The Sun.
London, England, 1862-05-21 00:00:00

NOTICE.

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THE SUN.
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, MAY 21, 1862.

Secession is worth sacrifice. So think, assuredly
the inhabitants of New Orleans and the planters
along the banks of the Mississippi. ELEVEN
THOUSAND bales of cotton are now reported, on
Federal authority, to have been burnt at New
Orleans ; and, altogether, cotton and shipping to
the value of ONE MILLION AND A-HALF TO TWO
BILLIONS sterling ! Right or wrong in regard to
their cause, the people, who are ready to destroy
their property at this rate; must have their hearts
in it; and, if there be, as is likely, many unionists
in a commercial city like New Orleans, many who
care for nothing but a quiet prosecution of their
trade, such as would be found in Liverpool and
London equally ; yet, it
is pretty plain that those
who hav3 any public • spirit are all on the side of
being independent of the North.
It is to be remembered that, on taking the city,
the port was commercially opened, so that those
who have destroyed their cotton could have com-
manded, had they been willia g
to sell, a good price
for it. If we mistake not, they have destroyed not
what the enemy would have Seized, but what his
003MarCial tigento would LATO gladly bought, If,

so, the only reason could be to deprive the Massa- 1
chusetts factories of cotton, and New York merchants
of the profits of selling it, although the destroyers
of their own crops lost more by the act than Mas-
sachusetts and New York together. The Loutsville
Dispatch—and the railroads from the town go direct
to the Mississippi—reports that all the way along its
banks, from New Orleans to Memphis, where BEAU-
REGARD was by the last accounts, there is a general
bonfire of property—of cotton especially. And that
' at Memphis itself they were preparing to destroy
everything in like manner, on the approach of the
Federals. The property was also being destroyed
along the tributaries of the great river, and it is
added, with an exactness which imitates or evi-
dences the truth, that only one planter objected to
the destruction of his cotton. Indeed the accounts
appear to be explicit enough; nothing but the use-
less desperation of the act renders them in any way
doubtful. The Federals have cleared the banks of
the " Father of Waters" of all the defences erected
on them, and the Confederates, in response, have
cleared the banks of all the property they were
erected to protect.

In one not unimportant particular the more defi-
nite accounts differ from the first telegrams. The
forts were reduced by the fire of the ships. That
fire lasted six days without intermission, and was
followed by an honourable capitulation on the 25th
of April. As so little injury was done to the fleet,
while the very strong forts succumbed, the lesson
to Lord PALMERSTON is the same. The forts
would not, indeed, be equal to those for which he
would have us pay our millions without stint, either
in respect to invulnerability or weight of armament;
but the ships wl►ivL uvula ever n++-1- ---- r ---
would be as superior to those which which subdued
the Mississippi forts as ours would be to the latter.
Twenty-one mortarboats and three gunboats were
sufficient for the reduction of two forts thought
to be impregnable, and possessing every artificial
advantage. The forts were supported not only
by booms and chains across the river, but by
such gunboats as the Confederates could muster ;
but the total destruction of the whole is recorded,
including eleven gunboats.

