The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-02 00:00:00

INNS OF COURT HOTEL.

The ordinary meeting of this company was held
on Thursday at the hotel, High Holborn ; Mr. Cox
in the chair.

The report stated that the hotel would be com-
pleted in two months, and the contract for furnish-
ing the premises was now under the consideration of
the Board. To meet this necessary outlay, and the
purchase of two additional houses in Holborn and
Lincoln's-inn-fields it was proposed to increase the
borrowing powers to the extent of £50,000.
The CHAIRMAN, in moving the adoption of the
report, said the hotel would be ready for business in
March next, and he estimated the cost of furnishing
it at £30,000. In connexion with the creation of
the new Law Courts a new line of street would be
opened giving a direct communication between the
Strand and Holborn, which would materially en-
hance the value of their property. The Board had
no intention of calling up the remaining £2 due on
shares, or of issuing the unappropriated shares, if
they were empowered to borrow the £50,000.
Colonel FRASER seconded the motion, which was
unanimously agreed to.
The meeting was then made special, and the direc-
tors were empowered to borrow £50,000.
A vol-e of thanks to the chairman closed the pro-
ceedings.

CHICAGO.—The entire assessed value of real and
personal estate in Chicago is $48,733,782, v;rhile the annual
product of manufactures is stated at $25,710,292. Doubt-
less to a slight extent the same value may bo counted twice
in this estimate, as for instance the leather product of
$1,005,300 appears again in part of the saddlery product of
$25,000, and in the boot and shoe product $1,102,512. So
also the iron product of two and a half millions may bo
repeated, a part in nails, $200,000, tin and hardware
$268,850, in the agricuftural implements, $38,425, light-
ning rods, carriages and in the rolling mill, whose product
is set down at $900,000. So the malt product, $129,000,
appearsr again in that of the thirty breweries, $2,195,b00.
The product of the flour mills, $1,729,592, is identical in
part with that of the bakeries, $635,175. Over one-fifth,
or exceeding five millions of the entire manufactures,
comes under the head of breweries, $2,195,300, and liquors,
$3,706,000.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

