The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-24 00:00:00

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TIMES.—To those partisans of the Northern cause
in this country who think that they act in the in-
terests of peace and international friendship by re-
presenting the conduct of the British Government
as systematically unjust, the clear explanation which
was made yesterday in the House of Lords by Lord
Russell will, we hope, give a knowledge of the sub-
ject which will moderate their unpatriotic zeal. To
the great mass of their countrymen it will carry the
conviction that, at a time of great excitement and
during a long series of most difficult controversies,
the Queen's Government has had the prudence and
good fortune to avoid giving any just cause of
offence to the United States. When we look back
on the events of the last four years and reflect on
the position of the two countries, united by race,
language, and pursuits, but divided by a rivalry
which sometimes warms into animosity, we may
wonder as well as rejoice that the most unfriendly
critics of the Government can find so little to com-
plain of, and should be so unable to substantiate
even that little. The war in America was an event
which would have appalled the most confident poli-
ticians if they could have foreseen it. Like many
calamities of which people bear the reality with
fortitude, though the anticipation would have filled
them with terror, this war came upon the English
people, paralyzing their chief industry and interrupt-
ing the most extensive commerce in the world. If
in such a case the nation had in the first days of
apprehension committed any act not strictly justified
by international usage, there would have been much
excuse. Before it was seen that the productive
power of the world would be able to make good so
much of the loss inflicted on us by, the invasion and
blockade of the Southern States there was strong
temptation for a neutral to abandon its neutrality.
On this temptation the Confederate leaders noto-
riously relied. In such circumstances it is greatly
to the credit of the British Government, and
should be a cause of pride to the whole people,
that not the smallest infringement of law and
justice can be laid to the charge of this country.
The accusations which were revived by Mr. Bright
the other night have been answered over and
over again by those who remembered the
facts of each case, and it wanted only the official
statements of the Foreign Secretary to complete
their refutation. Lord Russell, while expressing a
belief that the questions now in controversy between
this country and America will be satisfactorily set-
tled, and that the two nations will continue to live
in peace, complained of those who made negotia-
tion more difficult by leading the Americans to be-
lieve that they have been ill-treated by us. Hap-
pily, even in America, the recognition of the Con-
federates as belligerents has almost ceased to be a
grievance, as it has been recognised that the cha-
racter of belligerency was conferred on them, not
by us, but by the Federals themselves, and that we
merely took care of our own neutrality. Lord
Russell gives a history of the Proclamation. The
Washington Government had began hostilities and
established a blockade. The Confederates were
getting ships ready for sea, if they had not actually
one or two afloat. The British Admiral had asked
for instructions. Our merchantmen were liable to
the search of both Federal and Confederate cruisers.
No time was to be last, and the most eminent legal
personages were consulted as to the course which
should be taken. Lord Campbell was then Chan-
cellor, and his high authority was given in favour of
the Proclamation. He declared that there was only
one course—to regard the blockade on the part of
the United States as the exercise of a belligerent
right ; and as belligerent rights in the Federals im-
plied those rights in the Confederates, there was no
alternative but to consider the two sections of the
Republic as engaged in a war and to command the
Queen's subjects to observe neutrality between
them. This was all, in fact, that the Proclama-
tion did. It conferred no right on the Confede-
rates which they did not possess before, and only
related to our own behaviour. Why this Proclama-
tion, which was really a domestic document, should
have been shown to Mr. Adams and his advice taken
on it, we cannot see. Unless the Government
had been prepared to accept the early Federal doc-
trine, that the Confederate cruisers were pirates, it
was impossible that any discussion with Mr. Adams
could have been followed by a change of policy.
The principle of the Proclamation was, in the opinion
of the English lawers, perfectly clear, and the result
of any deliberations with a foreign Minister must
have been either nugatory or embarrassing. We

have no desire to revive the affair of the Trent.
