The Sun.
London, England, 1865-02-18 00:00:00

PRICE 4d.
STAMPED sd.

public loan of the Confederate States is quoted
on every principal exchange in Europe. The
second session of the second Congress of the Con-
federate States is sitting in Richmond. The
President of the United States and Mr. Seward
have gone to Virginia to confer with the Vice Presi-
dent of the Confederate States. Shall we say, then,
that there is no government in the Confederate
States ? Shall we say that for the first time in the
history of the world there is a community without
a government? Shall we say that the Confederates
are in that respect worse off than the tribes of equa-
torial Africa? Shall we say in effect that the Con-
federate States are in the position of terra incognita,
of lands that are owned by nobody, not even by
their inhabitants, and that the said lands will be the
lawful prize of those who first obtain possession ?
Yet this is the necessary deduction from non-recog-
nition after the 4th of March next. The Govern-
ment of Washington has clearly no claim to rule
over the Southern States ; and if we add that the
Confederate Government does not exist, we unequi-
vocally assert that the Confederate States constitute
a territory that will lawfully belong to any Govern-
ment which can obtain possession thereof.
Non-recognition after the 4th of March is absurd,
and we do not wonder that the North should regard
it as nearly impossible. The matter has been long
and anxiously discussed by the Governments of Eng-
land and France, and it is known that they fully
admit that after the 4th of March next the Govern-
ment of the United States cannot be regarded as the
de facto or de jure Government of the South. We
are not prepared to say whether the Governments
of England and France will therefore recognise the
South on that day, or whether they will hold their
right of recognition in abeyance until what they deem
a . more convenient season. There are, however,
some indications that recognition is contemplated,
at least by one of these Governments, and it has
become a fixed determination that whether or not
recognition shall be postponed, under all circum-
stances a reunion or a conquest of the South is to
be prevented by recognition, and if necessary by
intervention. It is significant that at this moment
Lord Lyons and M. Mercier are absent from Wash-
ington, Mr. Dayton's place has not been supplied,
and that there are rumours at Washington of the
recall of Mr. Adams.—The Index.

The Yellow Book.

PARIS, Feb. 16.

The yellow book, so much talked about as con-
taining important diplomatic documents, was dis-
tributed to-day to the senators and deputies of the
Corps lAgislatif. Its contents comprise nine de-
spatches upon the affairs of the Elbe Duchies ; 17
upon Italian and Roman matters, besides the Con-
vention of September 15 and its supplement ; two
despatches upon the annexation of the lonian
Islands to Greece, with the Treaty of November 14,
1863, and that of March 29, 1864 ; two despatches
upon the affairs of Roumania, with the protocol of
the Conference of June 28, 1864, the additional
article to the Convention of 1858, and the explana-
tion of the principles intended to serve as bases for
a new electoral law ; five despatches upon Syrian
affairs; the text of the arbitration judgment given
by the Emperor in the Isthmus of Suez question ;
four despatches relating to Tunis ; eight despatches
referring to Japan, with the Convention concluded
at Paris, June 20, 1864, between the French Minis-
ter for Foreign Affairs and the Japanese Ambassa-
dors ; and eight despatches or circulars referring to
commercial matters.

The yellow book also contains the following de-
spatch from M. Drouyn de Lhuys to Count de
Sartiges at Rome, complaining of the letter
addressed by the Papal Nuncio at Paris to two
French bishops :

" Paris, Feb. 8, 1865.

" M. le Comte,—The Government of the Emperor has
seen in the newspapers, with painful surprise, two letters
written by the Apostolic Nuncio, one to the Bishop of
Orleans, congratulating him upon his pamphlet relative to
the Convention of the 15th September and to the Ency-
clical of the Bth of December ; the other to the Bishop of
Poitiers, approving his pastoral.

" In this twofold step the Nuncio has gravely compro-
mised the character with which he is invested. In address-
ing himself to the French bishops, to appreciate and direct
their conduct with regard to the Imperial Government, his
excellency has overstepped his attributes, which, according
to French public law, could only be those of an ambassador.
But an ambassador fails in his most essential duty when
he encourages, by his approbation, resistance to the laws of
the country in which he resides, and criticism of the acts
of the Government to which he is accredited.

"It is true that in the explanations his excellency has
given me upon this matter he has disavowed the publica-
tion of these letters, which ho attributes to blamable indis-
cretion. But the Government of the Emperor has a right
to complain of the fact itself. It hopes, therefore, that the
Court of Rome, in its wisdom, will not permit the renewal
of similar errors, which the Emperor's Government is fur-
ther determined not to tolerate.
"You will be good enough, M. le Comte, to read this
despatch to his Eminence the Cardinal Secretary of State.
—Receive, ecc.,
(Signed) "DROUYN DE LHUYS."
PARIS, Feb. 17.

Among the documents contained in the Yellow
Book is noticeable a despatch of M. Drouyn de
Lhuys to the Duc de Gramont, dated September
26. It gives an account of an interview of the
French Minister 'for Foreign Affairs with Count
Mulinen, the Austrian Charge at Paris. The latter
having expressed the surprise of Austria " that
the Government of the Emperor desired to arrange
the Roman question with Italy, without the parti-
cipation of any other Catholic Power, and without
consulting the Pope as principally interested," M.
Drouyn de Lhuys endeavours in his reply to show
that the arrangement spoken of does not involve a
solution of the Roman question, that it does not
change the general situation of Italy, and that it is
only " the substitution of a new modus invendi for
a system of which we have experienced the incon-
veniences." These explanations are' supplemented
by a short lecture on the Austrian Government,
from which it is easy to perceive the determination
of France to prevent any interference in the penin-
sula hostile to the Italian kingdom. The despatch
concludes as follows :

" I told M. de Mulinen that I believed myself able to dis-
pense with replying to Count Rechberg's remark as to the
secrecy we had thought it advisable to observe towards the
Court of Rome, upon the ground of only being bound to
give an explanation, were any asked, to the Government of
his Holiness. I added, however, that we had made known
at Rome, so soon as we thought opportune, the motives
which had inspired our determination and the acts which
had been their result. In acting thus we are convinced of
having regarded the susceptibilities of honour and the
scruples of conscience of the Court of Rome far better than
we should have done by placing it in a position to bring
forward objections and absolute statements of non-accept-
ance which it would not have been possible for us to take
into account. We stipulated in our own name, but in what
appeared to us the interest of the Roman Government, for
guarantees we needed to protect our responsibility in our
own eyes ; we had nothing to ask of, or to impose upon,
the Court of Rome, and it remains entirely free in its deter-
mination with regard to the arrangements we have con-
cluded with Italy.
" As to the reserve we have maintained towards the
Cabinet of Vienna, I pointed out to Count Mulineantion
0.
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de Lhuys wrote on the Ist October to M. de
Sartiges

"The reception your communication has encountered,