--0-

TIMES.—Can the Tory party hope to survive the
attack which Mr. Bright made upon them on Thurs-
day at Blackburn ? For the greater part of the
hour which he occupied in speaking the member for
Birmingham fulminated against the Conservatives
and the policy of obstruction which they have pur-
sued. The great orator entered upon this congenial
task with characteristic zest, and heaped up phrase
upon phrase in denunciation of the ignorance, the
selfishness, and the injustice of his opponents. The
occasion of the speech no doubt excused, and per-
haps justified, strong language. It was delivered at
a meeting of the inhabitants of Blackburn, called
together to testify their respect and sympathy for
Mr. Pilkington, the defeated candidate for the re-
presentation of the town. Blackburn is a place
which owes its existence as a Parliamentary
borough to the Reform Bill, and was therefore
bound by every tie of gratitude to the Whigs. Mr.
Pilkington had represented it for eighteen years,
during the whole of which time he had zealously
voted with the advanced guard of the Liberal body.
Yet this faithful defender of the people was himself
abandoned by his former constituents last July.
For the first time, we believe, since it has been a
borough, Blackburn returned two Tories to the
House of Commons ; and, regard being had to the
occasion, Mr. Bright was clearly warranted in ex-
posing to the ungrateful town the political vices of
the men whom they had preferred as their repre-
sentative. Everything Mr. Bright said was true.
Whether what he said was the whole truth is an-
other question. The Conservatives have been
grievous sinners, but it is hard to believe that
Englishmen are so infatuated as to persist in
tolerating, and even supporting, a party which has
never done the State any service. And if there be
any doubt on this point, there can be no doubt that
as a tactician Mr. Bright made a great mistake in
his undiscriminating attack on this unhappy party.
These wholesale diatribes only produce a reaction
in favour of the men who are so vehemently de-
nounced. People feel, like Captain Shandy felt
when he heard the curse of Ernuiphus, a sentiment
of pity for the unhappy victim of unmeasured con-
mnation. These men of Lancashire, whose per-
verse conduct roused Mr. Bright's indignation, are,
after all, very much like himself. They are pushing,
vigorous, shrewd men of business, energetic and
self-reliant, but then they have Mr. Bright's faults
as well as his virtues, and not the least among the
drawbacks to their perfection is the fact that their
hearts are often too hot for their heads. When
they hear a political party abused without qualifi-
cation, they ask whether it can be true that the
country gentlemen they know so well, and have
learnt to respect so much, are really so thoroughly
depraved ; and a little acquaintance with history
would enable them to say a good deal in reply to
Mr. Bright's accusations. It is true that the Con-
servatives opposed Free Trade, but there are
countries where the Conservatives are the opponents
of Protective duties. English landowners exhibited
a selfishness which is, unhappily, not confined to
their order. When Mr. Pitt proposed Free Trade
between England and Ireland, it was the manufac-
turers of Lancashire who raised the cry that they
would be ruined by the measure, and succeeded in
getting it postponed. In the United States it is the
manufacturers of Pennsylvania and Massachusetts
who tax the corn-grower of the Western States by
Protective duties on foreign manufactures. It is
true that the Conservative party opposed the repeal
of the Navigation Laws, but they had the respect-
able authority of Adam Smith as an excuse for their
opposition. It is true, again,- that they opposed.
Catholic Relief and the repeal of the Test and Cor-
poration Acts, because they were possessed with the
notion which animated the Pilgrim Fathers, and
animates the United Kingdom Alliance, that a State
was bound to have a religion, and was justified in
coercing for their own good a malcontent minoriiy.
All these and a thousand similar charges may be
made against the Conservative party, but we shall
scarcely get at the truth by dwelling on one side of
the picture. It is as absurd to suppose that they
have had a monopoly of vice as to believe that
Liberals possess a monopoly of virtue. If Tories
have by their obstinacy brought the country more
than once to the verge of a revolution—and it is
perfectly true that they have done so—they have
also preserved the nation from a constant succession
of organic changes which would have been little less
disastrous. Mr. Bright looks back 40 years and
sees in the history of the past nothing but reforms
dangerously delayed, abuses obstinately and selfishly
maintained ' • but if, instead of this comprehensive
retrospect, he would confine his attention to the
state of opinion some 30 years ago, when he was
himself entering upon life, he might find occasion
to modify his opinions. Thirty years back was the
very heyday of the Liberal party. They were
flushed with great success, and were looking for-
ward to a rapid series of reforms. Some of their
hopes—the greater part of them—have been realised
to the benefit of the nation, but some have been
discarded as delusions. We have carried free
trade, we have reformed municipal corporations,
we have removed the tast religious disability, but
some things we have left undone. Where is the
Ballot, which in 1835 was a main article of the
Liberal creed, and to which Mr. Henry Berkeley
clings with fond affection ? Mr. Bright still votes
for it, but Mr. John Stuart Mill, who does the
thinking for the Liberal party now, as Bentham
did in his day, has pronounced the ballot-box a
pernicious instrument, only to be adopted as the
less of two evils, and the adoption of which would
be quite unwarrantable in the present state of
English society. It is a fact quite evident that the
belief in the Ballot is expiring; the new generation
laughs at it as an exploded superstition, and when
Mr. Henry Berkeley ceases to be its advocate it will
soon be remembered only by political antiquarians.
If, again, an advanced Whig of 1835 had been
asked what was the ideal of representation to which
he looked forward, there can be no doubt that he
would have answered, " Universal suffrage and
equal electoral districts." He would not, perhaps,
have advocated such an electoral machinery there
and then, but he would have professed his confidence
that in the fulness of time, when the people were
sufficiently educated for its reception, that would be
the plan to be adopted. But here, again, youngerpoliticians smile at the dreams of their predecessors,
and, with clearer political insight, see that the rea-
lization of their hopes would be the destruction of
all representation whatever. Mr. Bright ignores
the growth of political ideas which he has not the
patience to try to comprehend, but he does so to
the detriment of his own. influence. Calmer rea-
soners, who see hoiv opinions change, and that the
world is getting wiser as it gets older, may join with
him in denouncing the folly and the selfishness
which Tories have too often shown, but they must
acknowledge at the same time that they deserve
some thanks for successfully withstanding nostrums
which they perhaps ignorantly opposed, but which
are now seen to have been based on conceptions
radically fallacious.
HERALD.---As we ventured some months ago to
predict, the trial of Captain Corbett has ended in
his complete and triumphant acquittal. The pro-
ceedings against him were taken under that
celebrated Foreign Enlistment Act which her
Majesty's legal advisers have so much reason to
bless for the fees it has brought them, and so
much reason to objurgate for the discomfitures in
which it has involved them. Even eminent
lawyers are not indifferent to pecuniary considera-
tions ; but we should think that those upon whom
the conduct of prosecutions under this act has
devolved during the last four years would willingly
surrender the money they have made to escape the
memory of defeats in open court, 'each one more
damaging than its predecessor. Poor Sir William
Atherton, if be were now alive, might have his fill
of sweet revenge upon his rivals and successors.
The late Attorney-General, it is well known, was
treated with scant courtesy, and told to vacate his
place that he might make way for some one whose
knowledge of international law was greater than
his own. But though much was expected of Sir
Roundell Palmer, his warmest admirers would not
venture to praise his conduct -of the Alexandra case,
or to say that the manner in which he has left
subsequent prosecutions to his subordinates is cal-
culated to remove the prevalent impression that Sir
William Atherton was rather badly used. But we
do not care to re-open old sores, or to dwell upon
past miscarriages. In double sense we may now
ejaculate, " Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof."
Therefore we will say nothing now about the
Alexandra mess or the steam-ram muddle. We
will pass over the compromise which let off Mr.
Highatt on payment of a fine, and the blundering
which prosecuted Mr. Rumble to an acquittal.
Nor will we now enlarge upon the peculiar notions
of justice which induced the Government, after
doing their utmost to convict their own officer, to
put him on half-pay because he was not guilty,
and to punish him for being innocent by depriving
him of his appointment, We will deal simply and
solely with the case which was decided yesterday,
and, shortly sketching the facts proved, we will
leave our readers to form their own opinions
as to the correctness of the conclusion. Captain
Corbett was the commander of a vessel called
the Sea King, which sailed from the port of
London for Bombay on the Bth of October last
year. From the nature of her cargo it would
seem that a voyage to that port was at least a pos-
sibility, but, as is not unusual, the owners formally-
gave the captain power to sell his ship at any port
out of the United Kingdom. In this, however,
there was nothing wrong, and nothing illegal. As
an article of commerce a ship may be sold as inno-
cently as a bale of cotton goods or a cargo of bitter
beer. It is only when the vessel is " armed or