The Government of the United States did this coun-
try justice by surrendering the two Envoys, and we
should have been glad never to say another word on
the subject ; but when it is represented that the acts
of this country were gratuitously offensive, and that
the Northern Government and people were treated
with insolence and injustice, it is due to truth and
the honour of our Government to recur to facts,
recent and notorious, but now conveniently forgot-
ten for the purpose of putting this country in the
wrong. We need not speak of the reception given
to Captain Wilkes on his return home, and to the
official approval of his act by the Secretary of the
Navy. But we may refer our readers to Lord Rus-
sell's speech last evening, that they may judge for
themselves how temperately and courteously the
disavowal of this wrong, so audaciously committed
and so noisily praised, was asked for by the Queen's
Government. The course then taken had the ap-
proval of a Cabinet made up of men of distin-
guished merit and very various orders of minds ; it
commended itself to all parties in the country, and
Lord Russell tells us that the late Prince Consort,
in perhaps the last political business which he
was destined to perform, gave advice as to
the terms of the despatch which was sent to
Lord Lyons. Any Englishman might be satisfied
if his country had always been as blameless as
in these two transactions. The heats of civil con-
flict across the ocean and of political animosity
at home may lead men to vituperate the Govern-
ment which has had to deal with these matters, but
the public, who recognise the difficulties of the
task and are thankful for the prudence which has
enabled us to keep clear of American embarrass-
ments, will do justice to the statesmen by whom
these affairs have been conducted. A more plausible
charge is that of being indifferent to the fitting out
of vessels to prey on American commerce. The
captures by the Alabama may, in some degree, be
referred to England, and the Government held re-
sponsible for not having prevented that vessel from
quitting the Mersey. But even in this matter Lord
Russell is able to show satisfactorily that no blame
attaches to himself and his colleagues. The Ala-
bama did, indeed, put to sea and was armed with
artillery from these shores, but this was without any
connivance on the part of the Government, which
subsequently took active measures to prevent the
equipment and fitting out of the two celebrated
rams. On the whole, we are prepared to say, and
we believe that the great mass of the nation will
join us in saying, that this country has, through its
Government, performed in an exemplary manner all
the duties required of it during the last four years.
In such times nations are eager to take offence and
to see in the most necessary acts signs of an imagi-
nary hostility ; but with reflection these suspicions
disappear, and so it will be in this case if the resent-
ment of the Americans be not kept up by represen-
tations made in this country.
POST.—Some weeks ago we called the attention
of our readers to the fact that it was the intention
of the Russian Government to concert measures
with the other Northern Powers who are co-proprie-
tors of Poland for the incorporation of thatill-
fated kingdom into the empire. Our statement has
just received the confirmation for which we are
accustomed to wait, and which, in every former
case of special information of which we have been
the channel, has preceded the accomplishment of
the facts reported—we mean the official denial of
our charges by the Government against whom we
make them. At St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Ber-
pursued. It consists in never
lin the same system is
taking any notice of any statement which may
appear in a foreign. journal with reference to
their respective policies unless it happen to be
true. This was notably illustrated in the case
of the attempt to resuscitate the Holy Affiance,
which we were the means of exposing, throughout
all its stages, and finally, at the last moment, of
arresting. It is again repeated in the designs which
we now attribute to Russia, and which we can only
hope to check by giving them the widest possible
publicity. The sensation which was created in St.
Petersburg by the article which appeared in our
columns, and to which we have alluded, is graphi-
cally described by the correspondent of the Inde-
pendance Beige, who draws the same inference as
ourselves from the eagerness displayed by the Go-
vernment to contradict our assertions, which induces
them to honour us specially by a departure from the
ordinary official routine in cases of dementis. "To
prove to you," writes the correspondent of the In-
dependance, " how much our Government was
moved by the article in the Morning Post, it is suffi-
cient for me to state a fact known to all the world,
and to which the greatest publicity was given. The
newspaper telegrams from abroad do not arrive at
the elm until after they haye passed under the