The accounts from Yorktown—though we must
remember they come through a press under the
virtual censorship of the American Secretary for
War—are decidedly worse for the Confederates.
They have almost fled, rather than retreated, ac-
cording to these accounts. Not being permitted
by M'CLELLAN to rest at Williamsburg, where
' they fought fiercely, they were "pursued" across
the Chickahominy, the small river which runs
half across the peninsula, about ten miles from
Williamsburg, and twenty from Yorktown. Here
the Confederates destroyed the bridges over the
river, but they seem to be in great jeopardy.
Somehow in these Federal accounts of to-day, we
suddenly lose sight of the large Confederate army
described by M'CLELLAN as probably considerably
larger than his own, and find them speculating on
the fate of a Confederate fugitive army. It has
become all at once so much smaller, that M'CLELLAN
sends twenty thousand men, with reinforcements to
follow, up the York River to West Point, to inter-
cept this lately mighty army, now fugitives, before
they reach Richmond ! We own that we cannot
explain the apparent discrepancy. We can easily
make three or four suppositions, but we :have
no means of determining which is most probable.
The last despatch from M'CLELLAN should be
authoritative, and according to that one would
think Richmond would soon be at his mercy. He
had joined the troops he sent forward to West
Point under FRANKLIN; and the Confederates had
actually, to avoid him, crossed over to the Southern
bank of the St. James River, the parallel stream
which completes the Peninsula, while 31`CLELLAN'S
gunboats, were actually ascending the St.
James itself—the river on which Richmond stands.
The sum of these accounts is that M'CLELLAN is
half-way up the peninsula, about thirty-fire orforty
miles from Richmond—gunboats supporting him
on both rivers, and the Confederate army avoiding
him whenever he comes. If there is no exaggeration
here, we must soon hear of a bloody battle near to
Richmond, or of its surrender.

Besides all this the Merrimac only shows herself
to draw back again when the Monitor appears ;
Sewall's Point, the Confederate defence opposite
Port Monroe, is all but abandoned. Gen. LEE has
been compelled to retreat before Franklin and the
gunboats at West Point ; both Charleston and
Savannah are more threatened than ever, and the
captured Confederate soldiers at Williamsburg were
found half starved! Thus, if the Lincoln Gazettes
speak truth, the cause of the Confederates in Vir-
ginia and on the Atlantic, is in a miserable plight
indeed. Of course all requires confirmation, except
that we have not yet found M'CLELLAN, or
M'DOWELL, telling falsehoods in their despatches.
It looks rather ominous that from the West the
report is, " nothing decisive from the armies of
Generals BEAUREGARD and HALLECK."

Aptly enough, the most " telling" incident in
that pictorial microcosm, Mr. FRITH'S great
picture of the Railway Station now on view in the
Haymarket, is that of the interception by a Detec-
tive of one those Representative Men of this nine-
teenth century, your arch Forger, Swindler, and
Embezzler, at the moment of his attempted escape.
Anyone who glances, however carelessly, at this
last of those true Hogarthian pictures of English
Life and Manners begun as a series with The
Derby Day—a series, let us hope, long to be con-
tinued by this distinguished and popular Academi-
cian—anyone who glances, no matter how casually,
at this second, and in some respects still more
remarkable portraiture of the busy and varied
world of English Life and Manners as seen at a
great London Railway Terminus, will have his
attention at once revitted tc the particular group
(the little group in the right hand corner) here
referredto. The scene chosen by the artist, as everyone
knows who has
yet seen the picture, as thousands of
others know even without having seen it, namely
by
station at
hearsaY is the platform of the Great Western
Paddington a few moment's before the
starting of the
i)te
faint whiff of soawren t
that
ptrhe
es s .e
gYi
no
eu
ssee" from
itnhge
off" at its shrillest.
Although you are the re as a mere spectator, having
of
theno n 3 personalote;
y e innetoeur
re:
et
in the comings and goings
, and, for the most part,
crowding the foreground
jostling each other in mutually bewildering con-
by the sheer force 1
the Prevailing excite-
fusion, you participate
of human sympathy in
went. You seem, in a manner,
breathless, with a vague anxiety hurriedaboutyouanodf
being somehow too late. Yet, while infected with
those sensations, sensations visible, almost audible,
among those who are hurrying wildly hither about
the platform a few seconds before the signal for
starting—cast but one momentary look upon any
one of the faces in that little group clustered together
in the right hand corner of the picture and you
forget every thing in that instant recognition of
the human tragedy it reveals. Train, passengers,
railway porters, engine men, lanwsboys, soldiers,
sailors, raw recruits, dapper volunteers, the bilious
Frenchman bewildered by the stolid effrontery of
tilt+ London cabby who is doing him out o Land.