equipped"' for warlike purposes that the provisions
of the Foreign Enlistment Act apply, and it is not
pretended that the Sea King was in this condition.
But on the 17th of October, when off Madeira, the
Sea King was signalled by the Laurel, which had
then recently left Liverpool, in charge of Captain
Waddell, with arms and ammunition for the Confe-
derates. The work of transhipping the cargo of
the Laurel to the Sea King at once commenced, and
Captain Waddell assumed the command. Accord-
ing to the story of the Crown witnesses Captain
Corbett was active and urgent in persuading his
men to remain in the ship with her new captain and
altered destination. He told them he had sold the
vessel, and that the " gentleman in grey" would give
them good wages and large bounty ; that they would
have their chance of prize money, and would not
have to fight unless they got into a corner. One of
the witnesses also stated that a bucketful of sove-
reigns was carried into the cabin, and that some of
the men had money given to them to induce them to
join. It was further said that the captain had been
especially careful to select a crew of single men, lest
concern for wives and children should induce marine
Benedicts to refuse to enter a risky and irregular
service. But if Captain Corbett's object had been
to enrol seamen For the Confederate service he must
have been wofully disappointed. Only five of the
entire crew would consent to remain in the Shenan-
doah, and for having incited these men so to remain
Captain Corbett was indicted. The rest of the
crew were landed at Teneriffe, many of them com-
plaining that they had been deceived, and threat-
ening all manner of proceedings against their com-
mander for their wages. It will be seen that even
on its own showing the case for the Crown was a
very weak one. The captain drove as good a bar-
gain as he could on behalf of his principals, and the
purely business character of the transaction is shown
by his having got £5,000 above the reserved price
for his vessel. And then came the question of na-
tionality. Not until he had sold the ship was it
pretended that he said a word to the men about
serving in the Shenandoah ; and as the Foreign En-
listment Act is only operative on English soil or
English deck, there was clearly no ground for con-
victing him on account of anything done after the
Sea King had passed from English into American
hands. But the case for the defendant did not rest
here. There was no proof whatever that he knew
who his customer was to be, or that he was not as
completely in the dark as any of his men until he
reached Madeira. The case had this further blot,
adroitly hit by Mr. Edward James in his conclud-
ing address, that the nationality of. the men enlisted
was never proved, and that thus one essential ingre-
dient of the offence was wanting. The first witness
for the Crown had been convicted of felony, and he
attributed to the captain a conversation with Allen,
the second witness, which Allen himself said took
place with some of the American officers. The third
witness told an uncorroborated tale about a bucket-
ful of sovereigns, and every man called on that side
had been kept by the Crown for months on very
liberal pay for doing nothing. They contradicted
each other, and they were all contradicted by the
evidence for the defence. The conversations, in-
ducements, and suggestions, said to have been used
by the defendant, appeared to have been employed
by Capt. Waddell and his officers. These gentle-
men, it was abundantly clear, had mentioned the
rate of pay, and had made continual advances in
their offers of bounty. They urged the men to
enlist, and sketched the plan of operation, while the
utmost that. Captain Corbett did was to stand by
and tell his men they were free to .choose their own
course. The crew, which was said to consist wholly
of bachelors, contained seventeen or eighteen mar-
ried men. The captain promised his crew legal
compensation for his breach of contract with them,
and he even took the somewhat unnecessary pre-
caution of getting releases from the men who shipped
on board the Shenandoah. For those who refused
to join her—who, if the theory of the prosecution
were correct, were resolutely frustrating his entire
purpose in making the voyage—he provided a pas-
sage home, and his conduct in other respects was
entirely inconsistent with the idea that he had com-
mitted a breach of the law. His case was supported
by men comparatively strangers to him, by Ameri-
cans who had but just left the Shenandoah, and by
others who had nothing whatever to gain by swear-
ing falsely, who had been at sea while the Crown
witnesses were living at home on " subsistence
money," and who had barely returned in time to
give their evidence. The case was too clear for
doubt and almost too transparent for argument.
There were answers in law and answers in fact,
either of which was fatal to the theory of the pro-
secution. After elaborate speeches on each side the
Lord Chief Justice summed up, and the jury, after
a few minutes conference in the box, returned a
verdict of not guilty. Thus ends the latest, and,
we trust, the last of what may be called the Con-
federate prosecutions. As Englishmen, we regret
to observe that the readiness of the Government to
take up charges of this nature against any who
looked like Confederate sympathisers increased as
the chances of success diminished, and rose as the
fortunes of the nation which owned the sway of
President Davis fell. The memory is not plea-
sant, but it is ineffaceable ' • the reflection is not
flattering, but it is unavoidable. When the his-
tory of the gallant but abortive struggle of
the Southern States for freedom and nationality
shall be written truth will compel the historian to
record that we, as a nation, showed our sympathy
only when success was probable ; that we were
rigorously neutral when official recognition might
have been of material assistance, and that when
valour and wisdom, and skill and desperation had
to succumb to overwhelming force, we were strong
upon the stronger side. Nay, even after the war
was over, the struggle ended, the North triumphant,
and the South lay bleeding, crushed, and helpless at
.her feet—even then we hurried forward to do suit
and service to the victor, by using an elaborate and
costly legal engine in the vain endeavour to convict,
in violation of. law and in default of evidence, those
whom we suspected of rendering material help to
the vanquished at a time when such help was not
altogether vain. It is true that we have been saved
from the disgrace which a conviction obtained under
such circumstances would have inflicted upon us ;
but we owe our escape not to the firmness of our
Ministers, but to the freedom of our institutions ;
not to the sagacity of our Executive Government,
but to the purity of judicial administration ; not to
the caution with which the law has been set in
motion by those in authority, but to the conscien-
tiousness with which that law has been applied by
twelve honest men guarding in the jury-box the
purity of English justice and the palladium of
English liberty.

