The Sun.
London, England, 1862-01-13 00:00:00

pect he will have some difficulty in proving
amicable relations. It would almost come to

the boyish joke in tossing up—" Heads
I win, tails you lose." We do not know whether

our Government will think it worth while at
present discuss the two very important points to
which we have adverted. It may be better to
leave them till the war is over. Passed over, how-
ever, they ought not to be. The case of the Trent,
and its attendant circumstances in Canada And,
England, will doubtless keep American captains
within bounds for this war;' and when it is

over, we may coolly discuss the question whether
America, any more than other countries, is to
be permitted "to do as she will with what is
not her own."

The Superintendent's last published Report to
the General Committee of the London Fire Estab-
lishment is eminently well, and alas ! also, painfully
worth looking at. It relates, in a very startling
manner, the History of the Fires in London during
the twelvemonth last past. A year that will long
be remembered by the London Fire Brigade as that
disastrous period of conflagrations, during the most
formidable of which their gallant and excellent
chief, Mr. BRAIDWOOD, perished so suddenly and
yet so gloriously, too, for that matter—dying (as
he did) the death of a patriot Englishman, while
nobly doing his duty. It will be remembered, in-
deed, by others besides the members of the London
Fire Brigade, this year of grace, 1861—taking rank,
as it must, next in terror to the still more memorable
year of grace, /666—dubbed by " glorious JOHN"
DRYDEN himself (by reason chiefly of the
Great Fire, beginning at Pudding-lane and
ending at Pie-corner) the Annus J'irubilis! Apart
from the remembrance of that vast and destructive
conflagration down near London-bridge, 1861 is
still unhappily noteworthy as an exceptional year
in the annals of our London Fire Brigade—by rea,
son of the unusual number of fires more or less de-
structive that took place within the compass of the
metropolis between the first day of January and
last day of December.

Altogether, during the 365 days of this last
twelvemonth, there have been recorded in the
books of the Brigade upwards of 1,400 calls—to be
precise, exactly 1,409 calls. And of these less
than 100, in fact, no more than 89, proved to be
"False alarms." A little over another hundred
turned out upon examination to be alarms confined
to the state of the chimneys—the rest, that is to say
1,183, being bona fide fires—Fires in 53 cases result-
ting in the total destruction of the buildings
ignited—in 332 cases causing very considerable
damage, and in 798 cases causing damage of a par-
tial character. So that, to apportion these totals
among the 52 weeks of the year—we have for every
week one building or cluster of buildings

.otally destroyed—one of those clusters in 1861

as we all but too well remember, being
of appalling magnitude ! We have besides this—
for every week in the year nearly seven fires, caus-
ing serious destruction, that is one for almost every
day of the 365 making up the twelvemonth. While
we have, in addition to this, more than sixteen fires
in every week causing a lesser amount of damage.
To sum up all—for each week nearly two false
alarms regularly—with bat very little short of three
chimney alarms as well—together with one fire
(larger or smaller) totally destructive, nearly seven
fires seriously destructive, and more than sixteen fires
causing a lesser atm= tof destruction. Every week in
1861 that was the average. And besides what has thus

stance of the Trent proceeding from one neutral
port to another neutral port does not modify the
rights of the belligerent Power." Then, after a
column of acute hair-splitting, with an abstract even
of which we must not weary our readers, he reaches
the conclusion, that Captain WILKEs assigned two
reasons for not bringing the vessel into port,
which Mr. SEWARD himself elaborately proves
he was bound to do. The first reason was the
necessity of the case, He had not hands to spare
for a prize crew. Had the captain stuck to this
reason, Mr. SEWARD'S argument implies that
Messrs. SLIDELL and MASON would still be pri-
soners. But the " hero" WILKEs, in his generosity,
assigned another reason—he gave up the rich booty
the Trent would have proved to his men, and let
her proceed on her voyage, on account of the incon-
venience which would have been caused to so many
innocent passengers and by the detention of the
mails.

Alas, his generosity ruined the case ! Great Bri-
tain may claim a judicial decision and refuse the
generosity ; and what could we reply, says Mr.
SEWARD. Capt. WILKES acted " from combined
sentiments of prudence and generosity on his part,
therefore the surrender of the vessel was not strictly
involuntary. The admission of kinder motives was
fatal to his claim to have acted with strict legality.
The sum, therefore, of the offence is, that this Go-
vernment has neither meditated, nor practised, nor
approved any deliberate wrong in the transaction to
which they have called its attention ; and, on the
contrary, that what has happened has been simply
an inadvertency, consisting in a departure by the
naval officer, free from any wrongful motive, from
a rule uncertainly established, and probably by the
several parties concerned either imperfectly
understood or entirely unknown. In this
error he acknowledges that the British Go-
vernment has the same right to expect reparation
that the Federal Government would itself have to
demand reparation in a similar case. Then follow
the passages in which he mounts so conveniently
the back of former Presidents, and rides off with
gratifying declarations of Federal magnanimity.
There is, however, one passage which, we confess,
perplexes us more than all the letter besides. What
can we make of this ?—" In coming to my conclu-
sion, I have not forgotten that if the safety of this
Union required the detention of the captured persons
it would be the right and duty oj this Government to
detain them. But the effectual check and waning
proportions of the existing insurrection, as well as
the comparative unimportance of the captured per-
sons themselves, when dispassionately weighed,
happily forbid me from resorting to that defence.
Will Mr, SEWARD really say deliberately that what
he had proved to be a question of justice to Eng-
land, after all, hinged upon what he deemed to be
for the safety of the Union, That, if he were an ordi-
nary debtor, for instance, he would pay his debt if
he did not miss the money from his pocket, but not
if it made him insolvent ? We can extract no other
meaning from the passage. The insurrection is
coming to nothing, it is therefore of no consequence
to us to part with the prisoners, but if it were
getting the upper hand of us, we would keep
and perhaps hang them. It would be the " righ
and duty" of this Government to detain them. Tha

is, its duty to stand by an error for which only a
few paragraphs before he had said that " the British

Government has a right to expect reparation," and
the " same reparation" as the United States would
have a right to expect in a similar case !

Is the affair then to leave off with this under-
standing, that we are to submit to any confessed

wrong from the United States which the latter may
think requisite for its safety, and to put up with it as
we best could ? Will Mr. SEWARD abide by such

an avowed principle in conducting his, affairs
with foreign countries ? If so, we sus-