Mr.. SEWARD except as " the LORD
commended the u vjust Steward." The Secretary

expects us to recognise the " moderation and the
magnaninzity" with which his Government has
proceeded in so important a matter ; we must
rather think it has proceeded with vacil-
lation and pusillanimity. It has now ad-
vanced a step, now retreated, according as
it feared public opinion in the North and in the
Border States ; and now, if we understand Mr.
LINCOLN himself aright, he hardly knows whether
he will stick to his ninety days' conditional emanci-
pation or not. The Border States press denounce it,
the Democrats in the Free States join them,
the Re-
publicans praise it—and they are, it is believed, as
yet, the dominant party. The elections impend in
November, and it will then be seen how far the
ballot-box will sustain the PRESIDENT'S policy.

Looking at the intelligence up to the 22d, which
arrived by the Arabia, it gives not the slightest in-
dication of any military change of importance. All
is petty work indeed, compared with that in which
both parties have lately been engaged. In Ken-
tucky the Federals retreat under MORGAN, and
advance under BUELL. Near New Orleans the
Federals are repulsed in an attack on Pontchatoula;
on the Potomac, LEE and INPCLELLAN make mys-

terious movements—and heavy firing is heard
at Leesburg—all of which is not equivalent
to a single move of importance. Political
action seems to be more vehement. The Republi
can and Democratic parties are making vry vigo-
rous efforts, which looks as if the latter were re-
covering from its defeats of the last few years.
Perhaps M'CLELLAN'S success, who belongs to their
party, may have given them fresh hope. In regard
to any prospects of peace they seem small, indeed
if we may trust writers and speeches on either side
The Republican candidate for New York, Genera
NtrAl/4:32wQxv °mu, deularco 1140. t— cc Thv 110puL11.3.,

_arty intend to hold the country together at what-
ever cost of life-blood and suffering, and to devas-
tate the country if necessary, but not to survive
its dismemberment." On the other side the
Richmond Despatch says that " the only way
the war can end is by the exhaustion of the
North or by the extermination of the South."
Neither party, indeed, so far as we can see, shows
the slightest inclination to yield anything, for the
proposal of one man in the Confederate Congress to
offer negotiation to the North seems to find no
favour with his own friends. It seems to be the
feeling of both North and South that the battle
must be thoroughly fought out.

While the American Republic is being effectually
disintegrated—the Confederation established, not
yet a century ago (to all appearance permanently)
by WASHINGTON, FRANKLIN, and JEFFERSON,
already breaking up into two, or it may be even-
tually into three, Independent Democracies—several
among the old powers of Europe are, en the con-
trary, at this very epoch in the History of the
World, consolidating visibly, several of them even
rapidly, into simpler and more important Nation-
alities. Among these Italy stands forth at this
moment, of course, conspicuously. There, the guid-
ing principle—literally the " rallying" cry—is
avowedly Unification. Now a kingdom, now a
principality, now a province, disappears altogether
from the Map of Europe. They are heard of
no more in their separate capacities. In that
respect their annals are altogether of the past.
It has been thus with Naples, with Tuscany, with
Lombardy, with all the minor principalities. They
are lost sight of, as powers apart from each other.
They run together like separate beads of quick-
silver, brought suddenly into contact, and thence-
forth become massed together in One. They become
' parts of a whole no longer to be divided and sub-
divided. It is not so much that Piedmont and
Lombardy and Tuscany, and Modena, and Parma,
and the Two Sicilies, are bound together around that
sceptre of Savoy—or rather, because of certain un-

toward recollections associated with the name o:

Savoy, about the sceptre of Sardinia, (a peaceful
symbol no longer but a keen-edged and formidable
battle axe)—for all the world like the rods of em-
pire about the Lictor's hatchet constituting the
powerful Fasces of ancient Rome ! It is not so much,
we say, that events have developed of late after this
fashion, as that Piedmont, Lombardy, Tuscany,
Naples, and the rest, have become lust, and merged,
and fused together, in the furnace of the War of
Independence, until they are no longer known
apart but together as the Kingdom of Italy !

What has been occurring thus rapidly, and con-
spicuously, and altogether undeniably, in regard to
the unification of the Italian Kingdoms and Princi-
palities, is simultaneously taking place, more slowly
but not less surely, elsewhere among certain other
groups of the Powers of Christendom. Few, even
among the more captious and incredulous, will be
disposed, we believe, seriously to deny this. It is
a matter of notoriety that it is as we are stating,
that it has for a long while past been as we are
stating—thus—in reference to the consolidation
here of a Teutonic, there of an Iberian, yonder of a
Scandinavian Empire. France and England are, all
this while, watching with silent but eager interest
the growth of these great movements. Russia is
doing the like afar off. Austria is painfully conscious
meantime that she herself is likely to prove one of
the principal Victims rather than one of even the
the minor Victors in this readjustment of nationali-
ties. Already the KAISER has, within rather dis-
tressful, certainly within very vivid, remembrance,
how abruptly, in the southern part of his
dominions the fairest province of his empire
was lopped off in the instance of Lom-
bardy. He knows for certain that his grasp upon
Venetia is no longer one of security—but rather
n
absolute desperation. There, south of the
o eof
Carpathians, north of the Adriatic—
The good old rule the simple plan,"

is again revived in all its barbarous force, viz., as
even our Arcadian WORDSWORTH sings_.

" That he shall take who hath the power,
And ho shall keep who can !"

Austria, still maintaining her costly and enor-
mous garrisons in the Quadrilateral—ltaly only
watches keenly and vigilantly for the first oppor-
tunity to rush in and tear from the clutch of the
German, both the Quadrilateral and Venetia.
France, all the while, as we have said, is observant
of these occurrences—as England is..—as Russia is,
for that matter, from a distance ! But France,
"wisely in her generation," or foolishly, as it may
prove in the end (who shall say ?)—looks on, as the
wheel turns, as the ball rolls, not altogether disin-
terestedly. The Italian Unification, so far as it has
yet succeeded, has already yielded her Savoy and
Nice ! Itg completion, she yet hopes in her secret
heart, may leave her in possession of the magnifi-
cent island of Sardinia, the second of the larger
islands in the Mediterranean. " Material guaran-
tees" these—Savoy and Nice, we venture to repeat,
being already actually secured as such, substantially,
\
within her possession—" material guaran tees" that in
the
new Balc.nce of Power in process of adjustment,
Frau—
s, (as effectually OS NAPOLEON 111. can ensure
such
a result by his policy), shall retain all her old
! prepondertne •
Cherishing the same
rett
(that is
of continental Europe.
aspiration, she looks that is
France), he :ol:ktshe(
advantage to be won to Gallic power
inevitable)ow eii
cAPOLEON), for a solid
or rather we may say p
atthetheevendta—te
7 confidently (for the
event is, sooner or later,

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THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 13, 1862.