THE " ANGLO-AMERICAN TIMES" ON THE FATE
OF JEFFERSON DAVIS. - The policy of mercy
and conciliation adopted by President Johnson
in his dealings with the States lately in rebel-
lion against the national authority, and the
readiness with which he granted pardons to
many of the prominent leaders of the rebellion,
have led the public to expect that Jefferson Davis
would either be discharged from custody without a
trial, or if placed on his trial and found guilty that
through the clemency of the Executive he would
ultimately escape the penalty of his treason. The
clamour for his immediate trial and execution which
followed on his capture had long since died away,
and the sober second thought of the Northern
people had decided that there was no object to be
gained by his punishment, that the dignity and
power of the American Government was amply vin-
dicated, and that the Chief-traitor had already been
sufficiently punished. One of the greatest virtues
claimed for the lamented Lincoln was that he had
never signed the death-warrant of any man, and
that he had no sentiments but those of mercy and
forgiveness for the rebels ; and it was urged that
the policy which would have been adopted by Mr.
Lincoln, had he lived, with reference to Davis, should
be followed by his successor in the President's office.
Since the trial and execution of Captain Wirz,
however, an ominous change has taken place in the
utterances of the American Press regarding Davis.
We now find many of those journals which two
or three months since deprecated all measures of
harshness against the rebel leader again predicting
his early trial and execution as a traitor. The
Philadelphia Press, the editor of which is said to be
in the confidence of President Johnson, commences
an article published the morning after the execution
of Captain Wirz with the ominous words, " AND
NOW FOR JEFFERSON DAVIS !" The Chicago Tribune,
the great Republican organ of Illinois, says that if
Davis is pardoned " the law will be cheated—n Dt
vindicated." The New York Herald says :—" Wirz
has been executed—Davis may, or may not, share
the same fate I" and the newspapers generally
throughout the Northern States are returning to
the charge against Davis with an earnestness which
is an augury of evil and not of good to the fallen
rebel. Meanwhile the people of the Southern
States are zealous in their endeavours to secure his
pardon. The President is beset with beautiful
ladies bearing petitions for his release ; the Con-
ventions and Legislatures of the South are praying
for his pardon. The Georgia Convention recently
addressed a memorial to Mr. Johnson, a paragraph
of which reads as follows :

"Jefferson Davis was elected to his high position by our
suffrages, and in response to our wishes. We imposed
upon him a responsibility which he did not seek. Ori-
ginally opposed to the sectional policy to which public
opinion, with irresistible power, finally drove him, he be-
came the exponent of our principles and the leader of our
cause. He simply responded to the united voice of his
section. If he then is guilty so are we. We were the prin-
cipals ; he was our agent. Let not the retribution of a
mighty nation be visited upon his head, while we, who
urged him to his destiny, are suffered to escape. The
liberal clemency of the Government has been extended
over us ; we breathe the air and experience the blessings
of freedom ; we therefore ask that the leader, who, in

response to the Democratic instincts of his nature' the
principles of his party, and the solicitations of his sections
became the head and front of our offending, shall not be
bruised for our iniquities, or punished for our transgres-
sions."
It has been insisted in some quarters that Mr.
Davis must certainly be tried, if only to settle the
question of the right of secession, or to obtain frau,
the Supreme Court an authoritative definition of
the crime of treason. Nothing can be more absurd
than this. The Constitution of the United States
explicitly declares that " Treason shall consist in
levying war against the United States, or in giving
aid and comfort to its enemies," and it prescribes
death as the punishment of the convicted traitor.
That Jefferson Davis did levy war against the
United States, and give aid and comfort to its ene"
mics, are facts so notorious that it would be impos-
sible for any jury to ignore them. In the eye of the
law, then, he deserves death. Was it not by
act that four hundred thousand of the best men t
the Republic found their graves on the battle-fields
of the South ? Was it not by his act that thirteen
thousand Northern captives pined and died in that
stockade at Andersonville ? Is it not by his 0
that a debt of three thousand millions of dollars Is
pressing upon the American people to day ? An'
finally, is it not by his act that the whole country is
in mourning—that thousands have lost their best be-
loved in the bloody war ? that ten thousand children
are are fatherless, and ten thousand wives widowed
And if he be responsible for all this, who shall sal
that his crime is not one which as richly merits
death as that of any criminal who ever yet swung
from the gibbet to satisfy the stern requirements
outraged law? And yet we trust that Jefferson flaw
will be spared. He is no longer the leader of a
rebellion. He has lived to see his armed legions
who were to " die in the last ditch" before submit-
ting to the Federal authority one after another
suing for pardon to that power which they so long
defied. He has lived to see " liberty proclaimed
throughout all the land, and to all the inhabitants
thereof." He has lived to see the shackles of the
slave broken, and a nation born again ! And he .
only a poor, harmless prisoner, powerless for good
i
or evil, the defeated representative of a defeated
cause—too contemptible for vengeance, too in-,
significant for resentment ! Let the restored
Republic, then, be spared the horror and
degradation of bringing this man to the
scaffold. Let the work of peace, so auspiciously
commenced, be carried on to its conclusion. This
is not the time for the conquering Americans to
sully their proud triumph by a single stain of blood.
They are a noble, a generous, and a Christian
people, as were their fathers before them. They
have done their work, and with the blood of their
best citizens they have cemented the Union. The
South fought gallantly for a bad cause • it has lost,
and now it knocks at the door of the Union for re-
admission, having accepted emancipation, and oil
only that its leader shall be spared the ignominy °
a death on the gallows. The appeal is reasonable--
nay, more, it is just. If Jefferson Davis—the
representative of the Southern cause—is consi„onyt`
to a felon's death, then the Southern States of the
Republic, which shared his errors and his defeat,
can never again fraternise with their Northern
brethren. There may be submission to a power
IP
that cannot be resisted, but not peace such
should dwell in a Republic, to make its
ci
republicanism real. Jefferson Davis represente,
the Southern States when they departed from Oeci
Union—let him represent them in their return ; an_d
the same broad shield of mercy and forgiven'
which has covered their errors should also cover
his.